


To the Stars and Back

by Literatus



Series: The Earthly Child [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character of Color, F/F, F/M, Female Character of Color, Gen, M/M, Team TARDIS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:27:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 47
Words: 549,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25095367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literatus/pseuds/Literatus
Summary: With Team TARDIS back together in the aftermath of the Game Station and the Christmas Invasion, they set out to do what they do best: explore the universe, get into trouble, and run for their lives. And as a threat to their happiness grows in the form of a shadowy organisation known only as Torchwood, they learn that the past doesn't always stay buried and the future isn't what they think.(Covers the entirety of season two.)
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Mickey Smith, Tenth Doctor/Original Female Character(s), The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Earthly Child [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1158536
Comments: 308
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back and thank you for being patient.
> 
> The update schedule will be every Saturday at around 12pm UCT+1.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

Amir spotted the puddle gurgling on top of the flooded storm drain at the last moment. The tip of his black shoe broke the water's surface before he yanked his foot back and twisted, taking a large step that threatened to rip the in-seam of his only pair of suit trousers. A hand-me-down from his older brother Tariq, and already let out once to account for his fuller frame, he worried that they were one wrong step away from tearing open. The fear of that happening lived in him everyday, his desperation to make a good impression having increased after the mortifying incident of calling his boss _Mum_ on the third day; he had contemplated resigning in shame for a week after that. He needed to do better and ripping his trousers open and flashing his faded boxers to his colleagues was not the way to do that.

Pausing on the pavement, he turned his thigh outward and squinted at his inner thigh. The seam held but he was going to have to ask his aunt to strengthen it again that night. Until he could afford a new suit rather than just the component parts, he had to make do.

As a junior research analyst – a fancy title for what basically amounted to coffee runs, filing, and occasionally searching the archives for a specific piece of information – he didn't earn a large salary; though, he was earning significantly more than he had done when he worked for his local MP in Plymouth. Working and living in London, albeit with his aunt and uncle who were putting him up as they had once put Tariq up, was significantly more expensive than his old life in Plymouth, but he wouldn't change it for the world. The work he was doing was much more interesting than helping to file expenses and making sure the right brand of coffee was stocked next to the kettle. It was hard not to feel as though he had been wasting his life when his MP complained about not having the proper biscuits following a meeting with a constituent who was struggling to make the rent.

He was helping to save the world, so having to dart out in the pouring rain on a gloomy December evening as everyone else prepared to ring in New Year's Eve was a small price to pay for being part of that.

With a large bag of pastries clutched between his teeth and two trays of coffees balanced precariously in his hands, he hurried into the building where it was a relief to be out of the rain. He knocked his hood back with a sharp flick of his head, eyes grazing over the electronic clock high up on the wall, and he swore. He was late. Not a few minutes late but a serious conversation with his manager late,. It wasn't his fault. The queues at Pret a Manger had snaked out the door as people stopped in for a coffee and some warmth before heading off to their New Year's Eve celebrations. Not that that would be an acceptable excuse. On his first day, his boss – his true boss and not just his line manager – had told him:

“Excuses are for other people. Here at Torchwood, we don't make excuses.”

At the time he jotted it down in the small pocket notebook he used to keep track of all the new information, and he had missed the way Yvonne Hartman's lips twitched in amusement at him. He tried hard to break free of his habit of making excuses. Working for the MP, it felt as though everything that fell from his mouth was an excuse, and it was a difficult to stop. He was trying though as Yvonne was the one who determined whether a person had a career at Torchwood or ended up with their memories retconned like Polly. Three weeks into his job, Polly Michaels had been found to be feeding information to the Chinese and Amir had watched as she was marched out of the office, retconned, and then dropped off back home.

He bumped into her a few days later, and she had looked through him as though they hadn't eaten lunch together the week before.

He reached the security barriers and fumbled for his employee card that hung on a lanyard around his neck. Fighting through his scarf and thick coat, he freed it, the coffees teetering to one side. If the coffees fell and he had to go back to Pret, he might as well hand in his resignation as the shame would be too much too bear. Just when he thought he was going to see his career spill out over the perfectly polished floor, another set of hands appeared. He raised startled eyes only to feel his face grow hot when he realised it was Jenny.

_Jenny Kovac_.

The kindest person he had ever met – as well as the prettiest – and someone that he was physically incapable of having a proper conversation with.

“Careful there,” Jenny said with a laugh, warmth blooming through his chest. She took the coffees and set them down on top of the turn-style. “I don't think the janitorial staff appreciate cleaning up spilled coffee.”

“No – I – they wouldn't –” his tongue felt too big for his mouth, and her eyebrows twitched as though she wanted to laugh at him. She was too polite though; it was one of the things he liked about her; that, and the way she smiled. “Thank you. For helping.”

“You're welcome,” she said. “Think you're ever going to get off coffee duty?”

“Oh, I don't mind.” That was only half-true because he had had the opportunity to experience a true Torchwood emergency over Christmas and going back to coffee runs afterwards was a bit of a let down. “Got to start somewhere, right?”

“Right,” Jenny agreed. The thought of asking her out on a date passed through his mind as it always did when he was faced with her. Normally he was unable to string two words together in front of her but an extra nugget of courage was lodged in his chest that day, and he opened his mouth. “You need to scan it.”

He closed his mouth, confused. “You what?”

“Your card,” she repeated. “You need to scan it to get into the building.”

“Right!” Colour seeped into his skin, and he shoved the card in the direction of the scanner and nearly strangled himself in the process. Cheeks burnished red, he tried again. The scanner beeped and turned green. “Easy when you know how.”

“Here,” she said, handing back the coffees. “Take it easy now. No sense in rushing if it's only going to take you longer if it all goes wrong.”

“Course,” he said, clutching the coffees close to him. She threaded the bag of pastries onto his free fingers. “Thanks – thanks, Jenny.”

“You're welcome.”

She smiled at him, mind already leaving the conversation, and he stared at her. Her colleague cleared his throat and looked at Amir pointedly. He jolted awkwardly into movement again and hurried away from her, the sound of Jenny's laughter following him.

He threw himself into the first available lift and groaned as soon as the doors shut on the lobby. Every single time he saw Jenny he ended up acting like a complete idiot who didn't know how to talk to anyone, let alone women. If she didn't already, she was soon going to think that he was the charity employee that Yvonne had brought on board in order to fulfil obligations to give back to society. He didn't know what it was about her but every time he was in her general facility his mouth dried up and all knowledge of English and Farsi fled his mind. He was beginning to contemplate finding a back way into the building so that he didn't have to go through his twice-daily mortification.

Tearing his thoughts away from his perpetual embarrassment and the way that Jenny's smile made her cheeks dimple, he watched the floors slip by. He wished that he was in the meeting that was going on but he was still too junior to participate in it. It was a difficult adjustment to make as he had come to Torchwood from a job where there had only been three people in the office – including the MP – and so Amir had been involved in every meeting and all the decision making. It was frustrating to be on the outside looking in after that level of involvement, but his line manager told him that if he worked hard and had a good track record for his first year then he would be rewarded with more responsibility after his annual review. He hoped that was the case as his first taste of what Torchwood was had left him wanting more.

As it was being called in newspapers and on TV around the world, the Christmas Invasion had been the most exciting thing to ever happen to him. He had been called into the office at one in the morning after the first images from the Guinevere One space probe came back to Earth with the faces of aliens in the place of the surface of Mars. He remembered scrambling into his suit whilst his aunt fired concerned questions at him in Farsi before he was out of the door and rushing to work where he had been involved in the process of readying a weapon to use against the Sycorax. He hadn't actually been _involved_ involved but none of his family knew that. They knew that he worked for a defence organisation – not one that specialised in aliens because prior to Christmas that was classified information – but they didn't know what he did on a daily basis so he was able to talk up his actual role in the whole affair. Instead of providing fresh cups of coffee, new pads of paper, and tracking down the favourite pens of particular scientists, he told his family he had been in the thick of it.

The disappointment when the prime minister failed to give the go-ahead to fire was palpable, and they had all been forced to watch as the Sycorax's ship left orbit. The meeting taking place that day was an after-action review on what had happened and where they could improve their processes.

He hurried out of the lift and paused to shed his outer coat and scarf, leaving them on top of an empty desk as his cubicle office was twelve floors down beneath the spa. Taking a moment to catch his breath and smooth his hair back, he walked calmly into the meeting room. It was filled with various upper echelons of Torchwood who were sat around the full-length wooden table. Yvonne's eyes flicked up at his entrance, and his mouth opened to apologise for being late but she shook her head. He snapped his mouth shut, skin flushing _again_ , and moved quietly around the room to deliver the coffees and pastries to everyone.

“...procedures for getting everyone into where they needed to be worked perfectly,” Gareth Evans said, taking his coffee without looking at Amir. “We actually came in under our practice time. The last person through the door was at the twenty-nine minute mark, and they came from Ealing.”

“How did they get here that quickly?” Nigel Hobbs, head of Human Resources and Amir's line manager, asked. “That's an hour's journey on the best day.”

A throat cleared from the corner where Yvonne's personal assistant sat.

“Dr Perkins admitted that she'd taken home a booster pad and affixed it to her car as an experiment,” Ianto Jones said in his lilting Welsh accent. A ripple of muffled laughter spread the room, and Amir's mouth twitched. Dr Perkins was odd: _nice_ , but odd. “We have, of course, retrieved the booster pad from her and searched her house for any other artefacts that might have found their way into her home.”

“Thank you, Ianto,” Yvonne said. “In this case, Dr Perkins's extra-curricular activities served us well. However, we do need to look into creating a securer work-from-home network so that in an emergency, such as the one we've just experienced, our people can start contributing before they reach the building.”

“We're going to need an increased budget for that,” Adeola Oshodi, the head of IT, said. “With the amount of employees we have all over the UK, it's going to take a lot of money to get a network like that secure.”

“I've got a few bits and pieces downstairs that'll work nicely with the Internet,” Tom Connolly, the head of Alien Acquisitions and Research said. “But making them work with our computers and laptops is going to take more money that we get from the Crown for it. Any word on that extra funding from the government?”

“Not yet,” Yvonne admitted, smoothing a faint crease on her skirt out. “I'm meeting with the prime minister again tomorrow morning, first thing. I'll be sure to raise it with her then.” Amir handed her the coffee with her name on it: flat white, two sugars. She tilted her head and smiled up at him. “Thank you, Amir. I hope you didn't get too wet getting these.”

“Not at all, ma'am,” he lied.

“Soon we'll have a coffee shop of our very own in the lobby so at least you won't have to go too far for them,” she said.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Amir knew when he had been dismissed, and he fought the urge to linger a little longer but he didn't want to risk it. He left the meeting room with a glance over his shoulder as the door shut behind him. Inside the meeting room, the conversation shifted a little.

“Are we going to have problems with the PM?” Tom asked, reaching for an apple turnover.

Yvonne peeled back the lid of her coffee and stirred the sugar in. “Problems?”

“Every time there's a new PM, they always think to flex their muscles by messing with the discretionary funding,” he reminded her. Tom had lived through eight prime ministers – nine if they were counting the most recent one –, and he had disliked each of them in turn because they always tried to interfere with the technology and the money. “Jones is the same, except she's actually got to deal with this in a world that knows about aliens. Are we going to have a problem with her?”

She sighed and sipped her coffee. The lack of an immediate answer opened up the floor to complaints that had been silent until now.

“Rumour has it that she's a friend of the Doctor's,” Adeola said, eyes shining at the gossip she had picked up from her staff. “I heard they were in Downing Street together when it blew up.”

“Rumours,” Yvonne reminded her as she hadn't been able to get her hands on the UNIT incident report from that day despite her best efforts. All she had read was the official version, which told her next to nothing. Even in her conversations with Harriet since that day, she hadn't been able to glean anything useful. “Not fact. I admit that it's been harder to get more discretionary funding approved since the Slitheen incursion, however –”

“The problem's the PM,” Kate Wilkes, head of Public Relations, said. “She doesn't value the work that we do.”

“That's enough of that,” Yvonne said with enough steel in her voice to shut down the conversation. “Harriet Jones is the prime minister of Her Majesty's government and Torchwood serves at the pleasure of the Crown. You may not agree with the prime minister's politics or her approach to national defence, but you will respect her role as our nation's leader.” Kate looked away, irritation flashing across her face. “Torchwood has existed since 1879, and it will continue to exist regardless of the difficulties we're currently facing. We are in a new chapter of our institute's life. The general public now know of the existence of aliens and of the threat that they present to our nation. Let's bear in mind that the Christmas Invasion was only six days ago. We haven't finished the clean-up operation yet, and we're all still trying to find our balance. The prime minister will come to realise that Torchwood is the _only_ means of properly defending Great Britain and its interests.”

Her words settled in the room. Waiting until she was satisfied that everything was back under her control, she returned to the topic. “Now, Tom, tell us about why the weapon took too long to get ready.”

“It had to be assembled,” he said, brushing crumbs from his greying beard. “I've told you time and time again that we need to keep the big weapons assembled in a warehouse. If we'd had it put together and just waiting to be juiced up, it would've been ready hours earlier than it was.”

“Ianto,” she said over her shoulder. “Make a note to look into warehouses in abandoned areas.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Other than the difficulties of assembly,” she said, “any further issues?”

“Nope,” Tom said. “It came together perfectly. If we'd got the go ahead, we would've had ash raining down on us that evening. No doubt about that.”

“Why did she call off the strike?” Gareth asked. “The prime minister?”

Yvonne tapped her fingers against the table. “The Doctor was present during the attack.”

The atmosphere in the room shifted and tightened with interest. In its long history, Torchwood had never once had direct contact with the Doctor despite their best efforts in attempting to monitor his activities on Earth. There was once an accidental sighting on the RMS Titanic in 1912, and the Torchwood officer onboard sent a telegram back to London informing them of his presence. Unfortunately, that officer drowned when the ship sank and the Doctor was no longer onboard when the RMS Carpathia docked in New York with the survivors.

Through the general din of questions that she didn't answer, Yvonne nodded to Ianto. Her assistant rose from his chair and turned the lights off, the rumblings of voices dying out as he switched the overhead projector on. A few clicks of a button on a laptop later brought up images taken with a long-lens camera onto the screen before them. Yvonne, having known that UNIT would be taking charge of the chaos, had sent a photographer to all known UNIT bases around Britain to see if there had been a changing of the guard up at the top. Their organisations never crossed over as UNIT disapproved of what Torchwood's mission statement was and Torchwood tended to find UNIT stuffed full of prissy, morally-annoying scientists; so, each organisation tended to embed spies within the ranks. Yvonne's spies had been discovered ten months prior and unceremoniously sent back to Canary Wharf with a sharp rebuke to try better.

She hadn't been able to put anyone else in the organisation at the higher levels yet; junior agents were all well and good but she needed more detailed intelligence than they were able to provide. It was a galling failure considering that Georgia and Wendell were still within the Torchwood ranks and kept reporting back to UNIT. Yvonne didn't bother ousting them as she preferred knowing who the spies were and controlling the information that they were given access to. Besides, Wendell had a glorious singing voice and she was loathe to lose him from the choir.

“Is that him?” Adeola asked, fascinated.

The pictures that Torchwood had of the Doctor were out of date by some years. The last picture they had was of a handsome man with thick, curling hair and a tendency to wear clothes that veered towards crushed velvet and cravats. Privately, Yvonne thought he had the look of Heathcliff about him, not that she would ever say that out loud. Her eyes flicked over the man on the screen and found his new body wanting in comparison. He was tall and handsome in an odd sort of way with big ears, a Roman nose, and a large leather jacket. He was sat on a bench outside the Tower of London with a young woman, both of them completely at ease.

“It is,” Yvonne said. “Though I'm afraid the picture is out of date already. Kate was able to speak with Dr Llewellyn, the scientist leading the Guinevere One project, and he told her that the Doctor has changed faces again.”

“Tall, white, British accent, classically handsome according to Dr Llewellyn,” Kate supplied. “I wasn't able to get much out of him before I retconned him. He was talking a lot of nonsense. His nerves were clearly shot from the experience.”

“We were able to get the names of some of the people he is travelling with now though,” Yvonne said, “which means an Earth address. There are agents already in the area. Discreetly, of course, considering that UNIT also has the area under observation.”

“Don't tell me we're knocking up against them,” Nigel said with a frown. He hated dealing with UNIT as it always caused in increase of paperwork to cross his desk.

“Our agents were able to incapacitate and retcon them before they radioed it in,” she assured him, and he relaxed. “We've had to set up our observation posts behind them though, which means audio may be an issue unless we can get a team into the block of flats where his companions are said to live.”

“Is that who that is?” Adeola asked, nodded at the woman on the screen. “A new companion?”

“That's not just any companion,” Tom said, face filled with delight. “That's Zoe Tyler.”

“Zoe Tyler as in _the_ Zoe Tyler?” Gareth asked, excited against his better judgement but it was difficult not to feel the shifting of history fulfilling itself. “From the Royal Charter?”

“I believe so, yes,” Yvonne said. “She matches the descriptions of the Zoe Tyler in Lady MacLeish's journals and from Queen Victoria's private journals as well.”

“Who is she?” Adeola asked. Despite a class on the history of Torchwood being a requirement for all members of staff, not everyone paid close attention to the earliest days of Torchwood, let alone its founding. “Where – _when_ – is she from?”

Yvonne looked behind her. “Ianto.”

“Zoe Tyler,” Ianto said. “Born January 30th 1989 here in London, Peckham to be exact. Daughter of a single mother, Jacqueline Tyler; father unknown as her birth certificate leaves that space blank; and one sister – Rose – about eighteen months older. Normal childhood. Something of a fast learner at school as she skipped a year and then won a place at Coal Hill Sixth Form. Solid grades across the board. Accepted to UCL, Durham, and Exeter to study History and French. Never took up her place though.” He paused to clear his throat, a cold settling in his chest. “What we do know about her is gleaned from her academic record and from an interview she gave to Balamii radio station to raise awareness about her sister's disappearance in 2005. We have some audio here.”

There was a fuzzy crackle before Zoe Tyler's heavy London tones filled the room.

“ _No one knows what 'appened to her,_ ” she said, voice stretching across time. “ _Last time I saw her was the mornin' of her disappearance. Was a Saturday. The night before, her job had been blown up –_ ”

“ _This is the Henrik's department store gas leak_?” The interviewer clarified, and Ianto pressed a button to pause it.

“He's referring to the Henrik's explosion in March 2005,” he said. “We've long believed that the Doctor was involved in that given the events that followed the night after.”

“My cousin swears she still has nightmares from that,” Adeola said. “Says she can't walk past a mannequin without feeling weird.”

Nigel frowned at her. “Is that Tish or –?”

“Tish, of course,” she said. “Martha didn't even notice anything was happening. Said she was studying all night. Life of a doctor, I suppose.”

Yvonne cleared her throat. “If we could focus, please.”

Adeola looked down, embarrassed at having to be quietened, and she refocused on Ianto who pressed play to continue the recording.

“ _That's right,_ ” Zoe said. “ _Rosie was the last one out, accordin' to her. She had to lock up the lottery money. Next mornin' some bloke in a leather jacket comes round, says he's the police an' wants to ask questions. I was on the way out meself. Had my job to get to, didn't I? I haven't seen my sister since._ ”

“ _What do you think happened to her_?”

“ _I don't know_ ,” she said, the anger and frustration she felt clear in her voice. “ _I just want her back home. She's my big sister, y'know? I don't know what I'm goin' to do if she – I can't –_ ”

“The interview ends there,” Ianto said. “She's talking about the disappearance of her older sister Rose Tyler.” The screen flipped over, and a picture of Rose lifted from her missing person's flyer appeared on the projector. “Her. We believe that she's also a companion of the Doctor and that the two sisters are travelling together with him.” He glanced at Yvonne who gave him a small nod. “Our junior agents in UNIT say that Zoe Tyler has missed a few years.”

“What does that mean?” Nigel asked.

“Apparently there was a problem regarding the Doctor being stranded without the TARDIS,” he said, not clear on the facts himself as it was all third- and fourth-hand information presented as gossip. “He sent the TARDIS back to Earth and Zoe Tyler used it to find a way to save him. We haven't been able to get an exact number of the amount of years that have passed for her, but it's safe to assume that she's not eighteen years old any more.”

“Thank you, Ianto,” Yvonne said when it was clear that there were no more questions. He turned the lights back on and closed the laptop. “This revelation that Zoe Tyler is now travelling with the Doctor doesn't change our standard operating procedures, but it does mean that we need to be extremely careful not to interrupt their travels. At any given time they might cause the catalyst for the creation of Torchwood. We can let nothing change that fact. We stay out of their way and hope that they stay out of ours until such a time as Zoe Tyler no longer travels with the Doctor. Once that day comes, we'll know for sure that we're safe.”

“You've met them, Tom,” Gareth said, remembering the rumours that he had heard when he joined Torchwood ten years earlier. “Isn't that right?”

“A long time ago,” Tom replied. “1953, the day of the queen's coronation.”

“That actually happened?” Kate asked, surprised. “I always thought that was a tall tale. You actually met the Doctor?”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not the Doctor. Well, him a little bit, but only briefly. It was mainly her and her friend Jack. I didn't know who she was then, obviously, I was only a boy, but I was with them that day.”

“What happened?” Ianto asked before he could stop himself.

“Many, many things,” Tom said, a distant look in his eyes, becoming lost in his memories. “I never found out what really happened that day, even after I joined Torchwood, but it was something to do with a powerful entity sucking the faces off people.”

“Sucking the faces off?” Adeola repeated, horrified. “That's awful.”

“They got their faces back in the end,” he shrugged. “Not one of them knew what had happened though. They said it was like being trapped in a loud darkness where all they could hear was static.” A smile spread across his face, his white whiskers twitching with it. “I lived in the area at the time. My gran – God rest her soul – was one of those that were affected.” He released a long breath. “It feels like a lifetime ago now.”

“What was she like?” Nigel asked, leaning forwards, fascinated.

“Smart,” he said after a moment's thought. “Kind. She spoke very quickly. It was clear she was used to people doing what she asked of them, but she was kind. She made sure I was okay before she left.” He laughed softly. “Told me to not do drugs and stay in school. Like there was a chance of me dropping out after meeting her. She's the whole reason I became an engineer. Watching her work was so interesting that I wanted to know how she did it.”

“That more or less matches with what was written in Queen Victoria's diaries,” Yvonne said, drawing their attention back to her. “Which I find personally comforting. I imagine that if we ever find ourselves in the same room as Zoe Tyler, we'll be able to appeal to her sense of empathy and understanding in order to have her throw her support behind our cause. Queen Victoria did state that she had a more sensible outlook than the Doctor, even if she had a sharper tongue.”

“I don't imagine that's hard,” Nigel said, and there was a ruffle of laughter at that.

She smiled at them genially. “Right then. I think that's all for today. I know that we were all a little disappointed that we weren't able to see our weapon in action but I'm proud of each of you for how well you performed your duties. Please let the people on your teams know as well.”

“And to you too, boss.” Adeola suddenly grinned at her. “It starts with you.”

“Hear, hear,” Kate said, bringing her hands together and leading a warm round of applause.

Yvonne felt her cheeks heat. She smiled at them, genuinely charmed. “Thank you, all of you. Get out of here whilst the night's still young. I'm sure there are parties you want to go to or families you should be spending time with. Get out and happy New Year.”

It was controlled chaos as the senior Torchwood team stood from their seats and stretched their legs. Tom grunted as the blood flowed back through the joints in his knees, his recent fall – at least, that was the official version – had left him using a cane that he picked up, making his way out of the meeting room, mind already on the projects he had left in order to attend the meeting. Yvonne knew that he wasn't going to head home any time soon. He was happiest in his laboratory tinkering away with the latest acquisitions that came from around the world, though typically Cardiff was where they collected most of their items.

She stayed in her seat and made a quick note on the blank stationary she kept in front of her to speak with Tom about reaching out to private collectors again. The name Henry Van Statten had reached her ears a few weeks ago, and if she was hearing that name then that meant that he was a large player in the private collections market. She would rather have him onboard than working against them, but Tom was the one who handled those relationships in order to keep it personal and friendly. Yvonne tended to give off a bureaucratic impression, and she liked to have Torchwood put their best foot forward even if that meant she didn't lead.

She gave Adeola a small wave as she pulled on her coat. Yvonne watched in interest as she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear whilst talking to Gareth. She leaned back in her chair.

“Ianto?”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Addie and Gareth,” she said, musing out loud. “Is something happening there?”

“They've been circling each other for about a month now,” Ianto told her with his usual brisk manner. “I believe Adeola is hoping that he'll ask her out for a drink soon.”

She clucked her tongue. “Not the best timing. His divorce isn't finalised yet.”

“I don't think she minds, ma'am,” he said, packing up the laptop and pushing the chairs in.

She sighed and got to her feet. “To be young and single.”

“You're single, ma'am,” he pointed out. “And you're hardly old.”

“Though not young?” Once upon a time, he would have floundered at such a question but now he lifted his eyebrow at her and made her laugh. “Fine, fine. I much prefer getting all you young people into relationships. Speaking of –”

“Oh, ma'am, must we?” Ianto said, a groan slipping free. “I'd rather not.”

“Have you even asked her out?” Yvonne said, leaning across the table to gather the empty coffee cups for the recycling. “Or are you still throwing moon-eyes in her direction?”

“You know, I think I hear the phone ringing,” Ianto lied, and her mouth dropped open in delighted surprise at the sheer audacity it took to lie to her face.

“Ianto!”

“Yes, that's definitely the phone,” he said, eyes sparkling. “Excuse me, ma'am.”

“I won't forget this,” she called out after him as he hurried away, empty pastry bags clutched to his chest. She shook her head, chuckling. “Silly boy.”

As she pottered about the meeting room, tidying it with a methodicalness that normally ended most of her relationships as her partners tended to find her too business-like, Yvonne felt the tension in her shoulders recede. She was meant to have been in Brittany with her mother for a post-Christmas break but had had to cancel her holiday and clean up the mess that the Sycorax had left behind. She didn't mind as she loved her job and was passionate about the work that she was involved in, but she really did need to find time to take a few days off and catch up on her sleep. She dreaded to think what the state of her refrigerator was in at home as she hadn't had a chance to do much cleaning beyond stacking the dishwasher lately. Often, she was so exhausted at the end of the day that she rarely made it up the stairs and into her bed, preferring to collapse on the sofa where she fell asleep more nights than not.

The last few days since Christmas had been difficult. More so than was normal for an organisation that dealt in secrecy and traded in alien artefacts. The abrupt about-face Harriet Jones performed at the last minute had taken Yvonne by surprise. Her interactions with the woman until that point suggested that she was open to using Torchwood as her predecessors had done; Yvonne had even considered that perhaps the prime minister might be more enthusiastic about the organisation given her own personal experience with aliens.

And yet, at the very last second, she pulled back.

“Whether we like it or not,” Harriet Jones had said in their first meeting after the invasion, “planet Earth is now stepping out into the universe. I will not have our first act as a galactic player to be that of mass murder.”

Yvonne remembered thinking that they were fine words but useless ones as Earth _needed_ to protect itself, and more importantly so did Britain. It was only later when she was getting some much-needed rest on the sofa in her office that she played the words over in her head again. The way Harriet spoken them had sounded as though she was repeating someone else, almost quoting someone. A feeling of unease took up home in her gut and hadn't yet left. She could almost taste the Doctor's interference on events and it bothered her.

For centuries the Doctor had been coming to Earth bringing with him all manner of dangers and malcontent species with an axe to grind. Yvonne had long suspected that the Doctor's apparent fondness for Earth was a large part of the reason the planet kept being visited by aliens who shouldn't know that there was intelligent life on the planet. His very presence on the planet with his advanced technology and propensity for attracting trouble caused Earth to have a target painted on it. And, with all of that, the Doctor didn't have the common decency to let them deal with the issues themselves. For years – _centuries_ – he held back their development by interfering in things that weren't his to interfere with. He made decisions for humans as though they were children who needed a fatherly hand to guide them, and the condescension of it all rankled.

She left the meeting room and dropped the cardboard coffee cups into the recycling bin before washing her hands. Wiping her hands dry on a tea towel and flicking off the kitchen light, she made her way to her office where she wanted to prepare her ideas and arguments for her meeting with Harriet in the morning. She needed to be ready to claw as much money as she could out of the governments coffers as the Crown was beginning to become unable to bear the sole burden of running Torchwood. It was an expensive organisation and, since they kept all the alien artefacts rather than backwards engineering them into technology for the general population to use, they had a lack of income problem that was beginning to cause Yvonne a few restless nights' sleep.

She didn't miss a step when she realised that Kate was waiting for her in her office, standing at the window wearing her long black coat that Yvonne privately thought was better suited for a funeral than for the office. The lights of London against the night's sky cast Kate in an eerie glow, and she felt briefly unsettled. She liked Kate as she liked all of those who worked for her, but she didn't enjoy the long meetings sprung on her by her head of Public Relations – named only because head of Imaginary Events to Make Sure People Don't Know What We Do was too long to fit on a business card.

“Kate,” Yvonne greeted, wishing that she was gone so that she could kick her shoes off and pour out a small finger of bourbon. “Was there something else?”

“I know you shot me down over my comment about the prime minister,” Kate said without rancour, and one of the things that Yvonne liked best about her was that she never took such chastisement to heart. “But I may be able to help there.”

“As I said at the time, we respect the prime minister for the office that she holds,” she said, leaning down to flick her under-desk heating on. “Personal feelings to one side, of course.”

“Of course,” Kate said with a nod, “but there's no denying that Harriet Jones is a problem for Torchwood.”

Yvonne sat down and eased her heels out of her shoes whilst she settling back in her chair. “I'm listening.”

“She oscillates between wanting to use us but also feeling disgusted at our very existence,” she explained. “She automatically defers to UNIT unless she needs something underhanded doing in which case she turns to us.”

“Examples?”

“The Margaret Blaine incident in Cardiff,” Kate said. “UNIT could've cleaned that up but she wanted us to go through every piece of information in order to find out how she positioned herself as Mayor and then to cover up the murders committed by the Slitheen. She's willing to use us when she wants to keep her hands, and those of UNIT's, clean. I imagine it makes her feel superior to make sure that we're kept in our place.”

“I understand your anger, Kate, I do, but this is hardly a new state of affairs,” Yvonne said. “Prime ministers for decades have felt the same way about us. They appreciate our efforts but, when push comes to shove, they don't like our methods.”

“That might change soon,” she said, and Yvonne lifted an eyebrow. “I have a friend in the opposition party –”

“We _all_ have friends in the opposition party,” she reminded her. “What of it?”

“He's told me about this new politician who's making waves,” Kate said pointedly, and it felt as though she was building to something. Yvonne tamped down her impatience but she wished that Kate was less prone to the theatrics; then again; her background in acting was what made her a successful head of Public Relations but a sometimes irritating conversationalist. “Very interesting man. He's going to be the next shadow Defence Secretary; it's being announced in the next few days.”

“What's happened to Tim?”

“Put his cock somewhere he shouldn't have.”

“Kate,” she warned. “You know I don't like that language in the workplace.”

Kate held up an apologetic, if unconcerned, hand. “My apologies. But the long and short of it is that Tim Diamond was found in bed with a male escort. It's being hushed up and brushed under the rug because his wife is pregnant, but he's being pushed to the back benches for it.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “And this new man is taking his place?”

“I think he's going to be taking more people's places in the near future,” Kate said. “He's going to be the next leader of the opposition, I'm sure of it.”

“There was just a recent party election,” Yvonne said. “Philip got in less than six months ago.”

“And has been humiliated at the dispatch box every PMQs since,” she said. “For all her faults, the PM knows how to rip a man to shreds in a very effective manner.”

Yvonne grinned. “She does at that. It's rather impressive. She has the old guard running scared.”

“This new man though, he's good,” Kate said seriously. “I saw him debate at the Oxford Union the week before Christmas. He was talking about national defence and increasing funding for it. He's got some really good ideas and is actually intelligent.”

“Good lord,” she said, wryly amused. “An intelligent politician, whatever next?”

Kate smiled widely at that. “He's also handsome as well.”

“Interested?”

“Stop it,” she laughed, the atmosphere splitting with mirth for a moment. “Isn't it enough that you're trying to get Ianto to ask Lisa out?”

“I'm happy when my employees are happy.”

“Well, leave it out,” Kate said, eyes crinkled at the corners. “He's getting married in a few days anyway. Some daughter of old money or something. I didn't recognise her, but you know the type: blonde, pretty, not much between the ears, and daddy's money will definitely help bolster a political career.”

“I'm familiar with the type, yes,” Yvonne replied. “How have I not heard of this man yet?”

“Honestly, he's kept himself to himself for a long time,” she said with the smallest of shrugs. “He doesn't have a public profile yet as he's worked his way up through the ranks. He said he was in politics because he wanted to serve. I thought he was taking the piss at first, but he really means it. It's only recently that he's been putting himself forward because he thinks that it's his duty to help improve the country. He's a critic of the current Conservative policies, and he has plenty to say about Harriet Jones.”

“So does everyone else,” Yvonne said. “It doesn't mean they're right.”

“He doesn't disagree with her just for the sake of it, boss,” Kate said. “He presents arguments as to why she's wrong and then gives solutions – _viable_ solutions. This is someone who knows what he's talking about. He's going to be the next leader of the opposition, and I'm pretty sure he's going to be the next prime minister as well. He's very, very strong on British defence and less enamoured with international aid as Jones. He's someone you need to speak to because his values align precisely with ours. I'm sure of it.”

Yvonne trusted those that worked for her, and she trusted Kate's assessment of the man. She ran a finger over her top lip as she thought. “Perhaps I'll reach out to him. What's his name?”

Kate relaxed back, satisfied. “Harold Saxon.”


	2. Chapter 2

_ Boston, Massachusetts, 3143 _

Jackie cried out as the wall behind her exploded into dust that rained down onto her head. She dropped and curled herself into a ball and tried to peer through the chaos that was wrapped around her. Her tongue pricked with the taste of fire burning in the air, and the screams of the poor shoppers who were caught up in the unaccepted alien attack made her ears ring. Scrambling across the ground, she threw herself behind a crashed hover car, the front of it caved in and the driver gasping for breath in the front seat. Her fingers scrabbled across the door in an effort to find the door handle but the surface was smooth. She bashed her fist against it in frustration, and the door cracked open. Gripping hold of it, she forced it the rest of the way up.

“Help me,” the driver gasped, bubbles of blood forming in the corner of her mouth. “Please...my baby.”

Jackie's eyes slid to the back seat. There was a small form slumped in a car seat, and her heart thudded painfully against her ribcage. Not the most physical of women at the best of times, she hitched the skirt of her dress up and climbed into the ruined car, keeping her eyes from the bleeding driver as she forced her way to the child. The rear window was shattered and pieces of perspex littered the seats like diamonds. She pressed her foot against the ruined dashboard, the heel of her shoe slipping against it, and reached for the child with shaking hands, not sure what she was going to do if the baby was dead. Very gently, she touched the child, and warm skin stirred beneath her hands, a tentacle twitching.

“Oh, thank god,” Jackie breathed, curling a hand to support the head as she struggled to release the safety clasp. She gathered the baby into her chest, ignoring how uncomfortable the wriggling tentacles made her feel, and eased back. The driver was straining her neck to look and reassure herself that her child was safe. “It's okay. Your baby's okay. I promise. Look.”

She carefully extended the baby towards its mother who reached out with with a shaking, bloodied tentacle to touch its soft cheek.

“Help her,” she whispered, thick purple blood oozing from her wounds. The smell in the air was earthy and metallic, and it coated the back of Jackie's throat, making her head spin. “Help her, _please_.”

“I will,” Jackie promised, face twisted with distress. “Don't move. I'm goin' to get help. It's goin' to be okay.”

A wet, gurgling laugh slipped from the driver's throat. “I can't feel my legs.”

Jackie's eyes dipped. She paled at the sight of the car crushing her legs, metal cutting into the thighs, but she managed a smile. “I'm comin' right back, okay? I'm comin' back.”

She backed out of the car and dropped down onto the ground. She shifted the baby in her arms and looked down at it. Tentacles to one side, she was a cute baby with skin the colour of blueberries that was currently mottled with bruises. Jackie worried that there was internal damage as the baby was so small and the hover car had fallen from such a great height. Another explosion rocked the ground beneath her, and she clutched the child tighter to her as she tried to figure out where to go for safety. It felt as though there was nowhere safe in the city. Not any more.

There was a hotel nearby – two or three streets away from where she was. She knew that because it was where Jack took his one-night stands instead of bringing them back to the TARDIS, telling them that he liked the concierge service even though the Doctor had quipped that he liked the concierge more. It was close enough and the only place she could think of. She peered around the side of the car and caught a glimpse of the Doctor in the middle of things. His long brown coat whipped around him as he jumped over a pile of rocks and twisted metal before a laser blast soared through the air where his chest had been.

_He better not die,_ she thought to herself as she ran from the car into a small alleyway between a bakery and a bookshop. _One regeneration is enough to be gettin' on with_.

Another sharp scream behind her had her whipping around to watch as someone was crushed beneath the large metal foot of the robot giant that was destroying the city. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she turned away, the baby stirring in her arms. She didn't know how to help on a bigger scale. She wasn't Rose or Zoe or Jack, or even Mickey who had surprised her with his usefulness in dangerous situations, she was just Jackie; all she knew was how to help individual people, not everyone. But out there, in the heart of the chaos, the Doctor was doing whatever it was that the Doctor did. She trusted that he would do what was necessary to stop the robot, but she wasn't able to help him, not like the others. _This_ though – a baby in her arms who needed medical attention – she could do.

She could help one person and hope it was enough to make a difference.

With her back turned against the violence and confusion, she ran through the small alleyways that littered downtown Boston. She squeezed through the people who were evacuating their homes, clutching their loved ones and belongings to their chests, and she shouldered her way into the hotel that was full of terrified people.

“Help,” Jackie called out, stumbling through the lobby. “I need help! Please! A doctor – I need a doctor!”

“I'm a doctor.” A young man who looked younger than Rose appeared before her. A bruise was blooming on his temple and there was dried blood beneath his nose, but his hands were steady as he held them out for the baby. “What happened?”

“A car – a hover car,” she said, curling her fingers into fists once her arms were free. She was shaking all over and felt hot and cold at the same time. “It fell from the sky. The mother – she needs help. I need to get her help. Please, come with me. Help her.”

The young doctor was barely listening as he set the child down on the floor and knelt over her, performing an examination with deft fingers. “I need a medical team over here! Quick!”

“Please, the mother needs help!” Jackie turned desperately to try and find someone – _anyone –_ who could help her. “ _Please_!”

“No one's going out until those things are gone,” an elderly woman said, approaching her to lay a soft, papery hand on her arm. “It's not safe. Come and sit with me, dear. Keep an old woman company during this.”

“No, no.” She shook her head, pulling her arm free. She needed to get back to the mother. “I need to help. I can help.”

“You can't do anything except get yourself killed,” the woman said firmly but kindly, the shoulder of her knitted cardigan slipping down her arm to reveal an angry bruise from falling masonry. “Come on now, dear. Come with me.”

Jackie shook her hand and staggered back, her ankle turning in her heels. She caught herself before she fell, a sharp bite of pain shot through her, but she caught herself before she fell. Her vision narrowed to focus on the door, and she rushed out of the hotel, ankle twinging when she put weight on it. A shadow fell over her. Looking up and up and up, the giant robot blocked out the sun. Her breath caught in her throat as she took it in. After the Slitheen and the Sycorax, she had thought there wasn't anything left to scare her, but she was wrong. It was cloaked in a darkness of its own making and looked as terrifying as her mind told it was when she and the Doctor first saw it lope across the river towards the city.

Its shadow passed across her, a sweeping coldness passing over the street, and up on the top of the robot's shoulders was the Doctor, distinguishable simply because he was the only one stupid enough to do such a thing. She stared, wide eyed, certain that he was going to die again. She would kill him herself if he ruined Zoe's graduation day with his death, her daughter was inexplicably fond of him. The robot lurched abruptly to one side and a house crumbled beneath the weight of its knee buckling.

She surged forwards to try and get those that had stayed behind to pack out of the way.

“Move,” Jackie screamed at them as they emerged from their shaking houses. “For god's sake, move!”

The robot stepped forward and another building was crushed beneath it. Jackie fell when the ground shook under the impact of its foot, barely feeling the skin on her calf opening against the side of a twisted bin.

She climbed back to her feet and ran again, pushing against the tide of people this time as no one else was running towards the robot. The alleyway she had come down was blocked off, rubble filling her path, and she swore. Running back down the street, she peered between every house until she found an alley that didn't end in rubble or a still-standing stone wall. As she ran, a hideous metallic scream ripped through the air. She was thrown into the side of a building when the robot – large and heavy – hit the ground: buildings, cars, and unfortunate people trapped beneath its heavy body. Her ears rang, but she didn't stay still for long. She pushed herself off the wall and ran again.

The world seemed quieter without the robot taking up the sky. Her rapid, rasping breaths were the only sound she could hear before things settled, and she staggered her way back to the crashed car. She clambered over rubble and hurried around people slumped in the street weeping, ducking beneath the open door.

“Oh,” she breathed. “ _No_.”

The driver was slumped forward, body stained with blood, dead.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jackie whispered, shakily. “I'm sorry.”

Unable to bear the sight of the bloodied corpse, she stepped back away from the car and took stock of the situation.

Downtown Boston was in ruins: buildings were flattened, hover cars were squashed against the floor like crushed soda cans, and dust hung heavily in the air like smog. Uncertain of what to do, she stepped away from the car. Someone would come across the body soon enough. The government would surely send people into the city to help with the clean-up. There was nothing more she could do for the poor woman, and she wasn't sure she had done enough as it was. Her throat caught on a swallow, dust clogging up her mouth; she choked, coughing until her eyes watered. Every part of her ached, and she was covered in a paste that had developed from her sweat mixing with the dust in the air.

Straightening up, eyes watering, Jackie stepped around a man on his knees who was feeding prayer beads through his fingers, giving thanks to Allah for his survival. Arabic lingered in her ears as she moved away from one scene of destruction, passing through others. Her feet carried her on instinct to where she needed to go. The Doctor was going to be right where the robot had fallen - she knew that without having to think about it - and she wanted to see him to reassure herself that he was all right. She would never tell him but in a time of crisis he was a good person to have eyes on as he generally came out of things intact. Though, she considered as she passed through another alleyway, he had been stabbed in the chest the last time danger came to their door, so maybe he was dead.

Or maimed.

Possibly even severely injured.

It wasn't difficult to find the fallen robot as it was certainly large enough. She saw the hand first and followed it along its arm. She was the only one who thought to approach it, but a dead robot didn't frighten her; not when she had had a Slitheen explode over her, run away from Cybermen on an alien planet, and watched the Doctor explode only to remake himself with a new face. Whilst a live robot was enough to scare her, a dead one wasn't, and she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

“Doctor?” Jackie called out into the ringing silence. “Are you dead?”

“Jackie!” His dust-covered, sweaty head popped up from within the robot. Relief spread through her and made her fingers tingle at the sight of him. “Blimey, you're okay!” A small frown creased his forehead. “You are okay, aren't you? Not hurt or anything?”

“I'm fine,” she said, though she felt awful. “Are you?”

“Took a small knock to the noggin,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the blood that matted his hairline. “Nothing I can't handle. You're bleeding.”

“What?”

“You're bleeding,” he repeated, climbing out of the robot only to fall to his knees when his foot tangled in a wire. He lay on his back and struggled out of it before sliding down the side of the robot to approach her. “Your leg is bleeding.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her leg and was surprised to see a deep cut on her calf. She didn't remember cutting herself. “That's a bit deep.”

“A little bit,” he agreed, crouching and taking her leg in her hand. Now that she was aware of her injury, she felt the pain. Her leg twitched away from him, and he smiled up at her. “Never fear. I'll patch you up in no time once we get back to the TARDIS.”

“We're goin' to miss it,” she said, dully, the beginnings of shock setting in. “We can't miss it.” His face was blank as he looked at her. “The ceremony. We can't miss it. She's only goin' to graduate once.”

“Well, this is Zoe we're talking about,” the Doctor said. “We've got at least a Master's and a Doctorate to get through before she decides she's –”

“Doctor!”

“Done,” he finished. “We'll get there in time.”

“How?” She demanded. “It's in Cambridge. We're in Boston an' there's a dead robot right there!”

The Doctor shot to his feet, face filled with concern, and she didn't know why until he put his hands on her and sat her down. She was shaking violently and couldn't stop. Gently, he put his hand on the back of her neck and forced her head between her knees, voice low and soothing. He worked his hand into her clenched fist and let her grip his fingers as she worked through the shock that was sweeping through her. Her ears felt filled with water and all sound was dampened. All she felt was his hand on her back and the press of his sharp knee into her thigh. Slowly, the shaking stopped.

“There we go,” the Doctor said, helping her sit up. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it around her. “Just a bit of shock. You'll be okay.”

“Where did it even come from?” Jackie asked, voice rising and falling on a wave of released tension.

“The robot?”

“Of course the robot, you daft sod.”

“Right, sorry, just checking,” he apologised, wincing as he rolled his ankle in front of them. “Don't know to be honest. It's not alien though.”

“It's not?”

“Nope.” He rapped his knuckles against the outer casing that they were sat on. “This is man-made. Human-made rather. Or, you know, Earth-made. That's better. It's Earth-made.”

“You're ramblin' again,” she said, and his teeth clacked when his mouth snapped shut. “Who did this?”

“No idea,” he said, picking pieces of glass out of her hair. “But MIT's just across the river, and it wouldn't be the first time some creative students have let their creations run away with them. Frankenstein, for example.”

“He's not real,” Jackie said, tugging his coat tighter around her. He was a skinny thing now and didn't give off as much heat as she was used to in a person, but his smell was familiar and annoyingly comforting. “An' he dropped out of uni. He was just the weird little shit who built a body in his basement.”

The Doctor grinned at her, delighted by her literary knowledge. Ever since he discovered that she was the one Zoe had inherited her love of reading from, their interactions were peppered with literary references. He kept trying to get her to agree to a quick visit to Agatha Christie, an author that they both loved, but she refused to give in to his pleading. He had tried to offer it up as a belated Christmas present, an early birthday present, and a simple sorry-I-kidnapped-your-eldest-daughter present, but she refused. It was all well and good going to strange alien worlds and spending time in the future, but Jackie felt that a trip to the past was one step too far.

“Well, maybe he's not real but the Jet Propulsion Lab was founded when some CalTech students started tinkering with rockets and accidentally caused an explosion,” he said, digging into his trouser pocket and removing a handkerchief that he wiped across his face. “So, you know, things have been known to happen.”

“People have _died_ , Doctor,” she said, looking at him in exasperation. Her expression wavered and her words came out thick and heavy. “There was a woman...her car...”

Her throat closed up, and he looked down at her in that unnerving way he had that only served to remind her of how old he truly was.

“I know,” he said, seriously. He hesitated before he rested his hand on her wrist. “And I'll find out who did this, but the robot wasn't acting maliciously.”

“It was shootin' at you!”

“A defensive measure,” he said. “I think there was a problem with the internal wiring. It's the end of the year at MIT, so this is probably a student's end-of-year project gone wrong.”

“That doesn't make it right.”

“No, it doesn't,” he said before holding out his hand. “Come on. Let's get you cleaned up. We'll go to Zoe's graduation and then figure out what to do about the rest of it.”

Jackie sighed and took his hand. “This was supposed to be a nice day for her. None of the usual nonsense you drag her into.”

“She and Rose go running into the nonsense with me,” the Doctor said, helping her to her feet. Her ankle gave way beneath her. “Oops, I've got you. Ankle?”

She released a sharp, annoyed breath. “I twisted it earlier.”

“I could carry you?”

“I'd rather die.”

He snorted, a grin playing around the edges of his mouth. She wasn't sure she liked the fact that he was less cautious around her. Ever since his regeneration at Christmas it was like he was a whole new person. She supposed it was a good thing as he was a grumpy sod when she first met him and this version of him was easier to like; or, she had softened towards him considering how much Rose mourned his absence when he was stranded in the future and how hard Zoe had worked to get him back. It was hard to keep hating someone that both of her daughters adored; although, she was trying her best.

“Well, you're going to have to lean on me whether you like it or not,” he said, scanning the ground for any obstacles. “Do you think we can get a taxi?”

Jackie looked doubtful. “The city's been levelled.”

“It's not that bad,” he said, helping her over the robot's arm. “Just this area and a bit of Cambridge by the looks of it. The fact it had to cross the river makes me think it was coming from the university.”

“D'you think they're okay?” She asked, reluctantly taking his arm again and leaning some of her weight onto him.

“The others? think they're fine. The robot was coming towards us, not them.”

“All I wanted was some sunscreen,” Jackie complained, exhausted from how ridiculous life was when in the company of the Doctor. “I didn't want any bloody robot tryin' to kill me.”

“I hate to say this,” the Doctor began, “but we do have sunscreen on the TARDIS.”

“You have alien sunscreen.”

“It still works,” he said with a burgeoning edge of impatience. “I've told you time and time again, it's safe for humans.”

“You used it an' got bloody sunstroke.”

Heat swept across his cheekbones, and he squinted away from her. “Those were extenuating circumstances.”

“You fell asleep in the sun wearin' your special alien sunscreen an' made yourself sick,” she said. “So I'm goin' to stick to what I know, thank you very much.” His face dropped into a scowl. “An' I don't want to hear you grumblin' about it.”

“I wasn't going to grumble!”

Jackie scoffed, and her ankle gave a throb. She tuned out the Doctor's quiet complaints, more than used to his behaviour after six weeks of living on the TARDIS with him.

They moved slowly through the wreckage of downtown Boston in deference to her ankle, and she felt herself begin to relax and calm. She knew that she needed a strong cup of tea and a handful of biscuits as that was what tended to help her after getting caught up in one of the Doctor's adventures, yet it was the first time she had seen people die. The way that poor woman was crushed up in the driver's seat of her car was going to linger with her. Her fingers flexed on his arm, and he paused his mutterings to look down at her but she ignored his gaze.

She wanted to go home.

She missed her flat with its familiar scents and sounds, and she missed her friends whom she hadn't seen in weeks. When Zoe came to her after their Christmas dinner, paper hat wonky on her head and third glass of wine in her hand, asking if she would come with them on their resort holiday, she hadn't been able to say no. Zoe had spent so long away from home – only three months for Jackie but much longer for her – and if she wanted a family holiday then Jackie wasn't going to be the one to deny her. And the holiday at the resort had actually been fun. The Doctor kept it more or less sensible by taking them to Jamaica in 2031 when the weather was perfect and everything was wonderful. Their phones had been confiscated so they couldn't Google themselves or learn anything about their near-future, but they hadn't needed their phones for their holiday.

Two glorious weeks of reclining on a beach, swimming in the clearest water, eating the freshest food, and meeting the nicest people had relaxed every single one of them. Even Zoe had begun to untense after she spent the first three days sleeping away the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Soon she was laughing again, the years dropping from her as her shoulders loosened under the effects of fruity cocktails and the warm sun. It had been nice to see her at ease once more, though that state of relaxation disappeared as soon as they had landed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her anxiety and focus made everyone feel as though they were walking on eggshells around her as she studied for her exams.

As much as Jackie loved her daughters, she accepted that they were living their own lives now – bewildering as they may be to her – and her life was back on the Powell Estate in London, not inside a terrifyingly beautiful spaceship with an alien and a man from the future.

There wasn't long left to go though.

Zoe's graduation and subsequent celebration were the last things they were doing before the Doctor took them back to the Powell Estate for the New Year's celebrations because there wasn't a chance in hell that Jackie was missing that. She had been to every New Year's Eve party down at the community centre since she married Pete, and nothing was going to change that.

“Here we are,” the Doctor said, pulling her from her thoughts. The TARDIS was tucked back against a building along the river bank that was sliding down in on itself, the heel of the robot having caved it in. “Best if we get that ankle seen too straight away.”

“Why don't you have your phone on you?” Jackie asked, faintly annoyed as she wanted to check that her girls were okay.

“I don't know where it is,” he admitted, turning the key in the lock. “Zoe was updating some of the settings because I'd complained about the lack of storage. I know she gave it back to me but, after that, I don't know where it went.” He held the door open for her. “Why don't you have yours?”

“I'm wearin' a dress.”

“So?”

“No pockets.”

“That's just poor design,” he said with a shake of his head. “You should wear dresses with pockets.”

“No one makes dresses with pockets,” she told him, limping over the threshold. She reached out for her bag that was hung on the coat rack and rummaged through it

“I've got some in the wardrobe,” he offered, shutting the door behind them. “I'm sure of it. I've definitely seen Rose wearing dresses with pockets.”

She ignored him and withdrew her new phone – a gift from Zoe who had grown annoyed at having to look at the old Nokia that she got for ten quid from Skeevy Steve down at the market – and called Zoe as she was the only one guaranteed to answer her phone considering that it was more often than not glued to her hand. As it rang, she limped to the medical bay and struggled to climb up onto the bed. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the Doctor hesitate, his hands twitching towards her, before he swallowed his discomfort and quickly lifted her onto the edge of the bed. Both of them opted to ignore the awkwardness it created, and she kicked off her shoe before he got it into his head to remove that as well.

“ _Jackie._ ” The smooth, even tones of Jack Harkness filled her ear. “ _We've been worried. Are you okay?_ ”

“We're fine,” she said as the Doctor slipped on the glasses he didn't need and sat down in front of her, drawing her foot into his lap. “Himself took care of the giant robot. How comes you've got Zoe's phone?”

“ _She's busy yelling herself hoarse at the idiot who built the robot_ ,” he explained, and he held the phone away from him. Jackie heard the faint strains of her youngest daughter shouting at someone in the background. “ _Apparently she knows him from her course. She's been less than complimentary about him._ ”

“I can imagine.”

“ _The ceremony's been delayed a little,_ ” he said. “ _No one here was hurt but everyone saw the robot sort of emerge from the earth and it got everyone a little freaked. It's going to start in an hour instead._ ”

Relief trickled through her.

“We'll be there,” she said before hanging up. She looked at the Doctor who was testing the flexibility of her ankle that no longer hurt. “Zoe's yellin' at the fool that built the robot.”

“Oh, good,” the Doctor said, cheerfully. She had noticed how much he enjoyed it when Zoe yelled at people who weren't him. “She'll have everything taken care of then.” He patted her foot. “Your ankle's as good as new.”

“Ta.”

“Might want to have a shower before we get back to campus,” he suggested, taking in her dusty, sweaty appearance. “Jack was very firm about the dress code.”

“Isn't he always?” The Doctor grinned at her. “He said the ceremony's startin' in an hour now.”

“Perfect,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Time for a shower _and_ a cuppa.”

“What about you?” She asked, gesturing towards his head. “You're hurt.”

“Oh, it's nothing.” He waved her concern away. “I can stitch it up with the sonic screwdriver.”

“You need help?”

“No.” His face softened into a kind, pleased expression, and the corners of his eyes creased with his smile. “But thank you. Go and shower. I'll see to myself and put the kettle on.”

As it turned out, despite the extra time they were granted, they still cut it fine. The Doctor complained the entire way to the campus about how long it took her to re-do her hair and make-up and he didn't know why she bothered with it as she resisted the urge to shove him into a bush. They hurried towards the campus that she was only vaguely familiar with. Zoe had given them all a tour when they first arrived and introduced them all to her lecturers and the few people that she classed as kind-of friends, but Jackie hadn't spent a lot of time on the campus.

“Come _on_ ,” Jackie said, interrupting the Doctor's continued complaints. “We're runnin' late enough as it is.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“It's about to be yours.”

He scowled but matched her pace and swept them past the security guards with a flash of the psychic paper.

Killian Court was crowded with family members and friends of the graduating class of '43. The robot attack didn't seem to have affected the celebratory mood of the day despite the disturbed earth that rose like hills out of the ground and the lining of rubble that spilt away from a destroyed building on the river's edge. There was a cordon of local police digging through the rubble in the distance as they searched for survivors. Jackie stumbled a little at the thought of sitting and watching Zoe graduate whilst people were potentially buried alive. The Doctor's hand shot out and steadied her.

“Careful there,” he said, setting her upright again. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she lied.

People were sat in the chairs set out in front of the graduation stage that was cloaked in the colours of MIT. There was a sea of graduates in front of the stage, and Jackie tried to catch sight of Zoe, searching for her distinctive hair. It was too difficult though as all the students were wearing the same black robes that turned them into a heaving, homogenous mass. The Doctor guided her through the crushing press of people, stepping on a couple of toes as he did so, before he brought her to where Jack, Rose, and Mickey were waiting, two empty seats saved for them in the middle of the row.

“About time,” Rose exclaimed, rising to hug her mother, holding her tightly. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“No, not me,” Jackie said, hugging her against her as her stomach twisted at the thought of the poor tentacled baby who was now motherless. “The Doctor stopped it.”

“It was really quite interesting actually,” the Doctor said, accepting a ginger biscuit from Mickey and biting into it, crumbs falling all down him. “Whoever constructed it built a cracking power system. Honestly, it was a thing of beauty.”

“Oh my god,” she snapped at him. “People _died_.”

He paused, biscuit halfway towards his mouth. “That doesn't stop it from being a lovely piece of work.”

“Okay.” Jack's eyes widened with awareness that being stuck between them might not be the best thing in the world. “Let's just remember why we're here. Zoe's graduating, and she won't appreciate the two of you arguing whilst she's walking across the stage, right?” The Doctor took another bite of his biscuit, and Jackie's eye twitched. Jack plastered a smile onto his face. “Excellent, glad we're all in agreement. Mickey, pass the Thermos, would you?”

Still on edge from the events in Boston, it took Jackie a few minutes to relax but Rose chattering away next to her helped, as did the sunshine flooding Killian Court. She tugged her light shawl closer around her shoulders, covering her bare skin and protecting it in lieu of sunscreen, as she waited for the graduation ceremony to start. She could hardly believe that she was about to watch her youngest daughter graduate from university – and graduate from MIT of all places.

She was so very proud of Zoe that it was difficult to put into words. Her daughter had taken an awful situation and turned it into something good and positive.

Sometimes Jackie wondered whether she had brought the right baby home from the hospital when Zoe was born as she didn't know where she got her strength and intelligence from. The Doctor said that she got it from her, but she was certain that he was only trying to butter her up as she hadn't forgotten that he was in love with Zoe. Their conversation from months ago lingered in the corner of her mind every time she saw him and Zoe interacting with each other. She worried that his new, handsome body might tempt Zoe into something ill-advised, but she had to trust that she was sensible enough not to have her head turned by the new packaging.

“Christ, it's hot,” Rose complained next to her, startling her out of her thoughts. Her eldest was fanning herself, pink in the face, a thin sheen of sweat clinging to her. “I thought this place was supposed to have a weather system thing?”

“Climate control,” the Doctor corrected. “And it does.”

“Then why's it so bloody hot?”

“You're sitting directly under the sun,” he said. “Of course it's hot.”

“Don't forget to stay hydrated, Rose,” Jack said, a smile curling like smoke on his mouth. “We don't want a repeat of the Great Sun Stroke Incident of Jamaica.”

Jackie huffed a small laugh as the Doctor's eyes narrowed. “I can hear you capitalising the nouns.”

“Good,” he said. “Hopefully you won't be daft enough to fall asleep in the sun again.”

“Any one of you could have woken me up,” the Doctor said, pointedly. “And yet did you? No. You let me sleep and nearly die.”

“Thought you had superior biology, mate,” Mickey said with a casual shrug, earning smothered laughter from the group. “Figured you'd be fine.”

The Doctor thought about flipping them off but, fortunately for his dignity, the ceremony commenced with the opening strains of the MIT anthem that emerged from the live orchestra directly in front of the stage. Jackie breathed out a sign of relief at the ceremony finally starting. Her body ached from running through the city, and she really needed something stronger than the Doctor's cup of tea. He was getting better at making tea the way the Tyler women liked it – strong enough to strip paint – but he still had some ways to go before he got there.

The dean of the university got to his feet and approached the podium. He was a tall, thin man whose head looking a little too large for the narrow neck that supported it. He angled the microphone up towards his face that glittered under the sun.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary,” the dean greeted, his words sweeping around Killian Court., sounding as though he was standing right next to them “Welcome to our celebration for the graduating class of 3143.”

“What's wrong with his face?” Jackie muttered, squinting at him. “Is he wearin' glitter?”

“He's Altarian,” the Doctor whispered. “Their skin naturally does that on planets with a high UV index.”

“I like it,” Jack said.

“Course you would.” Mickey rolled his eyes at him. “Anythin' that sparkles you like.”

Jack leaned in closer to respond, a grin settled in his eyes, when someone in front of them turned around to sharply shush them. His mouth snapped shut, and he winked at Mickey instead. Their attention returned to the speech that lightly touched upon the events of the day, though not to the extent that Jackie thought was appropriate. The speech continued, and she felt herself growing steadily more tired as it stretched out like gum in the dean's droning tones. Her eyes drooped, and she was on the verge of falling asleep some twenty minutes later when Rose let out a huff of annoyance.

“God,” Rose muttered. “Are all graduations this _dull_?”

“Most of them,” the Doctor said under his breath as even he was finding it difficult to pay attention to the speech that just wouldn't end. “I do hope he stops talking soon. He's going to put me to sleep otherwise.”

A mischievous smile appeared on her face. “Don't snore.”

The speech rolled on for another thirty minutes before it mercifully came to an end. The graduating class was a relatively small one, though far larger than anything seen on Gallifrey – the Doctor's own graduating class had consisted of only thirteen Time Lords as the requirements were so stringent. Fortunately for them, graduates walked across the stage in order of obtained degrees and not subjects studied, which meant that Zoe was in the first handful across the stage. Jackie held aloft a 21st century video camera – improved by the Doctor's alterations – to catch the moment her youngest daughter graduated.

“Zoe Patricia Tyler,” the dean of the University read out from his list. “Double first in Computer Science and Molecular Biology.”

Before Zoe had even stepped onto the stage, the five of them were on their feet and cheering wildly. It wasn't the done thing to make such a racket as everyone else had walked across the stage in warm silence, but they didn't care about the rules, especially unspoken ones. They got to their feet and brought their hands together loudly: Mickey whistled, and Rose hollered whilst Zoe hid her embarrassed face in her hands as she shook the dean's hand and took her diploma – old-fashioned paper as was the tradition. She turned on the stage, shielding her eyes from the sunlight with her hand and gave them a small wave with her diploma before she walked off and joined her now graduated classmates.

“That's my daughter,” Jackie called out, pointing at Zoe. “That's my baby!”

A ripple of laughter spread through the crowd before the dean cleared his throat and the ceremony continued. They had to wait until it was over some ninety minutes later before they could break free of the audience to seek Zoe out. A glass of champagne was nestled in her hand, and she stood beneath the shade of a large willow tree chatting to a group people she had studied with when she saw them coming. She barely remembered to excuse herself before she rushed into the arms of her mother and sister.

“I did it!” She beamed at them, champagne sloshing dangerously in the flute. “I got my degree!”

“Yes, you did.” Jackie beamed, cupping her face. “My baby girl. I'm so proud of you.”

“Me too,” Rose said, sweeping her up into a tight hug. “I always knew you'd do it. Even when you were little an' kept believin' that Narnia was just a wardrobe away.”

Zoe laughed and bumped hips with her sister before Mickey lifted her off her feet and Jack smacked a kiss to each cheek. She stumbled when released and looked up at the Doctor who stood in front of her. “Hello.”

“Hello.” He smiled down at her, eyes taking in her flushed cheeks and the curls that sprung out of the style she had forced them into that morning. She looked beautiful and so happy. “Well done.”

“Why, thank you,” she said, teasing a small curtsey. “I suppose I should be thanking you and Jack actually. If you both hadn't been daft enough to get yourself trapped, I never would have come here, so ta very much.”

“You're very welcome,” the Doctor said. He wanted to kiss her but he stuck his hands in his pockets instead, awkwardly conscious of his body. “Ready to go celebrate?”

“Not yet,” she said, eyes sweeping past him to settle on a person beyond his shoulder. “I need one final word with that idiot.”

They followed her pointed finger to a young man who was talking energetically with a group of fellow graduates, hands gesturing animatedly. Zoe tipped the rest of her champagne down her throat and passed the empty glass, smudged with her red lipstick, off into the Doctor's hand. They stood and watched as she approached the man who visibly flinched and attempted to duck behind the group of people when he saw her coming. She didn't let that deter her. Reached out, she snagged him by the back of his graduation gown and hauled him back towards the group, his feet stumbling beneath himself as he tried to catch his balance.

“ _This –_ ” she shook him by the collar by way of introduction, “is Armin Ural. He's the complete moron who built the robot and forgot to turn the damn thing off.”

“Zoe,” Armin whined, unsuccessfully trying to twist out of her grip. “It was an honest mistake.”

“An honest mistake,” she repeated, and Jackie shivered despite the warmth of the sun. “You owe my mother an apology.”

He started and twisted his head to look at her. “What?”

“She was in Boston when your _honest mistake_ broke free,” she snapped. “You put her life at risk and that makes me unhappy.” Armin swallowed hard. “So, apologise to my mum or I'll strangle you with your antennas.”

Armin's three eyes settled on Jackie and blinked consecutively. Jackie wished he would look somewhere else.

“I'm very sorry for putting you in danger, ma'am,” he said, glancing nervously at Zoe who glared at him. “And I won't do it again.”

“Your robot killed people,” Jackie said, voice hollowing as she struggled with her emtions. “There's a baby out there who lost its mother today because of you.”

Armin paled beneath his pink skin. “I didn't – it was –”

“An honest mistake,” Zoe finished for him, the words dripping with disdain. She gave him another shake, and his antennas wobbled. “I've never liked you, Armin.” Jack pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. “You've always felt like a bit of a dick to me.”

He squirmed in protest. “Hey, that's not fair!”

“You've always thought you're smarter than you actually are,” she continued as though he hadn't interrupted. “And now people are dead because of your supposed genius. Once you finish cleaning up this mess, I do hope you enjoy prison.”

“Prison?” He yelped, twisting again in her grip. “What – what do you mean, _prison_?”

“It's rule number one of MIT.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You don't build giant killer robots!”

“It's not a killer robot!”

“Then what the fuck is it, Armin?” She demanded. “A bloody nanny for children?”

“It was just a – that is to say –”

“Best to let him go now, Zoe,” the voice of one of her professors – Professor Gaiten – said from behind her. Jackie watched as the sun reflected off the brilliant red of the woman's hair. “The police need a word with him.”

Zoe harrumphed, unimpressed, but she eventually released Armin who sank to his knees, shaking in relief. The Doctor sipped her champagne, deeply entertained by all that was unfolding in front of him.

“Mr Ural,” Professor Gaiten said, hands linked lazily behind her back. “Now that you have graduated and the dean's unwarranted leniency has come to an end, I suggest you make yourself known to the police right away. It won't do you any good to procrastinate in this matter.”

“Yes, professor,” Armin said quickly, scrambling to his feet and edging away from Zoe. “Thank you.”

He hurried off into the crowd where a meeting with the police appeared to be more welcome than staying in Zoe's presence. Jackie looked back to her daughter who had her head bowed close to her professor's; she murmured something, and Gaiten laughed, touching Zoe's arm lightly.

“It is what it is,” Gaiten said, hair fluttering gently in the faint breeze. “I'm sorry that this has cast a pall over your graduation, but I'm still hopeful that you'll come back and do your doctorate here.”

Zoe's face softened and spread into an honest smile. “One day, but not today.”

She nodded her acceptance, not having expected any other answer. She held out a slender hand that Zoe shook. “Good luck with everything then. Try not to be a stranger.”

“Can I just say,” the Doctor began once Professor Gaiten had left them and they were alone again, “how much I like watching you shake people down? It's incredibly satisfying.”

Zoe smiled up at him. “You're an odd duck.”

“Is he actually goin' to jail?” Rose asked, handing her sister another flute of champagne that she swiped from a passing waiter with a tray.

“Yes,” she said. “This isn't the first time he's done something stupid like this. He's been on and off academic probation the entire time I've known him. The worst thing is that he's the one who's going to benefit from my research.”

“Your research?” Jack asked, leaning back against the trunk of the weeping willow, his shoulder pressing against Mickey's.

“Into soluble stitches that release the perfect amount of medicine into drugs following operations,” she explained. “It was my thesis project. Admittedly,” she cast her eyes over to the Doctor, “I got the idea from the TARDIS, but since I was only here to find a way to save you and the Doctor, I needed an easy project. Unfortunately, Armin is the one who's going to build off my research and market the stitches. It's going to make him an obscenely rich person.”

Mickey eyed her sympathetically. “That sucks.”

“It really, _really_ does,” she said, drawing a deep breath before sighing it out. “But c'est la vie and all that. I'm trying this new thing about not being bothered by the things that actually bother me.”

“How's that working out for you?” The Doctor asked, amused.

“It's not really working at the moment,” she admitted, eyes brushing over a blond man with a strong jaw who was staring at her with an intensity that discomforted. Uncertainty pricked at her, trying to place his face, before he turned and stalked off. She turned her gaze back to the Doctor and smiled. “But I think it's more a work in progress. Anyway, if I spent all my time annoyed by Armin then I'd never get anything done. In my second year, he was taking some classes in the biological sciences department and managed to release an airborne aphrodisiac because he didn't seal the transport container properly.” She looked pained at the memory. “That was a difficult week.”

“Were you affected?” Jack asked, curiously.

“Briefly,” she said, eyes darting away from him. “The TARDIS was able to help with negating the effects before I was properly hit by it.”

Jackie looked at her daughter, suspicious of what she wasn't saying but certain she didn't want to know. Sensing that Jack was about to pursue the topic further, Jackie reached out and linked arms with her daughter.

“C'mon, you,” she said, determined to put the horrible day behind her. “You've worked hard enough. It's time to get some alcohol into you.”

Zoe's eyes flickered over her, and Jackie met them. Her daughter smiled and nodded. “Okay then. Let's get me well and truly hammered.”


	3. Chapter 3

_This is death,_ _this is how it ends,_ Zoe thought.

Her head throbbed, violent pulses of pain that made bile slick her throat, the room spinning beneath her. With a groan, she dragged the duvet over her head and tried to bury herself beneath it. Tucking her knees up into her unsettled stomach, she let the misery of her situation sink in: too much alcohol and not enough food were the catalyst of her current predicament, and she struggled to remember the last time she drunk to excess. The mixture of post-graduation champagne and celebratory cocktails were causing a riot of discomfort and pain as her body worked hard to metabolise their effect. Skin covered in a thick sheen of cold, dried sweat, she felt clammy and uncomfortable, whimpering into her pillow, praying for a Dalek to end her agony. Struggling to recall the night before – her memory blurred after Jackie started a conga line – she wasn't entirely sure what had happened or how she had got home.

Vague, curling shadows of memory slipped through the pain in her head in bursts of bright colour and laughter. A memory of her dragging a laughing, stumbling Mickey to a food stand came half-formed to her, the two of them leaning against the side of the stand, trying to catch skittles or, perhaps, chocolate raisins in their mouths as they waited. Digging deeper, she wasn't sure what they ate but there was a foul taste in her mouth – vomit, spice, and the stale remnants of alcohol. Grimacing, she covered her nose with the duvet and, careful not to move to much, checked that she still had all of her body parts. It was a relatively new concern missing body parts, but when Jack had come back to the TARDIS missing a foot three weeks ago, scaring Jackie so much she screamed, she wasn't taking any chances.

She flexed her toes and extended her legs out, groaning at the stretch before wriggling her fingers and poking her breasts. All extremities and organs account for - though her bra _was_ missing and that was a mild concern - she huddled back into her cocoon. Unable to tell up from down, she felt as though she was floating and spinning in the Zero Gravity Room; her stomach churned dangerously. She kicked one foot out of the envelope of blankets and searched for the floor as the cold air made her shiver and grumble. Slapping it against the ground, her balance restored.

It was a small balm of relief in an ocean of suffering.

Drifting on the currents of her hangover, she dropped off to sleep again only to wake up when something tried to peel the duvet back from her. She twitched in agitation and held onto it tighter, hoping that the annoyance would go away. Briefly, she thought she won before something sharp and firm poked her left buttock, pushing a grunt from her. Poked again, she twisted and whined as she tried to get away from whatever it was; she was half a minute away from lashing out with her free foot when the top of the duvet was pulled down. Valiantly fighting to protect the warmth that was soft against her abused body, she lost the battle, her fingers were weak with sleep and hangover.

She squinted in the bright light of the room and scowled when the Doctor's face came into view before her.

“What d'you want?”

The Doctor merely smiled down at her. His smile creased his cheeks with the long dimples that she adored, but the sight of his face – too fresh and put together – deepened her scowl.

“Nasty hangover?” He asked, innocently. She tugged the duvet out of his hands and pulled it up over the bottom half of her face; her eyes narrowed at him, daring him to mock her further. He dangled a hypospray between his long fingers, and she tracked its movement. “I can help with that if you come out.”

It took a minute to weigh up the pros and cons of staying where she was but the promise of relief was too good to ignore. She fought with the duvet, using all four limbs to try and get it off her, only to whimper when she tangled herself up in it. The Doctor helped peel it off her with amusement in his eyes and on his face. It wasn't his first time seeing her the morning after a little too much alcohol, but she dreaded to think what she must have done the night as she was a messy drunk – _charmingly messy,_ the Doctor once called her, but she thought he was being polite.

Freed from her blanket prison, she collapsed back against her pillow. The hair at the base of her skull was damp, and she felt hot and sticky all over. Momentarily conscious of how she must look, she tried to smooth her hair into some semblance of order but gave it up for a bad job.

“Say ah,” the Doctor said.

She scowled at him.

He stifled a chuckle and pressed the hypospray against the side of her neck. His knuckles brushed against her skin as the drugs entered her system. A small sigh of relief slipped past dry lips as her headache faded away like breath on a mirror.

She blinked up at him, shaky from the sudden change. “What happened last night?”

“I didn't know that five non-augmented humans could drink so much,” he said, reaching past her. The hint of his spicy aftershave filled her nostrils, and her eyes lingered on the pale skin beneath his ear before she fell in love all over again when he handed her a cup of strong black coffee. “I always knew Jack could put away the spirits, but that's Jack. And you've always been able to finish a bottle of wine no problem, but Zoe, seriously, you guys drank a lot.”

She peered at him over the rim of her coffee mug. “Isn't Jack technically an augmented human?”

“Only aesthetically,” he said, hand coming to rest on her duvet-covered knee. “I checked with him last night after the eighth hypervodka, and he's definitely not augmented his ability to process alcohol. I'm honestly surprised that not one of you died last night.”

“I have a vague, somewhat foggy memory of you also being drunk,” Zoe said, peering at him with an edge of curious suspicion, never having seen him drunk before: _tipsy,_ yes, _drunk_ , no. “How many ginger beers did you have last night?”

“Enough,” was his tart response. “And thank you, by the way, for telling your mother that ginger beer gets me drunk.”

“She'd have found out eventually.” He looked unimpressed, and she smoothed away her amusement. “So, how drunk was I last night?”

“Not as bad as when you drank the hypervodka with Jack that one time, but you were still pretty drunk,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Awful.” She hoped for some sympathy but knew better than to expect it. “Confused. Potentially embarrassed.”

“I can help you with the last one,” the Doctor said, tucking his foot beneath his thigh as he got comfortable. “You did nothing to be embarrassed of. You were just a little...exuberant. Now Rose, Rose on the other hand should probably be a little embarrassed. I was able to stop her from stripping completely but everyone in the bar got a good look at her breasts.”

Zoe's eyes went wide. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, pained. “She's got lovely breasts, but I thought it was best to get her back to the TARDIS since she's never shown a proclivity for public nudity before. I came back for the rest of you once I'd made sure she wasn't going to choke on her vomit only to find your mother was kissing someone in the corner, and I did not want to interrupt _that_.”

“Who was she kissing?”

“A Euron.”

“An alien?” She sat up sharply, coffee threatening to slosh over her. “Mum was snogging an alien? Does she know that?”

“Eurons have two mouths,” the Doctor told her, tugging on his earlobe. “So I'm pretty sure she's at least aware of it, but please don't ask me any more. I'm trying to repress the memory of her judicious use of tongue.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Gross.”

“Try seeing it.”

“So, Rose stripping and Mum traumatising you to one side, we weren't obnoxiously bad then?” She asked hopefully, the caffeine hitting her system, waking her up. “You're still going to keep us around.”

“Well, _you_ were kind of charming,” the Doctor admitted with a small smile that made butterflies flutter in her chest. “You kept trying to feed me some Skittles you had in your pocket.”

“Oh?”

“You were worried I wasn't getting enough vitamins.”

“So, I tried to get you to eat Skittles?”

“I said you were charming, I didn't say you made any sense,” he said with a light tap on her knee.

She couldn't help the small laugh that huffed out of her, reaching out a coffee-warmed hand out to him. He took it and threaded their fingers together. “Thank you for taking care of me and our family.”

He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them, eyes on her. “Always.”

Overwhelmed by the feelings that rushed through her at that small act, she took another sip of her drink and leaned back into the pillows, keeping his hand in hers.

“I'm done,” she said, blinking at the realisation. “I'm actually done with university. No more studying. No more exams. No more stress. No more _nothing_. I'm done.”

“You are,” he agreed, drawing his thumb across her knuckles. “How do you feel?”

She thought about it. “Tired, I just feel tired.”

“That might just be the hangover.”

Zoe lifted her eyes from her coffee. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he said, stretching his long body out to lie across her legs, their hands resting in her lap. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at her, drinking her in. She was beautiful even hungover and sweaty. “Ready to get back to normal life?”

“Normal life.” She breathed in deeply, letting the idea sit with her for a moment before exhaling. “What the hell is that?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, a glint of mischief sparkling in his eyes. “Travelling, meeting new people, trying new foods, running from danger.”

Her laughter warmed the air between them. “Running _into_ danger is more our style.”

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” he dismissed with a wave of his free hand. “Normal life. What do you say?”

Zoe was more than ready to close the door on the last chapter of her life. She wanted to throw herself back out into the universe with the people she loved most at her side. She squeezed the Doctor's hands and let excitement trickle through her at the prospect of what was to come.

“I'm going to need a shower first,” she said, and he laughed.

“You do, you really do,” he said, leaning up and forwards to kiss her cheek. “Fancy some company?”

“You can't possibly find all of this –” she swept a hand over her body, “a turn on.”

“I find everything about you a turn on,” the Doctor said, her legs pinned beneath him, fingers dancing up her bare arm. “Stale alcohol, sweat, and all.”

With a groan, she pushed him away from her. “You have issues.”

“I'm in love,” he teased from the bed as she struggled out of it on wobbly feet. “Isn't there a saying that love makes us blind?”

“I think it's love makes us stupid,” Zoe said, grabbing hold of the nearest piece of furniture to stay upright. “But both are fitting in your case.”

“So is that a no to me scrubbing your back?”

An old jumper from the pile of laundry they kept meaning to do was flung in his direction. He rolled out of the way and sat up just as the door to the bathroom clicked shut behind her. The Doctor dropped back, tucking his hands behind his head, and smiled. Kicking his feet out, he finally let his joy fill him at the thought of getting back to normal life with his best friends and the woman he loved.

“This is going to be great.”

* * *

“Really, Jackie, it's fine,” Jack said, hand on her back, rubbing a comforting circle in an attempt to ease her distress. “Who amongst us hasn't ended up making out with an alien at some point in their lives?”

Mickey raised a hand, and Jack threw him a look that told him he wasn't helping. With a grin, he lowered it again.

“I mean...he was kind of cute,” Rose said in an effort to be helpful.

“I think he was a she actually,” the Doctor said, dragging another pained sound from Jackie's throat. Jack removed his hand and gestured angrily at him; his eyes widened, grimacing apologetically. “But that's okay. Euron's are very difficult to tell apart unless they're naked. I could be talking a load of nonsense.”

“Wouldn't be the first time,” Rose murmured. She laughed into her morning tea when the Doctor looked at her, offended. She gave him a tongue-kissed smile before turning her attention back to her mother. “Mum, really, not a big deal. It's not the first time you've snogged someone whilst drunk.”

“He was an _alien_!”

“Well, that's okay,” she said. “Aliens are people too.”

“He had two mouths!”

“Yeah – yeah – yes, he did,” she agreed, trying to find something positive to say. “But he seemed like a proper gentleman, didn't he, Micks?”

Surprised and mildly alarmed at being dragged into the conversation, Mickey choked mid-swallow.

“Er – yeah,” he stammered, mopping up the spilt tea. “Right proper gentleman, course.”

Both Jack and Rose shared the same looked of exasperation, and Mickey made the mistake of making eye contact with the Doctor. The desire to laugh rose up within him, so he shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth to kill the urge.

“Why'd I drink so much?” Jackie moaned, her head throbbing. The Doctor lingered near her, ready to seize an opening to hit her with the hypospray. “Why'd no one stop me?”

“We were all pretty drunk ourselves,” Jack said. He looked handsome and well-rested that morning as though he hadn't tumbled into bed as the sun came up. “I mean, Rosie took her top off.”

Rose's eyes shuttered on her face. “Please don't remind me.”

“An' Zo nearly came to blows with that person,” Mickey said, gesturing in front of his throat with his hand. “The one with the bubbles on his throat.”

“Those weren't bubbles,” the Doctor said. “They were glands. And she didn't nearly come to blows with him. She was just having a heated debate about nanotechnology. She was right, of course. The man's theories were completely preposterous and a little bit racist as well.”

“Who's a little bit racist?” Zoe asked, entering the kitchen looking like her normal self.

“The nanotechnology man from last night.”

“Oh, Hubert.” Her face creased with displeasure. “Yeah, he's a bit of a racist. Big fan of eugenics. I've always been a bit worried he's going to try and do something stupid but the TARDIS doesn't have any reference to him, so he's clearly already peaked.” She poured herself another cup of coffee. “Morning, all.” She looked down at the top of Jackie's head. “Mum, heard you were snogging an alien last night. How was that?”

Jackie dropped her head back into her arms and groaned anew.

Jack threw his hands up into the air and gave up.

It took a while but Jackie eventually consented to the hangover cure before dragging herself off to have a shower and pack. The room was the same one that the TARDIS had given her during Zoe's long illness some months earlier, and it felt as close to home as possible when living on an alien space ship; warm and comfortable, Jackie was quietly disappointed to leave it. She was accustomed to the comforts and facilities that the TARDIS provided but was still eager to be gone. The events of the robot giant combined with their night out spurred her on in her packing.

She didn't think she was speciest as she liked aliens just fine. Though, when she thought about it, the only alien she really knew was the Doctor as Jack was from the future and not actually an alien. It was more to do with the fact that sleeping with an alien was very different to tolerating one because her daughters liked him. Finding herself willing and eager to alternate between two mouths on one body left her feeling unsettled, dirty, and deeply embarrassed, particularly since the Doctor was the one who extracted her from the Euron's arms.

Sometimes it felt as though she was standing on shifting sands and she needed to get to firmer ground before she fell into the Doctor's life as surely as her daughters had.

“Knock-knock,” Zoe said from the doorway. “I've come to see if you need any help.”

“You've come to tease me is more like it,” Jackie said, and a grin flashed across Zoe's face before she locked away all amusement behind a pleasant expression.

“I would _never_.”

“You were a rubbish liar as a girl, an' you're still rubbish at it now.”

“How about if I promise not to tease?” She offered, hands held up to signal peace. She moved forward to help fold some freshly laundered clothes. “Although, I'd like to say that it's really not a big deal. Yeah, it's weird that he had an extra mouth, but you're not the first to get off with an alien.”

Jackie jerked and looked at her, panic rising. “You an' –?”

“His name was Frelin,” she said calmly, and the thundering of Jackie's heart eased. “He was the first person I had sex with. We met at a resort in France. He was from one of the Earth colonies on the outer rim of the solar system. So, not technically alien- _alien_ but not from Earth.”

“I didn't know there was anyone before Reinette,” Jackie said carefully as her daughter's late wife remained a delicate topic.

“Only him,” she said easily. “It really is okay, you know?”

“I know,” Jackie sighed, putting her toiletries into her suitcase. “I'm just embarrassed, that's all.”

“You shouldn't be,” Zoe said. “Rose should be embarrassed for whipping her top off, but you shouldn't be.”

Jackie shook her head with a laugh and leaned into her daughter, already missing her. The conversation mercifully shifted away from her behaviour the night before and onto the topic of the New Year's Eve party. It had been a while since Zoe had spent any reasonable length of time on the estate and Jackie was making sure that she was up-to-date with all the gossip when Jack stuck his head into the room.

“The TARDIS has landed,” he said by way of greeting. “We're back on the estate. The Doctor wanted me to let you know.”

“Already?” Zoe asked, surprised, sitting on top of Jackie's suitcase so that her mother could close the zip. “That was quick.”

“He said something about wanting to do a food shop before everything closed.”

“Oh, we need more coffee beans,” she said suddenly, hopping off the suitcase and heading towards the door. “He always forgets if it's not on the list.”

Jack looked over at Jackie and at her full suitcase. “Let me get that for you, Jacks.”

“Ta, love.” She pulled on her jacket. “Excited for your first New Year's?”

“Yes,” he said, enthused. “Mickey's been telling me all about what to expect. I know to avoid Shareen after she's had three vodkas and that Priti Azadi is probably going to try and cop a feel but I still don't exactly know what that means.”

“Cop a feel?”

“Yeah.” She showed him. His face split into a smile. “How friendly!”

Jackie was still laughing when she stepped out of the TARDIS and onto the estate. Her chest expanded and her shoulders relaxed when she drew in a deep breath of the crisp morning air that was tainted with pollution and the faint hint of rotting rubbish. It smelt like the world she knew, and it was good to be back.

The Doctor paused at her side and nudged her with his elbow. “Welcome home.”

* * *

The door creaked, a reminder that the hinges needed oiling, as Mickey opened up his flat. Mid-morning light spilt over his shoulder from the dull grey sky that held a threat of rain and into his dark hallway. There was a sharp, stale tang of sweat that tickled his nostrils. His eyes fell onto his football boots, and he bit back a sigh at having forgotten to put them out on the windowsill before his departure. He kicked them to one side, bits of dried mud falling off the spikes as he did so, and stepped into his home. Down the length of the hallway, a light was on. He sighed that time, annoyed at that he hadn't turned it off before leaving.

He set his bag down and kicked the door shut shut with a rattle.

It was cold inside his flat as the sharp December air spread through the poorly insulated walls. For as long as he could remember, the tenants' association had tried to get the local council to fix the insulation problem as they all knew it was ineffective and dangerous but no one cared. They lived with the constant the risk of freezing to death because the cost of gas prices was so high, or going up in flames if someone's electrics malfunctioned and a spark caught on the cheap cladding that lined the walls. Rubbing his hands together and already mourning the loss of the TARDIS's heating, he turned off the kitchen light and flicked on the gas boiler, cursing under his breath when the flame failed to catch the first two times.

It was strange to be back after so long away. Six weeks compressed into a handful of days was never going to be normal for him.

They had left the estate on December 27th as Zoe had wanted to stay to watch the news in her pyjamas on Boxing Day, criticising all the politicians except for Harriet Jones whenever one came onto the screen, spraying popcorn everywhere as she did so.

“What do they know?” was a common refrain to hear from her as she gestured at the TV screen. “They weren't even there!”

Given that she was the reason they were all together for Christmas, no one protested at her desire to spend the day in her pyjamas in front of the TV. Yet, Rose was so eager to go the day after that she was close to pulling a wet and soapy Zoe out of the shower and simply shoving her into the TARDIS as she was because she felt she was taking too long. Mickey felt a smile settle on his face at the memory of listening to the two sisters argue – not the sharp, painful arguments that had characterised _before_ , but proper arguments that only two sisters who loved each other were capable of having. It had been a long time since he had heard them like that, and he hadn't realised that he missed it until they were fighting in front of him.

He opened his fridge only to immediately close it again, nose wrinkling at the smell of rotten vegetables that had needed to be cleaned out before he left.

“Fuck.”

Cleaning was the last thing he wanted to do when he knew the others were departing in the morning. The thought of them leaving, taking off into the TARDIS to destinations unknown whilst he went back to work at the garage, made tension tighten itself into a band around his chest.

He didn't want them to leave.

More specifically, he didn't want Jack to leave.

Ever since their near-kiss on the TARDIS, Mickey was uncomfortably aware of the other man's presence. Jack was a hard person to ignore at the best of times, and his awareness of him and the way he smelt and the way his cheeks creased when he laughed made it just that much harder. It felt as though everywhere he looked Jack was there - in the kitchen making a cup of tea; in the swimming pool doing lazy lengths that made the muscles in his back stretch; in the library absorbed in a book; and in his dreams – _constantly_ in his dreams. There was no escape from him.

It was a crush.

Mickey knew that.

He wasn't stupid.

He had never had a crush on another man before, and he didn't know what to do with it.

One night when it was just him and Zoe on the TARDIS – Jackie and Rose getting their hair done, and Jack and the Doctor trawling through junk shops to look for compatible parts for the TARDIS – he asked her for advice. She was the only one who seemed to understand that there was something semi-serious going on between them and that it wasn't just Jack's usual flirtation. She hadn't once referenced the near-kiss in the medical bay on Christmas that she interrupted, but sometimes he caught her watching them with a curious expression on her face. He figured that since she was in the know and had some experience of fancying a member of the same sex, she was the person to talk to.

Zoe's advice was a practical _just go for it,_ which was no help at all because he didn't know how to go for it, and he didn't know if he even wanted to go for it.

He knew that he liked spending time with Jack. The two of them had explored all over Massachusetts whilst they were there – leaving early in the morning and coming back late at night, exhausted from their sedate adventures. Jack made him laugh as he had the funniest sense of humour, and he also made him feel more comfortable than he could ever remember being. The uncertain, sick feeling in his stomach when Jack slipped from the TARDIS to find someone to spend the night with didn't help clarify matters either; it was jealousy, he knew that much, but he didn't understand why he was jealous. Taking his concerns and braving Zoe's wrath at being disturbed, her temper a furious, uncertain thing as the stress of exams settled on her shoulders, he spilt his concerns into her lap and found that she was no help at all when he asked her for guidance.

“Honestly, Micks, I don't know,” she had said, glasses slipping down her nose the afternoon he caught her on one of her scheduled coffee runs to the kitchen. “But every time I've been in love, I've felt those exact same feelings.”

_Love_.

Mickey wasn't sure if it was love that he felt for Jack, but he wasn't sure it wasn't either. He wished there was someone other than the singularly unhelpful Zoe Tyler to ask for advice but speaking to her was significantly better than speaking to the Doctor, Jackie, or – _god forbid_ – Rose.

He and Rose had finally found a new equilibrium on which to move away from their romantic history and into a new friendship that he already valued. It was strange to be around her and not drape an arm about her shoulders or lean in to whisper something in her ear but they were both learning their new normal, and Mickey felt that it had the potential to be something brilliant and worthwhile. None of that meant that he wanted to talk to Rose about his feelings for Jack though. He wasn't sure how she would take it considering the jealousy that had speared through her at the thought of him and Trisha Delaney.

Being with Jack might be worse for her because he was both a man and one of her best friends.

He felt a headache brewing at the thought of the mess that his feelings had created for him. Lifting the heel of his palm, he rubbed at his temple, trying to push the confusing thoughts from his mind.

“Mickey,” the Doctor called from his front door as he let herself in with the sonic screwdriver. Deemed incapable of getting the correct coffee beans, Zoe had benched the Doctor from going shopping and left to do it herself. “I've got more of your stuff. At least I think it's yours. Jackie swears it's not hers.”

“Thanks, boss,” Mickey said, emerging from the kitchen. “When you headin' out?”

“In an hour or so,” he said, looking around curiously. With a jolt, Mickey realised the Doctor had never been in his flat before. “We're taking the tube.”

“Why not the TARDIS?”

“Doris always complains that I land on her roses.” The Doctor shrugged as though not able to understand why that might be annoying. “And she's going to feed me. I've long since learnt not to annoy the people who feed me.”

“Good rule of thumb,” he said with a laugh. “Zo going with you?”

“Yes.” He looked put out by that. “I'm worried she's going to hear stories that I don't want her to hear. Alistair knows a little too much about me for comfort, and Zoe likes embarrassing stories about me a little too much.”

Mickey raised his eyebrows. “This sounds like fun. Can I come?”

The Doctor threw him a look that made him laugh. “Jackie told me to remind you that dinner's at seven. Zoe and I are bringing fish and chips back.”

“Copy that,” he said with a small salute that made the Doctor roll his eyes before leaving.

Mickey looked around his flat again and sighed. He was beginning to regret his refusal of the Doctor's offer to travel with them when they left. He didn't know how much the Doctor knew about what was building between him and Jack, but he accepted the refusal with a knowing look in his eyes. The offer remained open on the table between them and Mickey thought that one day he might just take him up on it; for now though, he just wanted to get back to normal life where aliens weren't around every corner and tall, handsome men with liquid eyes and warm skin didn't make his heart beat faster.

He grabbed a black bag from a kitchen drawer and pulled on his rubber gloves. At least cleaning the fridge out would serve to distract him from decisions he didn't want to make.

* * *

The Doctor tipped his head back and groaned. He regretted his decision to agree to Alistair and Doris's New Year's Eve lunch. Not that he really had much of a choice since Doris threatened to track down the TARDIS and drag him to the dining table by his ear if he didn't come and _bring your girlfriend whilst you're at it._ If he had entertained any hopes that Zoe might beg off such an invitation, they were dashed by her delight at simply being invited, and he was loathe to do anything that muffled that joy. Yet, sitting in Alistair and Doris's comfortable, tastefully furnished dining room after a wonderful lunch, listening to Alistair greatly exaggerate some of the trouble they had got into back in the day, made him reconsider his acceptance of the invitation.

“Don't listen to him, Zoe,” the Doctor tried for what felt like the hundredth time even though she was blithely ignoring him. “He's exaggerating.”

Zoe reached out and squeezed his thigh. “Ssh. Do go on, Alistair. You were running down the street, and then what?”

“He just disappears,” Alistair said, white whiskers twitching as he leaned forwards, enjoying his enthralled audience.“I stopped running and I think he's fallen through a time eddy. I don't know what to do but I know I need to get off the streets as dinosaurs are everywhere. I'm about to start running again when I hear this _torrent_ of curse words –”

“You didn't know what I was saying,” the Doctor protested. “I wasn't speaking English.”

“Oho.” He laughed, eyes knowing. “You think I don't know when a man's swearing in his native language?”

“Is that what you think, Doctor?” Zoe asked, turning her eyes on him with a grin, and he knew he had lost her.

He looked to Doris for support, but all she gave him was an amused, sympathetic smile.

“So I turned around looking for him,” Alistair continued, “and I can't see him anywhere for the life of me. Next thing I do see though is this – this form just emerging from the a pile of dinosaur droppings on the ground –”

Zoe's eyes widened. “ _No_.”

“Yes.” He nodded, laughing. “The Doctor had been so distracted whilst running that he'd fallen smack bang into a pile of shit.”

The Doctor watched as Zoe tipped herself back and laughed so hard that tears fell from her eyes. Although the laughter was at his expense, he didn't begrudge it as it meant that he got to watch her face light up. Her hand sought his, and their fingers slipped easily together. She turned her sparkling eyes onto him, and he wanted to lean across and kiss her so that he could taste her mirth.

“You poor thing,” she said through her laughter. “But that's definitely something I see you doing.”

“Yes, yes,” he said with a good-natured roll of his eyes. “You know, I have a number of stories about you that I could tell, you realise, old friend.”

“I would love to hear those,” Doris said warmly, rising from her seat. “Would anyone care for coffee? Zoe?”

“If it doesn't put you to any trouble, thank you,” she replied, dabbing the tears from her eyes with her napkin. “But I have to know, where did the dinosaurs come from in the first place?”

“Nothing too exciting, sorry,” the Doctor said, hooking his foot behind her ankle and making her gaze turn knowing. He resisted the urge to smile. “Just two people who got their hands on some time travel technology and wanted to bring about a Golden Age.” She raised a questioning eyebrow. “They felt that the Earth was too polluted and overpopulated.”

“Well, they're not wrong,” she said, “but dinosaurs?”

“They wanted to reverse time around the entire planet and then repopulate the Earth with a select group of people chosen specifically for the task,” Alistair explained, tilting his face up to smile at his wife who returned with a tray of coffee that had been slowly brewing since the table was cleared ten minutes earlier. “The dinosaurs were a distraction.”

“A hell of a distraction,” Zoe said, accepting her cup of coffee with thanks. “How did you get rid of the them?”

The Doctor leaned back in his chair. “I reversed the polarity.”

“You did not.”

“I did!”

“That's an actual thing?”

“You've _just_ graduated MIT.”

“I didn't study physics now, did I?” He pulled a face at her, and she crossed her eyes in return before turning back to Alistair and Doris who looked delighted by the exchange. “I feel like you and I should get together more often, Alistair. I want to hear all the stories you have about this one.”

She gestured in the Doctor's direction with a regal wave of her fingers.

“And I want to tell you them, my dear,” Alistair smiled at her. “I'm sure you have stories of your own to tell.”

“Oh, one or two,” she said as she met the Doctor's eyes, teeth pulling on her bottom lip at the thought of what she could tell his dearest friend. “But he's got a few stories about me that I don't want seeing the light of day.”

Smiling smugly, the Doctor simply lifted his coffee to his lips and let the atmosphere sink into him.

They stayed for a blend of Colombian coffee that Doris had brought back from Colombia after spending six months there the previous year volunteering with Doctors Without Borders, and Zoe chatted quite happily with her whilst the menfolk talked amongst themselves.

Zoe was fascinated by Doris Lethbridge-Stewart. She was Alistair's second wife, and the two had met in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She was working as a doctor in one of the UN camps and he was there with UNIT to track down some stray Weevils. One of them broke into the surgical tent whilst Doris was elbow deep in a poor woman's womb trying to remove an at-risk baby, and she read Alistair the riot act when he killed the alien before it could kill her, disrupting the dangerous surgery. He asked her out on a date just as she removed the baby. According to Alistair, her response had been emphatically rude but he had persisted, but she eventually found him charming enough to agree to a cup of bad coffee with him.

“You were never tempted to join UNIT though?” Zoe asked, curiously.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Doris said, her white hair swept up into an elegant bun. “It's bad enough my stepdaughter is a part of it, there's no need to make it a full-blown family affair. Besides, I've been told I have problems with authority.”

They made their departure after the Doctor nearly broke a plate, saved only by Doris's quick reflexes, in an effort to help clean up. He grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets so as not to cause any more damage. Zoe glanced out of the window and saw that frost beginning to sparkle on the hedges; she began to regret their decision not to bring the TARDIS as it was going to be a cold journey home on the tube, and they still needed to stop and get dinner for everyone else first.

After allowing Alistair to help her into her coat, his murmured promises of more stories about the Doctor if she managed to bring him to visit more often bringing a smile to her face, she embraced Doris warmly and accepted the recipe for her orange chocolate cake with delight.

“You are far, far too good for him, Zoe, I hope you know that,” Alistair said, his beard soft against her cheek as they kissed goodbye. “He's very lucky to have you.”

“Thank you,” she said, overwhelmed with fondness for the man. “But I'm rather lucky too.”

He gave her hand a squeeze and stood at the front door as she and the Doctor made their departure, his eyes taking note of how the Doctor reached out and took her hand automatically. A tight feeling in his chest eased at the sight of his old friend happy and in love; though, he grieved for the pain that would come for him when Zoe was eventually forced to leave his side because of age and infirmity. He swallowed back the pre-emptive sorrow and sadness and tried to delight in the fact that his friend – for a brief moment of his long life – was happy and loved.

The Lethbridge-Stewarts lived on the outskirts of London so the light pollution wasn't as bad as it was on the estate, which meant that the Doctor could tilt his face up and look at the sky that was bursting with stars above them. He was enraptured by them, as he always was, until he felt Zoe tuck herself up against his side whilst they walked down the pavement. Her thick, fashionable coat was pulled tight around her but she still felt the chill in the air. Tugging her closer to him, her arm slipped around his waist.

“That was fun,” she said, words riding a white mist.

“It was, wasn't it?” The Doctor was pleasantly surprised with how enjoyable the evening had been as the last time he had done something similar was on Gallifrey before his wife died, many lifetimes ago. “I could do with you knowing less stories about my youth though.”

She laughed. “I could do with knowing more. I like those stories. It reminds me that I still have so much more to learn about you.”

“I'm an open book,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.

“You're the least open book I've ever met,” she replied. “You're a closed book but with an transparent cover so you can trick people into thinking you're open.”

He snorted.

“Your metaphors always take a downward turn when you've had a few glasses of wine,” he said, and she bit his arm in retaliation before they crossed the road. “It's nice that we can be like this in front of Alistair and Doris.”

“Like what?”

“This,” he repeated, eyes flicking between them. She turned her face into his arm and rubbed the tip of her nose against his coat. “I like that they know.”

“It is nice,” she said, softly. “Does it bother you that I've asked to keep us quiet for a little while longer?”

“No,” he said. “But I still like that there are people we can be together in front of. It makes it feel more real.”

She rested her chin on his arm as she looked up at him, not bothering to watch where she was going, knowing that he would guide her true. “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If it does start to bother you, tell me,” she said, seriously. “Don't keep your feelings from me because you think it's what I want. Tell me, and I'll make it right.”

“Zo,” the Doctor breathed, drawing to a stop. His cold fingers touched her cheek as his eyes searched hers. “I'll tell you, I promise.”

“Good,” she said, holding onto his jacket, examining his collar. “Because I want you to be happy.”

His chest expanded at her words, and he touched his fingers to beneath her chin, tilting her face up. “ _You_ make me happy.”

“Even though I haven't been the most attentive of –” she gestured uselessly with her free hand, “whatever.”

“Whatever?”

“Girlfriend, oh my god,” she said, exasperated, a smile bursting across his face. “Don't make a big deal out of it.”

“Can't help it.” He beamed at her. “You're my girlfriend.”

She groaned and dropped her forehead against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, thrilled.

“You've been busy,” the Doctor said into her hair. “And you found the time when you had it. I haven't felt neglected.” She made a disbelieving sound against him. “All right, I haven't felt _too_ neglected.” Her body moved with a small laugh. “But you do make me happy.”

Zoe lifted her head to look up at him again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, leaning down only to have her meet him halfway in a kiss that made his toes tingle. When they parted, he nuzzled the soft skin under her ear; she squirmed, huffing a laugh against the side of his face. “Fish and chips?”

“My three favourite words,” Zoe said, turning her head to catch his mouth in a second, quicker kiss before she eased back from him. She straightened his appearance and rubbed the faint trace of her lipstick from his mouth with the pad of her thumb. “Come on then, I'm beginning to freeze parts of my body off.”

“We can't be having that,” he said. “I'm rather fond of your body parts.”

She bumped into him with a laugh, and they continued on their way.

* * *

Rose came upon the Doctor sitting up on her childhood bed with a book in his hands.

She froze at the sight of him: glasses perched on the end of his nose, new hair flying up and out in every direction. He still hadn't settled on a style for it, but she liked how it looked unstyled and restless as it made her fingers twitch with desire to move through it. He wasn't bothering to change for the evening's entertainment and so, after dinner, he had disappeared to stay out of their way. He occasionally liked to lounge around whilst they were getting ready but sooner or later he grew impatient with how long it took them and no one liked to listening to him trying to urge them along. Keeping him out of sight with a book or something to take apart was the best thing for all involved.

Hearing her entrance, he looked up at her over the rim of his glasses and smiled, and it as though the sun was shining directly on her. His new form was so much _more_ than the last one, and it was more difficult to control how she reacted around him. Her body bloomed with attraction, and the telltale sweep of heat across her chest and cheeks told her that she was turning pink. She wished she was wearing something more than a large towel, her wet hair twisted up beneath another. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen her like that before as life on the TARDIS always fell on the casual side, and the Doctor didn't have any concept of personal, _private_ space, but it felt different.

Not that she minded.

He tucked his finger between the pages and let the cover drop. “Need the room?”

“Unless you're plannin' on watchin' me dress.”

His smile turned into a grin, long legs swinging off the bed. “I'll leave.”

“What're you doin' in here anyway?”

“Jack and Jackie have transformed the front room into beauty central, so I thought I'd make myself scarce in case your mother gets any ideas,” the Doctor said, tucking his glasses away into his pocket. “Mickey's using Jackie's room, and Zoe's getting ready on the TARDIS.”

“Figured you'd be hangin' out with Zo then,” Rose said, not jealous as it had been clear from the beginning that the Doctor enjoyed her sister's easy, quiet company.

“She said I'm a _distraction_ ,” he told her, sounding thoroughly offended and put out. “So, I thought I'd stay here with a book.”

Her eyes shone with amusement, fingers tight on the towel. “You're actually stayin' out of the way. Who'd have thought?”

“I am quite capable of entertaining myself, Rose Tyler,” he said, tapping her on the nose with a long, slim finger. Her skin prickled with awareness. “Despite what your sister may say.”

“That's only what she says to your face,” she said. “You want to hear what she says behind your back?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, eyes sweeping over her. “You should get changed. You don't want to go catching a cold.”

“Well, you should leave the room,” she said, voice warm and verging on flirtatious.

He waved his book at her. “Leaving now.”

“You do that.”

“Ta-ta,” he said, disappearing out of her bedroom.

The towel dropped from around her, and she stared at the dress that was hanging on the back of the door. It was TARDIS blue and sparkled when the light caught it. When she and Zoe were rummaging through the wardrobe in an effort to find something to wear, Rose had felt a little ridiculous at wanting to wear a dress that was in the Doctor's favourite colour. She was aware that it was a silly thing but the thought of him looking at her dressed in that colour and putting his hand on the small of her back as they danced wouldn't leave her. It was a foolish notion, one that she felt was so foolish she hadn't even told Zoe about her crush that was gaining strength as each day passed, embarrassed by what her sensible sister would think.

Not that she and Zoe talked as much as they used to, not about the things they used to discuss until the sun was rising and their eyes ached from being away all night.

As the Doctor had pointed out, there was an eleven-year gap that Rose wasn't a part of. It was slow going as they found their way back to each other, trying to find out how they fit together when once it had been seamless. There were new edges and facets to Zoe that hadn't been there before France, and Rose was finding it difficult to connect the girl that Zoe had been – all awkward limbs and too much energy – with the woman that she now was. The time spent in Jamaica and then Massachusetts had helped to bridge some of that gap, but Rose couldn't help but feel that her sister was a little like someone she had known a long time ago and was just getting to know all over again.

From the moment Nan and Granddad Prentice took her to the hospital to visit Jackie in the aftermath of Zoe's birth and Rose had peered into her mother's arm to see a tiny baby with a squashed face, Rose had loved her sister. It was an instinctive love that grew larger and larger as the years passed and they grew up on top of each other. Zoe was her favourite person in the entire universe. She didn't want to lose that just because there was a long stretch of time and experiences lying between them. Time and patience was what they needed to figure out how they fit together again, and Rose hoped it would be enough to heal the hurts over their disagreements on how best to save Jack and the Doctor.

As she shimmied into her dress, she told herself that everything was going to be okay as the alternative wasn't something she wanted to comprehend – seeing her sister only when visits home to see Jackie coincided, and occasional phone calls from wherever they were in time and space. That wasn't what she wanted for them.

Zipping her dress up, she pushed her thoughts of Zoe and her warm ones of the Doctor from her to sit on her bed and dry her hair, determined not to let troublesome thoughts ruin her last night on Earth for some time.

She emerged from her room forty minutes later to find the Doctor slowly banging the back of his head against the wall in the hallway, bored and impatient. His eyes snapped to her, eager for something to distract him from the interminable wait, and she spread her arms wide.

“Well?” She turned on the balls of her feet so he was able to experience the full effect. “How do I look?”

Hands buried in his pockets, his eyes crinkled at the corners. “You look beautiful.”

“For a human?” She teased.

“Never going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Nope.”

Her chest fluttered with having him all to herself – a rare occurrence given how they all lived on top of each other. Her mouth opened to ask him if he planned on dancing with her when the front door opened and a rush of cold air swept in around her ankles making her shiver.

“Wow,” the Doctor said, eyes no longer on her. She followed his line of sight to Zoe who stood just inside the door, unable to move in as they were blocking the hall. “Zo, you look...” he trailed off, words failing him. “I mean, _wow_.”

Zoe inclined her head slightly to one side and smiled at him. “Thank you. That's a flattering response to all of this.”

She gestured at her body that was clad in a red velvet dress taken from the TARDIS, hair was thick and loose around her.

“You look beautiful no matter what,” the Doctor said. “This is just a different beautiful.”

Rose's eyes flicked back and forth between them. Zoe stepped away from the door and closer to them, shimmying into the narrow space.

“You're sweet,” she said, reaching out to fix his tie. “Are we ready to go?”

“Just waiting on Jack,” he said, holding still for her, eyes locked on hers. “As always.”

Rose watched the two of them, unsettled by the closeness that she was seeing. She knew that they were close friends who had only grown closer with the sacrifices Zoe had made to save the Doctor and Jack, but it was bewildering to be right next to them and feel as though she was entirely invisible.

“You look great, Zo,” Rose said, breaking the strange atmosphere that had settled around them.

Zoe looked to her and smiled widely, hands falling from the Doctor's tie. “You look gorgeous. Blue really suits you.”

“Hey.” The Doctor pointed a finger at her. “That's TARDIS blue.”

“Well spotted.” Embarrassment crept into her. She hurried to distance herself from the connection. “I like the way it sparkles. Look.”

“What's not to like about sparkles?” The Doctor said, watching the light bounce off the dress as Rose shook the dress. “Do you think I should wear –?”

“No,” Zoe said.

“You don't even know what I'm going to say!”

“Do I think you should wear sparkles?” She rolled her eyes towards him. “Either a tie or a shirt or a waistcoat? And my answer to all is no, I don't think you should wear sparkles.”

He pulled a face. “I'd look good in them.”

“You'd look ridiculous,” she said. “But yes, you'd still look good in them.”

That seemed to please the Doctor, and Rose was glad when Jack and Mickey finally made their appearance. Jackie, never one to hang around when there was partying to be done, had gone down earlier with Bev and Ru after extracting a promise from them not to get distracted on the way. By that, Rose assumed that she meant not to get caught up in any alien mischief.

“Oh, good,” the Doctor said. “You're finally ready then?”

Jack checked his reflection one final time. “It takes long to look this good.”

“You are literally augmented to look perfect no matter the situation,” he said. “It shouldn't take you this long.”

“You know we're just wasting more time now that you're complaining,” Jack said. “Thought you wanted to get down there.”

“You know what, captain?” The Doctor let his threat trail off as Jack was immune to such things; instead, he sighed heavily. “ _Fine_. Let's go, but please don't drink yourselves stupid tonight. Last night was bad enough.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said with just enough sexual innuendo that the Doctor choked on his next breath, cheeks flushing.

“Oi!”

Rose tugged him out the flat as Jack and Mickey darted on ahead. “C'mon, it's going to be fun.”

“You say fun, I say torture,” he grumbled before rolling his neck and breathing in deeply. “Right, I can do this. It's just one more night.”

“That's the spirit,” Zoe said. “Just think, this time tomorrow we're going to be off in the TARDIS to adventures unknown.”

Rose leaned into the Doctor and grinned. “I can't wait.”


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Jack lay on his side and watched Mickey sleep. His eyelashes smudged against his cheeks like the bruise that was darkening on his temple, and his mouth was parted slightly as he breathed, the occasional snore slipping free. The covers were pulled up over his waist, and Jack fought the urge to touch him. He wasn't sure what time it was, though there was natural light peeking in through the cracks in the dark curtains, and he didn't want to move to find out. They had stumbled home in the early hours of the morning when it was so cold outside that they had to stagger together in an attempt to stay warm, laughing and drunk. It would have been easier to sleep on the TARDIS as it was closer to the community centre than Mickey's flat, but both had bypassed it and headed up the stairs only to remember halfway up that there was a functioning lift they could have used.

Consciousness had come too early for Jack, and he buried down in the warmth of Mickey's bed, pulling his bare foot under the cover to keep the frosty chill from his toes. Content to watch Mickey sleep, his eyes traced the lines of his features and a feeling of complete relaxation washed over him. Being around Mickey was the easiest thing in the world, and Jack relished the tranquillity that came with his presence. His mind slowed down, and the worries and fears that constantly plagued him quietened with him at his side. It felt like a dream to have such peace. Ever since he had fled the Time Agency, mind gaping with his missing two years, he had been on the defensive, unable to relax, forever looking over one shoulder for fear that the Agency would catch up with him. Meeting the Doctor and the girls had given him that feeling of safety he so desperately caved, but it was Mickey who helped him to find the peace that he had long since thought was out of reach.

He wanted to share the feeling with Mickey, so he trained his eyes on him and whispered his name; he didn't so much as twitch.

“Mickey,” he whispered again. “Wake up.”

His face remained still with sleep, and Jack scrunched his nose in disappointment.

Since he wasn't going to physically wake him as that was rude, Jack eased carefully out from under the duvet and hurriedly pulled on his clothes from the night before, quietly opening one of Mickey's drawers to liberate a pair of socks as the floor was cold under his feet. Slipping out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, Jack put the kettle on. There was a time when the technology of the 21st century was too simplistic for him to use but he now felt like a native as he filled the kettle and flicked the switch before opening the refrigerator to see what he could make for breakfast. One thing that he knew for certain about Mickey – a fact picked up from the last six weeks – was that he needed a decent meal after a night of drinking or he would be out of action for the rest of the day.

The fridge didn't have much in it aside from the lemony scent of being recently cleaned, but Jack was able to find enough ingredients for an omelette. He checked his phone for any messages and paused in surprise.

According to his phone, it was nearly midday. He scrolled through the messages, looking for missed calls from the Doctor, certain he was climbing the walls in his eagerness to be gone but found nothing except messages from Rose that grew increasingly strident in her desire to leave. He swept the messages to one side, sending her a picture of a cat with a party hat on its head, before he set it down. He found himself reluctant to make way. He was used to having Mickey and Jackie around, and he wasn't sure how it was going to feel just going back to him, the Doctor, Rose, and Zoe in the TARDIS once more. The four of them hadn't travelled together – not properly – since their extended stay on Nibiru and Zoe's accidental six-year relocation to 18th century France. He was a little worried that it would feel different now, that the sheer joy and excitement of _before_ wouldn't be matched because things had changed.

Change, Jack knew, was a constant in life, but he was happy with how things were for the first time in a long time. Reluctance pulled at him from every angle. He and Mickey were in the first, tentative stages of creating something special, and he worried that going their separate ways would kill off any of the burgeoning affection that he _knew_ Mickey felt for him. Determined not to think about it as too many nights had already been spent going over and over the possibilities that stretched before him and Mickey, boring his one-night stands with talk of another man, he refocused his attention on the ingredients in front of him when a loud _crash_ had him out of the kitchen and into the bedroom in a flash.

Mickey was on the floor beside his bed, twisted in the covers, fighting against the duvet that was locked around his legs. Once he was sure that there was no danger, Jack relaxed and leaned against the door frame to watch.

“You all right?” Jack asked, trying his hardest not to laugh.

Mickey's dishevelled head popped up over the top of the bed, bleary-eyed and confused. “What time's it?”

“Nearly noon.”

“Christ.” He groaned, face pressing into the mattress. “I want to go back to sleep.”

“I'm making breakfast,” He said, and Mickey looked up again, hopeful. “There's not a lot in the fridge but I can do omelettes, which is better than nothing.”

Mickey sat upright, rubbing a palm across his face. The scratch of his morning stubble against his palm made Jack's stomach warm.

“Don't ever leave,” Mickey said, pulling himself up, and he turned away before he did something stupid like stay forever.

Breakfast was eaten quickly and in silence as Mickey was less accustomed to functioning on a lack of sleep as Jack was; he had to lose a full night's sleep before he started feeling the effects properly, whereas Mickey missed a couple of hours and wasn't quite the same. It was an interesting trait of 21st century humans that Jack had become aware of since meeting his friends, and the Doctor had confirmed his theory that humans from the 21st century did need a little more sleep than the humans of Jack's time simply because of evolutionary changes that hadn't yet taken place.

If he ever went back to the 51st century, which wasn't something he planned on doing, he thought that he would make a good historian or anthropologist on early-modern human society and behaviour. It was all fascinating to him how they behaved the same yet different, and how their attitudes seemed so traditional and conservative in comparison to his own views. The very idea that people were ashamed or disgusted by the idea of a relationship with someone of their own sex was a complete anathema to Jack. Sometimes it felt as though he was talking to people from the Dark Ages, and other times it was like a normal conversation with someone from his time.

“Shower's yours,” Mickey said ten minutes later, looking more put together than before, and Jack slipped past him, taking care to brush their shoulders together, and stepped into the bathroom.

Not a fan of 21st century plumbing, he was in and out in less than five minutes. Despite what the Doctor said, he could be ready in quickly if he so desired.

“Rose is blowin' up the group chat,” Mickey said from where he was sat on his sofa, feet propped up on the coffee table in front of him. Zoe, sick of everyone having what she called _ugly and useless_ phones, had brought everyone new phones and given them a crash course in how to use them so she didn't have to stare at another Nokia or listen to its ringtone; Mickey had taken to his readily. “I think she's ready to leave.”

“She's just impatient,” Jack said. “And she's been ready to leave since we came back on Christmas.”

“At least you didn't have to put up with her whinin' whilst you were gone,” he said. “Do us a favour an' don't get yourself trapped again. I don't think I can put up with _that_ for however long it takes Zo to save you.”

“Come with us then,” Jack said, broaching the subject he knew the Doctor had already covered. “Keep me safe.” Mickey snorted. “Seriously though, we all want you to come.”

He glanced up at him. He opened his mouth only to shut it again. Jack longed to hear what he wasn't saying. “I don't think I'm really built for that sort of life.”

“Rubbish,” he dismissed, sitting next to him on the sofa. “You love it.” Mickey shook his head with a soft laugh, and Jack hesitated. They had talked and talked over the last six weeks but not about this. “Mickey...if it's – if the reason you don't want to come is because of me, I can –”

“It's not,” he said, interrupting him. “I mean, not completely. You an' I...we're...I dunno...but I am really not sure that I can handle the full-time life in the TARDIS. The Slitheen an' then when Zoe was sick...it's not always fun. It is fun, but it's also dangerous. Like really dangerous...an' I don't think that's for me. Not yet at least.”

Jack swallowed and nodded. “I get it.”

“You do?”

“No,” he said, honestly, startling a laugh from Mickey. “But I understand that you're not ready.”

Mickey looked at him closely. “I feel like we're talkin' about two different things here.”

His mouth twitched. “Maybe we're talking about two things at once?”

“You know, I take back what I said last night,” Mickey said, leaning back. “I'm not goin' to miss you at all.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up.”

“Why don't you make me?” Jack teased without thought, and Mickey's shoulders stiffened instinctively. Some of the mirth faded from Jack as he grimaced, kicking himself for his runaway mouth. “Sorry, I didn't mean –”

“It's fine,” Mickey assured him, risking a look at him before releasing a slow sigh. “I'm sorry. I don't mean to do this.”

“This?”

“Blow hot an' cold.”

“You're not,” he said. “And even if you were, this is new for you. And I know I haven't said it before, which is on me, but I'll say it now and then as many times as needed if it helps. I don't expect anything from you. You're my friend, first and foremost. Anything else you want to give me, that's just extra.”

Mickey was conscious of how tight his chest was and how loudly he was breathing. “An' if I can't?”

“Doesn't change anything,” he promised. He hesitated before deciding to risk the rejection. He reached out and covered Mickey's hand lightly with his, slow enough that he had time to pull away if he wanted. “I promise, it won't change anything.”

Looking down at Jack's hand on his, Mickey slowly and carefully turned his palm over and closed his fingers around his palm. His thumb rested against Jack's wrist, and he pressed slightly to feel the quick thrum of his pulse. He was pleased that he wasn't the only one affected by everything. raising his eyes from their hands, he looked at Jack, who waited, patient and kind.

“Okay,” he said softly before clearing his throat. “Okay.”

“I'll text when we're gone,” Jack said. “Tell you what nonsense the Doctor has pulled us into.”

“You say as though you're not right there next to him.”

He grinned. “True. I'll – I'll call as well, if that's all right.”

“Yeah, I'd like that,” Mickey said, and Jack's hand squeezed his gently. Afraid of what might happen if they stayed there, H cleared his throat and looked away. “C'mon, we should head down to the TARDIS before Rose boots the door open.”

“Is that likely to happen?” Jack asked, reluctantly letting his hand go.

“Wouldn't be the first time.”

* * *

The Doctor tried to ignore the _ping_ of Zoe's phone. It was easy at first because Zoe was underneath him, a warm and pleasant distraction from the noise, but even though his mouth was on her collarbone and her fingers in his hair, he couldn't ignore it. Lifting his head from her skin, he glared at the offending item, wondering if he was able to get away with tossing it across the room.

“Why does your phone keep going off?” He groaned. “Is the world ending?”

“Does the end of the world come with a message notification?” Zoe asked, pushing at his shoulder to get some space. He pushed up onto his hands and watched as she rolled under the bracket of his arms and chest to pick up her phone. She looked at the screen and sighed. “It's just Rose. She's trying to get us moving. I think she's ready to leave.”

“Tell her to go away,” he said, putting his mouth back onto the back of her neck whilst she typed a response to her sister. “Or at the very least to be quiet for five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” she chuckled, his fingers dragging up the length of her spine. “Is that all you've got this morning?”

“I might be able to stretch to six if you put the phone down.”

“Hold on,” she said. “There's a message from Drew too.”

“Drew?” The Doctor repeated, lips pulling away from her skin at the unfamiliar name. “Who the hell is Drew?”

“Drew French,” she said. “He's a friend who works at UNIT.”

“Since when do you have friends at UNIT?” He asked, pushing away from her to lie at her side, a scowl growing on his forehead. “Except for Alistair. Not that he's at UNIT any more what with his _retirement_.” She looked sideways at his use of quotation marks. “Who's Drew?”

Twisting around to face him, she looked at him, mouth tilted in amused curiosity. “What is this? Is this jealousy, or is this you not liking the fact that you don't know something?”

The Doctor rested his head back against the pillow, hands linked over his stomach. He considered her question. “A little bit of both, I think.”

“Hmm.” She sounded unimpressed. “Drew's my driver.”

“Your driver?”

“My driver.”

“Are you doing your best to be annoying right now?”

“Yes.” She set her phone down. “Is it working?”

“Yes,” he grumbled, and she laughed. “Why do you have a driver?”

“I'll answer that question if you tell me why you're jealous,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow to look down at him. “Because, I've got to tell you, this right here –” she gestured at him, “not a good look for you.”

“There I was thinking jealousy is an attractive trait,” the Doctor said. He sighed and closed his eyes briefly. “Sorry. I'm being stupid.” She made a sound of agreement in his throat. “There's just four years of life that I wasn't there for. At least the first time we were separated, there was Reinette.”

“And I've told you that there was no one else this time,” she said. “Not even a crush. You've got nothing to be jealous of.”

“I know,” he said, looking up at her. “And I know that this is my problem, not yours.” Her expression softened slightly. “Why do you have a driver?”

“I say driver.” She lay on her back next to him. “He's actually only driven me twice, but we're in the same book club.”

“You're in a book club?”

“Kind of.” She wrinkled her nose and see-sawed her hand back and forth. “It takes place every month here in London, so that's been like once a year for me.” She reached out with a finger and stroked down his nose. He caught her finger between his teeth and chewed on it. “Now, I believe we were in the middle of something.”

The Doctor released her finger. “The mood's gone.”

“Oh, poor baby,” she mocked lightly.“Is the day ruined now?”

“Well, it's not great,” he said, and she poked him in the side. He reached for her abruptly. Startled, she found a fully grown Time Lord on top of her, pressing her into the mattress, his face in her neck as he nipped at her skin. She laughed and freed her legs so her knees were on either side of his narrow waist. “I love you.”

She tugged his hair lightly. “I love you too.”

“Even when I'm a jealous idiot?”

“Even then.”

“Good,” the Doctor said, voice muffled. He felt her heartbeat through her chest, and it felt like he was holding a small, fragile bird in his hands. “We're leaving today.”

“Yes, we are.”

“ _Finally_.”

She patted his shoulder, fingers dancing across the mole that lay between his shoulder blades. “You've been very patient.”

“I have, haven't I?” He said, pleased with himself. “Very few complaints. I feel like I've grown as a person.”

“You're ridiculous.” She squirmed in his grasp but he readjusted his weight to keep her still. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I've got one or two ideas.” His voice was warm and suggestive, teeth sinking into her neck, shivers racing through her. “In fact –” her phone beeped softly. “For Rassilon's sake!”

“That wasn't Rose.” Zoe pulled herself free. “That was my alarm.”

“Why did you set an alarm?” He asked, pained. “It's New Year's Day.”

“Because I knew that you'd want to get moving as soon as possible today, but the others were going to need a lie in, so I set it for midday,” she said, rolling out of bed to sounds of complaint from him. He snatched his discarded shirt from her hands and threw it to one side, leaving her naked and amused at the side of the bed. “Come on, up an at 'em, rise and shine, shake a leg.”

“No!” He laughed through a groan as she started pulling the bed clothes off him. “It's cold. Come back to bed and keep me warm.”

“Up,” she called over her shoulder, and the Doctor pressed his hands over his face, annoyed that his morning with Zoe was not going the way he wanted it to.

She left the door open to the bathroom, knowing that once the Doctor had roused himself he would join her. He did so when she was brushing her teeth in front of the mirror and there was a small jolt of surprise when she caught sight of his reflection. Sometimes she still expected to see his old body, and it was taking longer than she thought it would to adjust to having his thin, lanky frame in her space with his headful of hair and different voice around her, startling her when she least expected it. She knew that it was a hard transition for Jack as well who, one morning not long after the events of Christmas Day, had woken from a fractured sleep and had been so alarmed by a man that he didn't recognise in the TARDIS that he had the Doctor's arm up and behind his back before his memory kicked it. The only one who seemed to have taken the change in stride after the first period of uncertainty was Rose. She didn't seem put out or alarmed by the Doctor coming up behind her in his new body or calling out to her in his new voice.

She watched him potter behind her, finding herself smiling around her mouthful of toothpaste as he stepped into the shower. Their transition from friends to _more than_ had been easier than anything else in her life. There had been no moments of awkwardness, nothing at all that had given her second thoughts, it was just an easy slide from friendship into what they were today. She spat into the sink and tried not to laugh as the Doctor's off-key singing started up. He loved to sing in the showers in the morning and, depending on how tired she was, she found it quite charming.

“The water's getting cold,” the Doctor said between verses of a Frenian aria. “You might want to hurry.”

“The water never gets cold on the TARDIS,” she reminded him. “It's one of her many, many attractive qualities.”

“Zo- _e_!”

She laughed at the whine in his voice and twisted her thick hair up and beneath the bright pink shower cap she used so that her hair didn't frizz in the humidity of the shower. She was in an excellent mood that morning, the best in a long time. she felt light and carefree, and the lack of a hangover was something to be cherished; though, the truth was that since there was nothing that required her full focus and attention any more – rescuing the Doctor and Jack, studying for her exams, building the Delta Wave generator – she felt like a brand new woman.

She had done her part.

She rescued the Doctor and Jack from the Game Station by plumbing the depths of loneliness and the barren wasteland of Skaro, and she did everything she had set out to achieve four years ago. There were no more immediate and pressing matters at hand, there was simply a return to normal life with the Doctor, Rose, and Jack. She was going back to everything that she had dreamt about when trudging to and from lectures and trying to figure out how to build a Delta Wave generator and worrying that she wasn't smart enough to pull it all off. Excitement curled with her, and she grinned widely at her reflection in the mirror before stepping into the shower to join the Doctor.

“You have never looked sexier than in that pink cap,” the Doctor said, pulling her under the stream of water. “C'mere, you.”

“How are you not tired after last night?”

She had kept him up late the night before – or he had kept her up, she was a little fuzzy on the details – and her body was chastising her for it now, but the Doctor looked as he normally did. Even the marks she had left on his body were already gone because of his advanced healing, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“Superior biology,” she mimed along with him. His mouth popped open in mock offence. “Zoe Tyler, are you suggesting I'm predictable?”

“Would I ever dare to insult you like that?”

The Doctor didn't even think about it. “Yes. Without hesitation.”

She pushed him beneath the spray of the shower and enjoyed listening to him splutter at the face full of water he got.

Later, after extricating herself from the Doctor's embrace, she tried to find something to wear. The problem wasn't that she lacked clothes, the problem was that most of her clothes were in her bedroom. The only outfits that she tended to keep in the Doctor's room were some pyjamas and a few baggy jumpers that she liked to slouch about the TARDIS in. She was grumbling as she pulled apart his wardrobe, which contained a blue suit that he was contemplating wearing, a variety of ties and Oxford shirts, and a hand of bananas that she broke a single one off from and ate. She turned around, mouth full of banana and a small frown on her face, and saw him watching her.

She swallowed. “What?”

He shook his head slightly, an almost shy expression stealing across his face and making her focus sharpen on him. He lifted the collar of his shirt so that he could slip his tie into place. “Sometimes I wonder if I'm experiencing Temporal Aphasia.”

“Come again?”

“It's a rare illness that happens to some Time Lords when they reach the end of their regenerative cycle,” he explained. “It's a blurring together of things that were, are, will be, could be, and could have beens.” Her eye twitched, momentarily struggling to keep up with the tenses. “Basically, whatever might have been and could be mix together with past and present to deteriorate a Time Lord's memory.”

She lowered her banana. “That sounds...serious.”

“It is, but it's normally genetic,” he said. “No one in my family had it.”

“Oh,” Zoe said, frowning. “So, why do you think you're having regeneration dreams?”

“Because seeing you like this get to see you like this - sleeping in my bed, showering with me, walking around in your underwear -” she grinned. “After everything that I've done, sometimes it feels like you can only be a dream of what could have been because I shouldn't be this lucky.”

She stared at him, speechless. “I don't know how I missed your romantic side before.”

He smiled, turning his collar down, tie in its rightful place. “I never hid it from you.”

“I think I'd remember sentimentality like this from you.”

“What do you think Planet One was all about?” He asked, speaking of a picnic they had taken years before – a solitary day before she became stranded in the past. “I was trying to be all romantic and soft but you completely missed it.”

“I was seventeen,” she reminded him, holding out her banana for him to finish. “What did I know about love at seventeen?” She smiled a soft, private smile that only he got to see. “Though I do remember the first stirrings of love.”

He looked hopeful. “You do?”

“I thought it was indigestion.” He huffed a laugh. “I think I'm going to have to dash back to my room. I've got no clothes here, and I'm not wearing yours.”

“You look smashing in my clothes,” the Doctor said. “But you also look great just like this.”

“I'm not wandering around in my underwear,” Zoe said, “no matter how sweetly you ask.”

“I think I have a solution to your problem actually,” he said, and she raised her eyebrows. “Move your stuff in here. You sleep here all the time anyway, so we might as well make it official.”

“You're asking me to move in with you?”

“Zo, we already live together.”

“Yeah, on a spaceship that I'm pretty sure contains infinite space.”

The Doctor ignored her faulty understanding of TARDIS science even as he embraced her phrasing. “Move in with me.”

“Won't that look odd?” She asked, surprised by her hesitance. It wasn't as though she was using her room for anything other than a second study space when she wanted a change of scenery after all. “To the others?”

“Not with how impatient you've been lately,” he said with unthinking honesty, only to feel a spark of panic when she lifted her eyebrows. “What I mean is that it'll just look as though you don't want to be disturbed and have asked the TARDIS to hide your bedroom.”

Her jaw worked. “Impatient?”

Deciding that he was already in trouble no matter which way he looked at it, the Doctor ploughed through. “You know you've been awful because of the stress lately. You nearly made Jack cry last week when you went off on him about breathing too loudly.”

“It's like he was doing it on purpose,” Zoe complained, remembered pangs annoyance rising up in her. “No one needs to breathe that loudly. _No one_.” He looked down at his feet to hide his smile, and when he looked back up she was watching him. “You really want me here all the time?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “Why wouldn't I?”

“I know I'm a bit much sometimes,” she said, awkwardly. “What if you get annoyed by me?”

“I've been annoyed by you in the past but I haven't gone anywhere.” He walked across the bed on his knees before reaching out and tugging her into him. They matched heights which made it easier for him to hold her gaze as she had the unexpected habit of going unaccountably shy and awkward at times, reminding him of the girl she had been when they met. “I like having you in my space. I like the fact that my bed smells of you, and I like that your dressing gown hangs next to mine. I even like that your hair clogs up my drain.” Colour prickled her cheeks as she unsuccessfully fought a smile. “Move in with me.”

“Okay,” she whispered, pleased. He beamed at her and leaned in, the tip of his nose brushing hers before he kissed her. “I love you.”

Warmth spread through him, but he couldn't resist the opportunity to tease the shy creature away and bring back his normal Zoe.

“Excellent decision,” he said. “Honestly, truly impeccable judgement.”

It worked, and he watched the uncertain, hesitant Zoe disappear to be replaced by one that gave him a shove against his chest for the pleasure of watching him fall. Pulling on her dressing gown and throwing him a look over her shoulder – pleased and happy –, she slipped out of _their_ bedroom to go and find something to wear.

* * *

As soon as everyone was gathered in the TARDIS for their last meal together, Rose felt her impatience to leave fade. She wanted to get going and plunge into the universe head first, but she was also aware that she was going to miss the fun communal meals that they had taken to having together. It was a treat to have everyone around the kitchen table now that Jackie had relaxed her rigid stance on hating the Doctor. Rose didn't think they were friends, but she also didn't think that Jackie was as opposed to the Doctor as she used to be. She theorised that time and proximity had chipped away at Jackie's hatred for the Doctor to be replaced by something that let her lean over and pour him a fresh cup of tea without any foul looks or sharp words. Rose was going to miss having Jackie and Mickey in the TARDIS; yet, knowing that she was going to miss them by no means made her want to invite her mother onboard to travel with them full time.

She honestly wasn't able to think of anything worse than travelling through time and space with her _mother_.

Shifting in her seat as the general noise of conversation washed over her, her thighs twinged, an ache from too much dancing the night before. After the Doctor had disappeared minutes after midnight, she spent most of the night with Shareen and her old girlfriends that she felt as though she hadn't seen in months.

It was a funny thing.

When she was travelling, she barely thought of them but when she was at home she was always eager to spend time with them. She sometimes thought about telling Shareen the truth about everything but she never thought about it with any true seriousness. Shareen was her oldest friend, but Rose didn't think that she would be able to understand and accept what she and Zoe were doing. Not like Jackie and Mickey, both of whom tentatively embraced the alternative lifestyle.

“I'm not surprised there was a punch up,” Zoe said, her voice pulling Rose from her thoughts, and her eyes watched as the Doctor examined Mickey's bruised temple – unnoticeable unless sitting right next to him. “I'm surprised you were involved though, Micks.”

“He wasn't,” Jack said, forkful of pancakes held aloft from his plate. “He just didn't get out the way fast enough.”

“My back was turned an' I was drunk,” Mickey defended himself, letting the Doctor run the sonic screwdriver over the bruise to encourage the healing process along. “Besides, it was Jonny Dixon.”

Rose choked on her cup of tea. “What, Jonny Dixon was there? When was this?”

“Bout thirty minutes after you an' Shareen left.”

“You don't mean to tell me that someone thought it was a good idea to release Jonny,” Zoe said, scepticism dripping from her. “When the hell was he let out?”

“Last night apparently,” Jackie said. She looked tired and wore the bare minimum of make up, having also got home in the early hours of the morning. “Bit of a nasty surprise when he rocked up.”

The Doctor pressed his thumb against Mickey's temple, testing the injured area. “Who's Jonny Dixon?”

“He's a bit of a character,” Zoe said, tapping the side of her head. “Lots of mental health problems. He was sectioned when I was sixteen. Big to-do about it around here because he had to be physically dragged out of his flat.”

An old, half-forgotten memory flickered into existence, and Rose lowered her tea. “Didn't he once ask you out?”

“Yeah, once, when I was _twelve_.” She rolled her eyes, “Mum went round with her bat to warn him off.”

“Too right I did,” Jackie said. “I always felt a little sorry for him though. He's never really known up from down what with that family of his.”

“Drug addicts,” Rose explained to the Doctor and Jack. “Jonny's mum was strung out on meth whilst she was pregnant with him. 'S what caused most of his problems, I'd say. His dad's not much better. Isn't he still in jail?”

“Who?”

“Big Jonny.”

“Oh, yeah, he's still banged up,” Jackie said. “Reckon we won't be seein' him any time soon. I heard that he tried to knife a guard.”

“Yeah, they don't like that,” Rose said with a nod. “How did Jonny even get released?”

“Turns out he escaped,” Mickey told them, the Doctor finally releasing his face, the bruise no longer a problem. “Got out through a window an' came home. He got taken back at about four.”

“God, I miss _everything_ ,” Zoe complained, pushing her empty plate away from her.

“That's what happens when your bedtime is eight,” Rose said with a grin, and Zoe lazily flipped her off. “Get tucked up with a hot chocolate an' a good book, did you?”

“Nah,” she said with a smile that spread wide. “I went home with a handsome bloke.”

Rose scoffed. “You went home with the Doctor.”

“Hey,” he Doctor protested. “I am a handsome bloke.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, waving her hand vaguely. “A bloke-bloke. Not – _you_.”

“Thanks very much,” he said, mildly annoyed. “I feel so much better now.”

“I think you're both handsome and a bloke, if that helps,” Jack offered.

“As a a matter of fact, it does; thank you, captain,” he said, looking pointedly at Rose whose tongue curled against her teeth in a smile.

Despite her enjoyment of their last meal together for at least a month, Rose was relieved when everyone started making moves to leave. Jackie and Mickey still had a few things left on the TARDIS that they needed to pack up and move back into their respective flat, and Rose herself wanted to take some of her belongings from the flat. Ever since she started travelling with the Doctor, she had kept only the most important and essential items in the TARDIS – clothes, some pictures, her make up – but she was moving most of the rest of her stuff into her room now as she intended to stay on the TARDIS for as long as she could. Jackie's flat was always going to be home, but the TARDIS was home now too. Fortunately, she had done most of what she needed the day before when the Doctor and Zoe were visiting the Lethbridge-Stewarts.

After one final trip up to the flat to grab her last bag of possessions, she sat herself outside the TARDIS on the bench opposite and waited. She was thrilled when the Doctor dropped down into the space next to her as everyone else moved in and out of the TARDIS with arms filled with a variety of stuff.

“Why do humans take so long to get ready?” The Doctor groaned, bored and impatient. Rose poured him a cup of tea from the Thermos she had at her side. He took it with a grumble. “I want to _go_.”

She looked up at him. “You sound about five.”

He stretched out his long legs and slapped his feet against the ground, mimicking a temper tantrum. She wasn't able to stop herself from laughing; he grinned, proud of himself. She nudged him as the TARDIS door opened and Jackie appeared with her belongings.

“Here, you can make yourself useful,” she said just to see if he would.

He threw her a _look_ before jumping to his feet. “Jackie, let me help with that.”

“If you insist,” Jackie said, handing over the duffel bag that Zoe had dug out of the wardrobe for her. The Doctor's arm dropped at the weight. “Ta muchly.”

“Blimey, what do you have in here, rocks?”

“Souvenirs,” she said. “C'mon then. Jack's helpin' Mickey.”

The Doctor turned hopeful eyes to her. “Rose, you coming?”

“Nope.” She grinned at him. “I'm staying right here. Enjoy your trip though.”

He pulled a face at her behind Jackie's back but fell into step with her mother regardless. She shuffled down deeper into her coat and brought her tea back to her lips. It wasn't long left to go, and she was trying hard to keep her calm so that her excitement didn't send her bouncing off the walls.

“Come on,” the Doctor exclaimed, finally losing his patience forty minutes later. “Time and space wait for no one.”

“That's just categorically untrue,” Zoe said, strolling past him with her eyes on her phone. Rose watched as the Doctor turned to track her movements. “Time and space just are.”

“Remind me to keep a closer eye on what you're reading.”

“So you can manage your lies better?”

“Of course,” he said, winking at Rose when she laughed. “Who are you texting anyway?”

“Harriet.”

“Say hi from me.”

“Will do,” Zoe said before turning on her heel and heading back towards the flat without looking up from her phone.

“Now where are you going?”

“Forgot something.”

“ _Zoe!”_

She ignored him and walked casually into the building, leaving Rose to laugh behind her gloved hand as the Doctor spread his arms wide and yelled up at the sky; Jack and Mickey edged around him.

“I still say you should come with us,” Jack said, bumping Mickey slightly. “Plenty of space in the TARDIS.”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, _hey,_ ” the Doctor protested.

Jack looked at him and smiled. “Hey.”

Rose had to look away for fear of coming apart at the seams from laughing too hard. The Doctor fought a smile before he attempted to seize some semblance of control amidst the chaos.

“My TARDIS,” he reminded Jack. “I invite people, not you.” Jack raised his eyebrow pointedly. “But you should come with us. You're more than welcome.”

“You're bein' nice to Mickey,” Jackie observed suspiciously, tucked up in her warm coat, hands buried deep in her pockets. “You sure you're still the Doctor?”

Rose did laugh at that, and the Doctor pointed a warning in her direction that served only to make everything funnier.

“Thanks, boss,” Mickey said with an easy grin, eyes darting to Jack briefly. “But I'm good here for now. 'Sides, someone's got to keep Jackie out of trouble.”

“Good luck to you,” he said only to yelp when Jackie reached out to pinch his side, and a look of relief crossed his face when Zoe reappeared, phone away and a book in her hand. “You went back for a book? Why am I even surprised? Of course you went back for a book.”

“Stop complaining,” she said, unaffected by his exasperation. “This is the last thing I needed.”

“Are you sure?” He asked. “You don't think you'll need the kitchen sink? The hoover? A bloody washing machine?”

“Do stop your whining,” she said. “It makes you sound like a child.”

The Doctor scowled at the back of her head as she turned to hug Jackie tightly, and that was the catalyst for a round of tight embraces and final pats on the back. Rose found herself in her mother's arms, breathing in the smell of home, before Jackie released her and kissed her forehead with a glimmer of wetness in her eyes. Rose hoped fervently that Jackie wasn't about to start crying as that almost always set Zoe off – or at least it had done _before_. She yelped when Mickey lifted her off her feet in an enthusiastic embrace, turning her around in circles before she was begging to be put down just in time for them to see Jackie and the Doctor share an awkward handshake hug.

“The next time I see you lot it'd better be no more than a month on your end, you hear me?” She told him. “I'm not missin' out on any more of my daughters' lives. If I do –”

“We'll be back before you know it,” he promised, crossing his hearts. “You won't even have time to miss us.”

Jackie narrowed her eyes, and the Doctor wanted to take a step back. “I'd better not.”

“All right, let's go, let's go, let's go,” Zoe said, clapping her hands. “Love you, Mum; love you, Micks, see you both soon. Mickey, take care of Mum for me.”

“You got it,” Mickey said, bumping fists with her before nodding to Jack, having already said their goodbyes in private. “Stay safe out there.”

“Call us if you need us,” Jack said. “We'll be here.”

“Count on it,” he nodded, and they hesitated before they shared one last hug and then Jack stepped into the TARDIS and was out of sight before Mickey felt the sharp ache of loss.

Rose hurried into the TARDIS after Jack and turned, one last time, to wave through the open door before the Doctor entered and shut the door firmly behind him. The second it shut the Doctor strode past her and flung a lever on the console before slapping his hand down on a button. The ship vibrated beneath her feet with the telltale sign of the dematerialisation procedure occurring, and the Time Rotor began to shift. Rose let out a whoop of delight as its light blue glow casting its light across her face.

“And we're off,” Jack cried, arms in the air.

He looped an arm around the Doctor's waist and pressed a kiss to his cheek. The Doctor's face contorted in disgust at how wet it was. “Watch it!”

“Where are we going then, Doc?” Jack asked excitedly, thrumming with delight and excitement that overpowered his sadness at leaving Mickey behind. “Felspoon? Quiesca? The Rings of Akhaten?”

“Somewhere even better,” he promised, scrubbing at his cheek with his sleeve-covered hand. “Everyone hold on tight!”

Tipping to one side, Rose laughed. “Where are we goin'?”

“Do you remember the Horsehead Nebula?”

“I remember ridin' it like a roller coaster!”

“Well, right now, there's an exploding dionosphere travelling through space at just under the speed of light,” the Doctor said, hands flicking switches and pulling levers and pressing buttons. “It's about to enter the Argos Cluster, which means that it's the perfect time for us to ride the wave of its explosion right to the edge of the Milky Way.”

“What's a dinosaur sphere?” Rose asked, eyes bright and cheeks flushed.

“Dionosphere,” Jack corrected with a laugh. “It's this huge well of gravimetric pressure that builds and builds and builds over billions of years until it explodes outwards with a force strong enough to push stars out of alignment.” He looked to the Doctor. “And you want us to ride it?”

Zoe laughed. “Sounds like fun!”

“It sounds insane,” Rose said even as she gripped the edge of the console, remembering how violently exciting the Horsehead Nebula had been.

“All the best plans are.” The Doctor's teeth flashed behind a grin. “Ready?”

“No,” cried, but she was laughing too hard for him to take her seriously.

“Yes,” Jack and Zoe said together.

The Doctor propelled the TARDIS into the path of the dionosphere and let go of the controls.

Rose screamed in delight as she was lifted off her feet as gravity became non-existent and the TARDIS tumbled around and around; she caught hold of Jack's hands and spun him so that he flew across the console room with a loud laugh. Suddenly, gravity returned, and they were pulled to the ground only to be flung back up before they hit the grating. From the corner of her eye, Rose watched Zoe touched the ceiling with the palms of her hands, pushing herself away and into a somersault, hair flying everywhere. On and on it went with dips and turns and stomach plunging descents at such rapid speeds that she felt her skin pull back against her skull. She wasn't sure how long they were surfing the waves of the explosion for but they eventually all came crashing down to the grating, panting and tingling from the experience.

She rolled onto her back and started laughing, breathless. “That was unbelievable!”

“I'm so dizzy,” Zoe laughed, trying to stand up but she kept falling over like a drunk toddler, and she collapsed across the Doctor. “My legs aren't working.”

“Are my teeth supposed to be vibrating?” Jack asked, his head cushioned on Rose's ankles. “I feel like no, but I can't be sure.”

“You're all fine,” the Doctor said, grinning, arm over Zoe. “Not so insane now, huh, Rose?”

“Nope, still completely insane,” she replied, trying to catching her breath. “Only you'd think of ridin' the wave of a dinosaur sphere when a trip to Disney World would do.”

“Oh, we need to go there next,” Zoe said, rolling over so her nose was nearly pressed against the Doctor's chin. “I still haven't been.”

“Jack? Rose?”

Jack poked at his teeth. “I'm in.”

“You can't flirt with the princesses.”

“Then _what_ is the point in going?”

“Rose?” The Doctor asked, chest heaving beneath Zoe's body, her breath warm against his neck.

Rose was filled with happiness that he wanted her opinion, and she grinned up at the underside of the console she was half under. “Can I flirt with the princes? Aladdin is hot.”

“There will be no flirting,” he commanded only to receive a wave of barely muffled laughter in return. He sighed. “I don't know why I bother. You'll do as you please anyway.”

Happy and delighted, Rose gave her consent to Disney World, and lay on the grating as the Doctor stood on wobbly legs to input the coordinates.

They were finally back.


	5. Chapter 5

Light slanted through the stained glass windows and cast a colourful rainbow across the flagstone floor, falling onto the backs of those prostrating themselves before their new queen who sat high up on the dais. The throne was huge and ornate with elegant curving designs etched into its face, and Rose Tyler looked out over the gathered populace and wished that the others would hurry up. Her arm ached from the pressure of holding a solid gold staff upright, and there was a headache pressing in against her temples from the weight of the crown atop her head. She didn't dare drop the staff or remove the crown as she was acutely aware of the heavily-armed guards in the shadows who were under orders to restrain her if necessary. The only thing she had to be grateful for was that the plain, heavy face of the moon's true heir wasn't nearby because he hated her despite the fact she hadn't meant to steal his throne; it was more that she had accidentally fulfilled an ancient prophecy because of her blonde hair.

And didn't she regret getting Jack to help her dye it the night before?

It was a ridiculous way to choose a supreme ruler as the kings and queens of Kanag, a small moon with a population of five thousand, had absolute power over the Ruling Council and the citizens. The Doctor had argued the point loudly and at length before the council tired of his voice and knocked him unconscious with the heavy hilt of a sword against the back of his head, dropping him like a bag of rocks. The last Rose had seen of her friends was when the guards were dragging the Doctor from council room by his feet; she saw Zoe take a hit to the stomach, doubling over in pain, before she was wrapped up in ropes, causing a stream of foul words to spill from her; and Jack was still fighting when Rose was swept away by the council guards. Whilst she hoped they were okay, she mainly hoped that they would come bursting through the door any second now.

Her elbow finally buckled.

The bottom of the staff hit the ground with a loud thud that shot through the cavernous room. Heads snapped up from where they were bent and sharp inhalations of breath were sucked in at the blasphemy of the act.

Rose felt herself blushing even as she lifted it again. Turning her head, she gave the anointed man – anointed by whom she did not know – a nervous smile.

“Sorry,” she said. “Didn't mean to interrupt. Carry on an' all that. You're doin' great.”

The man continued his task of making her queen. Rose didn't understand the language as the TARDIS wasn't bothering to translate it for her. She didn't think it was due to foul language even though the Doctor still hadn't removed the parental controls; rather, she thought that it was simply boring enough that the TARDIS thought it might send her to sleep. The last thing she needed was to be bored so severely that she fell asleep and dropped the priceless artefacts onto the flagstone floor twenty feet beneath her.

Her head was only safe upon her shoulders because the people believed that she was the queen of the prophecy. If she did anything to convince them otherwise then her life would be forfeit. At least, that was what Yerma, the leader of the council, had told her when she refused to go through with the coronation.

After nearly a year of travelling in the TARDIS, Rose knew that it was sometimes better to simply go along with things; so, she had managed a smile and agreed to the whole farce in the hope that the others would rescue her before it got too far. Considering that she had already been named queen – and Queen Rose only sounded good in her fantasies – she thought it had gone on long enough.

In all honesty, it wasn't a surprise that things had gone wrong. She suspected that something would turn sideways when the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and described the planet as a haven of peace with excellent baked goods. He had the unnerving habit of jinxing things thoroughly with his words and so she had only sighed when she was grabbed by members of the leading council whilst exploring the market and subsequently proclaimed queen. Perhaps she should have listened to Jack and returned to her natural hair colour, but Rose preferred blonde over the mousy brown that reminded her of her time with Jimmy Stone.

Just as she was beginning to consider that perhaps execution was better than holding the staff aloft for a moment longer, there was a glinting flash of light as the sun reflected off something at the back of the room.

Rose stared towards it, hopeful.

It was difficult to make things out from where she was but her skin started to prickle with anticipation. There was a flash of movement along the empty open corridor above her head. She tried to tilt her head back to catch what it was but the crown nearly slipped clean off her head. Without missing a beat of his droning speech, the anointed man reached out and shoved it back up. A flash of pain rolled through her neck, and she grunted. Her arm shook again just as there was the sound of a rough scuffle in the back. It was a small sound but, since the room had perfect acoustics, it sounded as though it was taking place right next to her.

The anointed man reacted openly by frowning towards the back with a disapproving expression on his face. Rose found herself smiling widely when the light brown of the Doctor's coat became visible as he leapt to stand on top of the seats.

“Hey! - Whoa!” He teetered dangerously before correcting his balance. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at her. “She's mine. Give her back.”

“She is the prophesied Queen of Kanag,” the anointed man said, finally lowering his arms to scowl properly. Rose let the golden staff hit against the ground again, breathing out a sigh of relief. “This is her rightful place.”

“Her rightful place is with me,” the Doctor said, and Rose knew what he was talking about but she let herself imagine another context, and her blood warmed colour to her skin. “And I'm not leaving without her.”

The anointed man gave a small, disdainful flick of his fingers. “Kill him.”

“No,” Rose cried, panic sweeping over her, as the guards lifted their swords, the memory of him dying by one still fresh in her mind.

The guards, clad in uniforms of red and gold, didn't have the opportunity to move more than a step. In an explosion of dust and noise, Jack kicked open a side door and burst through with two swords in each hand. He lunged forward with a cry, and the sound of metal on metal filled the hollow room sending those closest to the fight scattering with shrieks of surprise and fear. The Doctor fell back off the seats in the sudden crush of people, the soles of his shoes briefly visible before he was consumed. With an angry sound in his throat, the anointed man grabbed hold of Rose's arm. She finally let go of the staff, watching as it clattered down the dais, dropping to the ground.

“End this,” the anointed man hissed in her face, white spittle flicking against her skin as he hauled her to her feet. “ _Now,_ or watch your friends die.”

“I am your queen,” Rose tried. “Let me go!”

“You ungrateful little bitch,” he spat. “We were to give you the power of the throne if you'd just remained silent.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not very good at keepin' my mouth shut.” She tried to wrench her arm free. “An' I don't want to be your bloody queen!”

“Then you can die here, and we'll turn you into a martyr.”

He withdrew a shining, ornate dagger from within his robes. Rose felt a brief moment of panic before a pair of feet slammed into his side. His eyes went wide, and Rose yanked her arm free as he fell off the back of the dais. Zoe swung past her, crying out as she did so, and Rose's hand shot out to grab the length of material that she was swinging from, pulling her to safety atop the dais. As soon as her feet scraped against solid ground, Zoe let go of the rope and staggered into Rose, hugging her tightly.

“You're okay,” she breathed into her ear, and Rose held her back just as fiercely. She felt Zoe lean to peer over the edge. “Shit. Do you think I killed him?”

“I'm sure he's fine,” Rose lied, not fancying his chances of survival all that much but unwilling to have Zoe feel guilty about it. “Couple of broken bones, an' nothin' more. Hi, by the way.”

Zoe pulled back from her to flash her a smile. “Hello. Hi. Nice crown. You keeping it?”

“God no,” she groaned, lifting it off her head. She sighed audibly when she rolled her neck and it popped. She set the crown down on the throne and rolled her shoulder. “It was really heavy, so was the staff. I've got a bit of a headache, an' my arm is really sore.”

Zoe started patting herself down, dipping her hands into the pockets of her coat and removing a pack of headache relief patches. She peeled off a strip and applied it to Rose's temple. The relief was immediate and much needed.

“Oh, that's better, ta,” she said, taking her sister's hand. They looked around at the chaos of the room where the Doctor was on someone's back and trying to knock him unconscious with the flat of his fists but only serving to deafen the guard as he wore a metal helmet. Jack was having better luck off to the side. “This isn't the smoothest of rescues.”

Zoe laughed, rubbing her free hand over her face. “Criticise later, escape now.”

“What about them?” She asked, gesturing at the Doctor and Jack.

“They'll be fine,” Zoe assured her. “They're the distraction. We need to get going now though. Come on.”

Keeping a tight hold on her sister's hand, they fled down the many stairs of the dais. The attention of the guards was focused on protecting the members of the Ruling Council that hadn't yet fled. Rose caught sight of Yerma hiding behind a pillar, shielding himself from non-existent threats with the body of an ordinary woman. She wanted to turn and help but Zoe set a punishing pace that made her trip on the hem long dress robes. She had to force Zoe to a quick stop in order to strip out of them, grateful for the thin shift beneath that did little to cover her modesty but was at least easier to run in.

Satisfied with her new freedom, they started running again. They ducked under guards that tried to grab her and slice Zoe down, and Rose pulled herself free of those ordinary citizens that had bought into the prophecy surrounding her. A brief pang of guilt passed through her. Kanag was not a prosperous place. It was filled with corruption, greed, and crippling poverty. She was being used as a political tool to quell the growing unrest but the ordinary citizens truly believed that she was there to save them.

“This way!” Zoe threw the words over her shoulder, leading them out of the coronation room by a side door only to pull up short. “Nope, other way. Quick, quick, quick!”

The guards in the corridor beyond charged them, and Zoe slammed the heavy wooden door shut in their face. Down a corridor they went and through an open window onto the lawn below, across the neatly cut grass and beneath a half-finished statue of the late king towards the main walkway. There was an explosion somewhere behind them, glass shattering outwards, and Rose hoped that meant that Jack had detonated one of the EMP devices he tended to keep on his person. They spun around a corner and both of them cried out in surprise at the sight of the prince – the rightful heir to the throne that Rose had accidentally usurped – standing in their path, his sword glistening in the sunlight.

“You took what was mine,” Prince Haricourt said, heavyset features dropping into a terrifying scowl. He swiped his sword through the air. “sAnd now I'm going to –”

Zoe's fist knocked into his jaw. There was a moment of stunned silence before he hit the ground, unconscious.

“Ow, ow, ow, fuck, ow!” Zoe hopped about on her feet gasping at the pain that shot through her knuckles. “Oh my god, that's so much more painful than in the movies!”

Rose looked from the prince to her sister. “Have you never hit anyone before?”

“Once, the Doctor, _ow_!”

“When did you punch the Doctor?” Rose asked, bewildered, the stitch easing in her side as she massaged it. “And why?”

“I was mad at him and a bit delirious with grief, it was a whole thing.” She shook her hand out with a whimper that made Rose want to laugh at how pathetic it was. There was a shout from behind them. “Christ, these bastards don't give up, do they? Run, run!”

“Where the hell is the TARDIS?”

“In the town!”

“We can't run all the way there,” Rose shouted, both of them jumping a low hedge in unison. “I'm wearin' silk slippers!”

“We're not going to run,” Zoe replied, veering them off to the left. “We're going to ride.”

“Ride what?”

“Them.”

“Zoe, no!”

“Zoe, yes!”

Rose had no other option than to follow her sister's plan which seemed to be limited to climbing onto the back of a winged lion and holding on for dear life. Having never ridden a lion before – or even a horse – Rose was certain she never wanted to try after her experience. She plastered herself across the muscular back of the creature, fingers knotted in its flowing mane of silken hair, and she felt it move between her legs. The muscles shifted and rose up beneath her, and the wings dug awkwardly into her calves. To the other side of her, Zoe looked as though she was having the time of her life as she whooped and laughed whilst they rode at such speed that Rose was barely able to breathe. Looming up out of the dark fields that surrounded it,they left the castle behind them, the planet the moon orbited around fat and heavy in the sky.

Making excellent time to the TARDIS – though it felt like hours to Rose – she slid off the back of the creature and ended up on her rump when it immediately took to the air.

“Wasn't that great?” Zoe asked enthusiastically, lifting Rose to her feet. “Lions _with_ wings.”

“I think I'm goin' to be sick,” she groaned, hand pressed into her stomach.

“Hold it for a bit longer,” Zoe said, pulling her into the TARDIS. “We need to rescue the Doctor and Jack. They've probably got themselves arrested by now. Hopefully not executed though. Do you think the Doctor could regenerate if he lost his head?”

“Zoe!”

“Right, sorry,.” She pulled a lever. “Here we go then!”

Rose thought that the Doctor was the worst TARDIS pilot in the entire universe, but Zoe was definitely up there. She got them to where they needed to go, more often than not in the correct time period and that was more than the Doctor was able to do, but it was always a very violent experience that left Rose with bruises speckling her skin. The universe tossed and turned around her before they hit the ground, flinging them both off of their feet. Rose only had time to groan before the doors burst open. The Doctor and Jack fell inside, tripping over each other in their haste, and an arrow flew through the console room to embed itself into a coral strut behind them. They slammed the door shut, and Zoe put them into flight again. Jack fell back against the door, breathing heavily.

“That was energetic,” he panted, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead. “They put up more of a fight than I thought they were going to.”

“We were making off with their queen,” the Doctor said, straightening his appearance out for it looked as though someone had attempted to strangle him with his tie. “Course they were going to fight.”

“Everyone okay?” Zoe asked, leaving the TARDIS to pilot them through the Time Vortex as she saw fit. “No one lost any body parts?”

“We're good,” Jack assured her, eyes settling on Rose. He pushed away from the door and swept into a deep bow. “Your majesty.”

“Oh, piss off.” The Doctor, Jack, and Zoe laughed. “Thanks for comin' to rescue me. I thought I was about to be a proper queen for a second there.”

“Course we came,” the Doctor said, walking up the ramp with his arms stretched out for a hug; she slipped into his embrace and tucked herself against him, feeling the rapid beating of his hearts. “Though it was a nice place to be a queen of. Did you see the banana groves they had? Absolutely cracking.”

“It was also rife with poverty and famine and disease,” Jack pointed out, slinging an arm around Rose's shoulder. “But I think you'd have made a good queen.”

“Not for me, ta,” she said, rubbing her arm. “Holdin' up that bloody golden staff thing nearly broke me an' I hated the crown. Seriously, Prince Harold –”

“Haricourt,” Zoe corrected.

“Whatever,” she said. “He's welcome to it. How's your fist?”

She held up her reddened knuckles. “I've never known such pain.”

“You hit someone?” Jack asked, surprised.

“The prince,” she said, flexing her fingers. “He was swinging a sword at me and Rose, so, you know –” she mimed swinging a punch. “I'm pleased that I knocked him out though. My Krav Maga lessons paid off there. Still though – ow.”

The Doctor clucked his tongue and took her hand in his to examine the knuckles by articulating them beneath his thumbs. “Nothing's broken, but there may be some swelling. Rose, Jack, are either of you injured?”

“Rose probably needs something for her arm,” Zoe said with a glance at her sister. “That golden staff did actually look heavy.”

“I've got some stuff in my bathroom,” she said. “Leftover stuff from that time you made me do yoga with you.”

“I didn't make you.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “I asked if you wanted to join me, and you said yes. Besides, you didn't hear Jack complaining afterwards.”

“I'm just naturally flexible anyway,” he said. “Got me out of quite a few sticky spots back in the Time Agency.” A grin flashed. “And into a few.”

“Right, that's it,” the Doctor interrupted, cutting him off before he could elaborate any further. “I'll just go take care of Zoe then. Jack, you do...something.” hE chuckled. “And, Rose – you might want to put on some more clothes.”

Rose looked down at her thin, short shift and blushed.

“Right, yeah,” she said, embarrassed. “I'm goin' to do that right now.”

“I'll pop the kettle on then,” Jack said cheerfully, stretching his arms out above his head. “This was a fun trip.”

“Of course you'd find being imprisoned fun,” Zoe said, fondly amused. “Never cared for it myself. It's always so cold and boring.”

“The company was good though,” he said before following Rose out of the console room.

She watched him leave. “Strange man is our Jack.”

“Pot, kettle, black.” The Doctor poked her in the back. “Come on, let's fix up your hand before it gets any worse.”

He let her lead the way to the medical bay, always happy to trail along behind her, and considered that Jack was right in roundabout way: it had been a fun trip. Admittedly, they were only supposed to be on Kanag for the breakfast pastries before heading off again – and if he happened to get his friends to take a tour of the banana groves with him, then all the better – but there was something to be said for having Rose crowned queen of the moon and then having to find a way to rescue her. It was exhilarating, fun, and just the sort of ridiculousness that he enjoyed in his travels. Since no one was injured except for a sore arm for Rose and bruised knuckles for Zoe, he let himself relish their morning with a bounce in his step.

Since they had left Jackie and Mickey behind three days ago, their days were filled with an attempt to make up for lost time. Not one of them cared to spend time on Earth – future or past – and so they explored alien markets, went swimming in alien seas, and accidentally joined a protest march against a corrupt government on Saban Minor. Every night his human friends fell into their beds exhausted only to wake up the next morning eager to do it all over again. He knew that they would soon find a balance between their excitement and happiness at travelling again and their need for the occasional sedate day around the TARDIS, but he was happy to oblige them for as long as they wanted.

“All right,” Zoe said, shucking her coat and turning on her heel with flair that he appreciated. “Where do you want me?”

“Now there's a question,” he said, leaning in to take a kiss that was willingly given before he patted the bed. “Up you pop.” She swung herself up and let her legs dangle. “Out of interest, did you ever do gymnastics as a child?”

“Gymnastics?” She repeated, surprised. “No. Why?”

“When you swung from the balcony to Rose you reminded me of the day I met her,” he admitted. “Did she ever tell you about that?”

She nodded. “The Nestene Consciousness and plastic mannequins coming to life.”

“No, well, _yes_ , but what happened when we confronted the Nestene Consciousness?” He asked, taking her hand within his to apply a cool gel pack to the knuckles. She shook her head, curious. “I was being my usual self –”

“Oh, dear.”

“And got myself in a bit of a situation where I didn't have use of my hands any more,” he continued with a look at her that made her grin. “Rose – she'd been handling herself well with the exception of a few tears here and a couple of shouting matches there – she took hold of this metal chain and swung across the Nestene Consciousness to boot the Autons into it and save me. When I caught her she said that she had the bronze in gymnastics.” He was smiling as he fixed her knuckles, the memory a good one. “You reminded me of her when you swung across like that.”

“Well, we are sisters,” Zoe said, and he tapped her thigh in response. “But no gymnastics for me, I'm afraid. I went to a few classes but I was always a little clumsy as a child. I think Mum was afraid I'd break a bone if I kept it up.”

“I don't remember you being too clumsy,” he said, holding her hand steady as he passed a scanner over it.

“I was from the time I started walking to about fifteen or sixteen when I finally learnt to be more careful,” she replied. “You met me when I was perfectly balanced.” He let out a low laugh. “What's the prognosis then? Do I finally get to achieve my dream of a bionic hand?”

“Not today, sorry,” the Doctor said, raising her knuckles to his mouth and kissing them. “You're as good as new.”

“Oh, well,” she sighed. “There's always next time.” He stood up and she caught him around the hip with her bent leg. He raised an eyebrow. “I was hurt. It's traditional to kiss hurts better on Earth.”

His mouth twitched. “I've never heard of that tradition.”

“Look at that, I get to teach you something new.”

“So, this kiss to make it better,” the Doctor began, happy to play along. “Where exactly must I kiss you? Presumably on the injury.”

“That's right,” she said, parting her legs to let him stand between her thighs. “But it's best to give a proper kiss for all sorts of aches and pains.”

“I'm not sure about the science behind this,” he told her, hands on either side of her, slowly leaning in. “There seems to be some faulty reasoning at play here.”

“Good job you're a scientist then,” Zoe said, conscious of everything about him. “You can start an experiment to collect data.”

“Hmm.” He nodded. “That would mean I'd need a variety of test subjects though.”

“Don't you _dare_.”

“Jealous?”

“Absolutely.”

The Doctor covered her mouth with his and enjoyed the way she relaxed into him. Kissing Zoe was his favourite thing to do along with talking to her, spending time with her, arguing with her, and all the other things they did together. He lifted one hand from the surface of the medical bed to push her hair out of the way, distracted by the way his fingers moved through her curls. He felt the now-familiar pooling of heat low in his stomach as her mouth opened beneath his and he tasted the faint tang of the apricot pastry she had had for breakfast on Kanag. He was about to curl his fingers into her thighs and pull her closer to him when something in his pocket vibrated unexpectedly, startling him. He pulled back with a small grunt, and she looked up at him, breathless and confused.

“What?”

“Sorry,” he apologised, keeping his hand in her hair as he searched through his pockets. “Something just vibrated.”

“Vibrated?” She repeated, a little wary. “What exactly is in your pockets today?”

“Just the normal stuff,” he said, digging deep when the vibration occurred again against his thigh. He curled his fingers around the offending item and yanked it out. “Huh.” He stared at the psychic paper in his hand and flipped it open. “That's unexpected.”

She let her hands drop from his shoulders. “What is?”

“Got a message.”

“On the psychic paper?” She asked. “How does that work?”

“The sender needs to have a strong telepathic field,” he explained. “Very few people can actually send messages this way. I can just about manage it but only because I took classes on Gallifrey to be able to do it. All Time Lords did, actually; not all of them were successful at it though. You should've seen some of the messages I got from the Master before he figured out how to do it.”

Zoe filed away the new information about Time Lords to mull over later and glanced at the psychic paper. “What does it say?”

He flipped it around so that she could read it for herself.

_PT - Ward 26. Please come. Bring the Doctor. FB._

“Bring the Doctor?” She read, taking the paper from him. “That's weird. Why would they say bring the Doctor on a message sent directly to you? And what do these mean?” She pointed at the letters framing the message. “PT and FB, some sort of code?”

“Initials, I reckon,” he said. “FB is from whoever sent it, PT is the intended recipient.”

“Who the hell's PT?”

He looked over the message again before looking at her, thoughtful. “Thing about psychic paper is that it's not exactly stable when it comes to getting the message in the right time. I reckon FB is looking for an older version of myself but got me instead.”

“Bit of a crapshoot, then?”

“Bit of one, yeah.” His mouth started to twitch. “And the one thing I know about my future is that there is a PT waiting for me.”

She frowned. “You never mentioned.”

“You're adorable when you're oblivious,” he said. “I'm pretty sure PT stands for Professor Tyler.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “ _Oh_ , right, I'd forgotten about that a little. Blimey. I haven't heard that in a long time. A very long time actually.” The last time someone had called her _professor_ was over ten years ago in London, 1941. “Someone from our future, then?”

“Must be,” the Doctor said. “Outside the family, no one knows about you becoming a professor. Whoever it is though is asking for our help, or rather _your_ help.”

She handed the psychic paper back to him and rested her fingertips against his stomach. “You look worried. Why?”

He rubbed a hand across his jaw with a small frown brewing, his good moon from moments before already faded. “No one's sent a message on the psychic paper since Gallifrey burned. I'm just wondering who it could be and how they know you.”

“Whoever they are, I reckon they're a friend,” she said as he absently played with the ends of her hair. “I can't imagine someone who hates us would say _please_ come.”

“Probably not.” He breathed in deeply and forced himself not to worry. “Well, whoever they are, they're on New Earth.”

“How do you know the coordinates like that just off the top of your head?” Zoe asked, impressed. “I always have to run them through the TARDIS before I know where they are.”

“I've got a very big brain,” he said, laughing at the expression on her face. “What do you say? Cup of tea, and then off we go?”

“Make it a coffee, and you've got yourself a deal.”

* * *

It was a rough and tumultuous ride to exit the Time Vortex and put themselves on the correct course, the Doctor seemingly a little more careless than normal with the controls, and Jack found himself wishing that he hadn't had a quick sandwich as it threatened to make a reappearance. He flung his arm out and grabbed hold of Rose, now dressed in jeans and a purple shirt, so that she kept her footing as the TARDIS exploded with chaos around them. Smoke started to lift from the console; Zoe waved it away, pressing a few buttons on her side – red, blue, then the yellow one twice – and the ride became a little smoother. Not by much but just enough that the console stopped smoking and Jack's stomach settled down.

The TARDIS landed with a jolt, and they were all thrown from their feet. Zoe landed on her knees with a grunt, and Jack ended up sprawled across a groaning Rose who pushed his knee out from between her legs. The Doctor was, as ever, the first on his feet, apparently unperturbed by the rough landing; he reached down for Zoe to drag her to her feet.

“Come on, you two,” he said over his shoulder. “Time's a-wasting!”

Jack helped Rose to her feet and took one step outside before he reached back in and grabbed his coat as the wind was whipping violently against them. Rose dashed ahead, her hair flying around her and caught hold of the Doctor's hand. A small smile played upon Jack's lips at how obvious she was being, but he felt that Rose could smack the Doctor over her head with her feelings and he would still be none the wiser. He shut the TARDIS door firmly behind him and hurried to join the others, shielding Zoe from the worst of the wind as her hair was down and causing her problems.

Breathing in deeply, a small shudder rolled through him at the glorious scent of apple grass that filled his senses. Everything around him was alien and different, which led him to believe that the Doctor had taken them far past the 51stcentury. He stood side by side with Zoe and cast his eyes over the city that was spread out in front of them. It looked to be a clean, functioning city but, despite how many years Jack had been in and out of cities as a Time Agent and then _after_ , he was still a colony boy at heart. Every city looked majestic and wonderful to him in comparison to the barren stretches of his childhood home.

“Where are we?” He asked, diaphragm expanding as he tried to catch another lungful of the apple grass scent. “And when?”

“New Earth,” the Doctor said, “in the year five billion and twenty three.”

“So twenty three years ago, we were on Platform One?” Rose asked, looping her arm through the his and looking up at him; he smiled down at her. “That's so strange. I'm never goin' to get used to that.”

“What's that smell though?” Zoe asked, hand in her hair, holding it back from her eyes.

“Apple grass.”

“Apple grass.” Rose laughed, bumping her hip against his. “Oh, I love this. Travellin' with you, I love it.”

He smiled widely, eyes flickering automatically to Zoe to share his delight but she had her eyes close and was enjoying the wind against her face.

“Why is there a New Earth?” Jack asked, arm draped around Zoe's shoulder as he watched the cars zoom overhead in the air motorways. “What happened to the old one?”

“In the year five billion, the sun expands and the Earth gets roasted,” the Doctor said matter-of-factly, dropping into what they had fondly dubbed his tour-guide voice.

“That was our first date,” Rose said, tongue pressed between her teeth.

“We had chips,” he remembered, and Jack swore that he could feel the roll of Zoe's eyes at that. He coughed to hide his amusement, and the Doctor pulled himself back on topic. “So, anyway, the planet's gone – all rocks and dust and the like – yet the human race lives on. It spreads out across the stars but as soon as the Earth burns up they get all nostalgic. Oh, there's a big revival movement and they find this place. It's the same size as the Earth – the same air, even the same orbit – lovely jubbly. The call goes out, the humans move in.”

“Wait,” Zoe said. “In twenty three years, humans find this planet, colonise it, build cities, _and_ create a centre of commerce?”

“Things move a little quicker in the future,” he explained with a shrug. “Humans have had millions of years to fine-tune their colonisation process. It's kind of like flat-pack furniture these days. Find a planet, follow the instructions – easy.”

“Not my experience with flat-pack furniture,” she said. “I nearly had a breakdown when trying to put together a coffee table.”

Rose started laughing. “I remember that! God, you got so upset that you wanted to throw the whole thing out.”

“It was difficult, and the instructions were in Swedish.”

“Yet Mickey put it together in what? Like five minutes.”

“Yeah, well –” Zoe tried to find something clever to say but blew a raspberry instead.

“Excellent comeback,” the Doctor said. “One of your best.”

“Oh, sod off,” she laughed. “What's the city called?”

“Smooth change of subject,” Jack teased in her ear, earning an elbow to his gut for his trouble.

The Doctor rocked back on his heels. “New New York.”

“Come on,” Rose protested. “Really?”

“It is.” He grinned. “It's the city of New New York. Although, strictly speaking it's the fifteenth New York since the original, so that makes it New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York.” The three of them stared at him, and he blinked back at them. “What?”

“You're so different,” Jack told him, resting his chin on the top of Zoe's head, her hair providing the perfect cushion for him. “I know you're the same man,but sometimes you say something or do something and it's like you're a completely different person. It's weird but in a good way.”

“New new Doctor,” he said with a smile, catching Zoe's eye. “We should get going. The Sisters are pretty strict about visiting hours.”

“Yeah, what are we doing here anyway?” Rose asked curiously as they turned away from the hilltop and began to make their way across the open plains of apple glass. “You said we've got work to do an' then got distracted.”

“Easily done,” the Doctor said, patting her hand. “But Zoe got a message on the psychic paper asking her to visit Ward 26 and to bring me along. Well, I assume it was for Zoe. The initials said PT, I thought that probably meant Professor Tyler.”

“That's odd,” Jack said, glancing at Zoe who was tugging her coat tighter about her throat to brace against the chill. “Aside from the night we met, I haven't heard anyone call you that.”

“Same,” she said. “So, it's probably someone from our personal future, which is kind of exciting. Although, the last time I met someone from my personal future there were –” she cut herself off before she spoilt anything. “Never mind. I just hope it goes better than last time.”

“So we're goin' to a hospital?” Rose concluded. “Which is where?”

“Right there,” the Doctor said, pointing at the large white building that Jack had taken note of earlier. “See the green moon on the side? That's the universal symbol for hospitals. Probably should've parked a bit closer to be honest, I didn't realise it'd be this cold.”

“A brisk walk never hurt anyone,” Zoe said before immediately holding up a hand. “I don't need a list of examples of when someone _was_ hurt.”

The Doctor's mouth closed, disappointed.

They descended the hill to begin the long walk through the grassy fields towards the hospital. It was a walk spent mostly in silence due to the fact that it was difficult to hear each other above the wind without shouting. They climbed over a stone fence and crossed the car park. Jack wanted to stop and touch all the ships that he could, dripping with envy over half of them, but when he set off his second alarm he allowed himself to be pulled away from them like a naughty toddler. Zoe led them through the main entrance of the hospital, and Rose's nose twitched at the smell.

“Blimey, it smells like a hospital,” she complained as the antiseptic smell tickled at the insides of her nostrils. “I suppose things don't change that much.”

“I don't like hospitals,” the Doctor said, looking as though he had been served something foul, hands in his pockets.

“Bit rich, coming from you,” Jack noted, though he wasn't a fan of hospitals himself.

He had spent enough time in and out of them recovering from various injuries obtained in the line of duty that he wasn't thrilled at having to spend more time in them.

“I can't help it,” he said. “I don't like hospitals. They give me the creeps.”

The tannoy system eased gently into life, none of the garish crackling that was a hallmark of the London system, and a pleasant female voice spread throughout the entrance and waiting area. “ _The Pleasure Gardens will now take visitors carrying green or blue identification cards for the next fifteen minutes. Visitors are reminded that cuttings from the gardens are not permitted_.”

“Very smart,” Rose decided after looking around the spacious entrance and reception area. “Not exactly the NHS. Very posh.”

“No shop though,” the Doctor pointed out. “I like a little shop.”

“I'd have thought this far into the future,” she mused, ignoring him completely, “they'd have cured everythin'.”

“The human race moves on but so do the viruses,” he said. “It's an ongoing war, unfortunately. You won't get the common cold here, but you might catch the Hivarian Flu, which is more or less the same but it resists any known medicine.”

“I'll pass, ta,” Rose said. “I had the flu once. Thought I was goin' to die.”

“Really?” Zoe asked, dryly. “You handled it so well though.”

Rose gave her sister a small shove, and Zoe stumbled away with a laugh to find out how to get to Ward 26.

“Hello, beautiful.” Jack smiled charmingly as a member of the nursing staff passed close enough to them to enter the flirtation zone.

Rose stared after her with her mouth open. “That was a cat. A _cat_.”

“Imagine what you look like to them,” he said, turning his grin on her. “All fleshy and furless. They probably think you're naked.”

“This way,” Zoe called from the lifts where, after having consulted a map of the hospital, holding the door open as she waited for them.

“I'd put the shop right there,” the Doctor said, pointing to a corner where there was nothing but empty space. “That's a good place for a little shop.” He looked around. “Hey, where'd everyone go?”

He spotted them waiting in the lift for him, and Rose leaned out to call him over. He hurried towards them, shoes squeaking against the floor only to have the doors shut in his face despite their best efforts to hold them open.

He heard Zoe swear.

“It's all right,” the Doctor said loudly, reaching out to press the button. “I'll get the next one. Just watch out for the disinfectant!”

“Watch out for what?” Rose called back.

“The disinfectant!”

“The what?”

“The disin- oh, never mind,” he muttered, sorry that he was going to miss their expressions. He stepped into the newly arrived lift. “Ward 26, please.” The lift started to descend. “No, I said ward 26 – _twenty-six._ That's up not –”

“ _Commence stage one disinfection.”_

The Doctor sighed. “Wonderful.”

The disinfection process was as unpleasantly thorough as it normally was, but he tipped his head back and closed his eyes, spreading his arms wide to make the most of it. He let out a little yelp of surprise when the powder burst out like rain clouds over him before he flapped his coat to make sure that it dried evenly. Eventually, the doors opened, and he stepped out only to pause. His skin prickled with warning as he looked around the basement. He took in the grey concrete walls and dusty equipment that was out of place in a hospital as advanced as the one he was in.

“This is ominous,” he said, but he walked further into the basement anyway, knocking over a metal pipe that clanged loudly on the ground and echoed around the space. “ _Ssh_.”

The faint sounds of a party up ahead drew him deeper down the hallway. Lights flickered, and he paused in the doorway to a room where a projector was set up. It was showing a film of a party where an attractive woman with beautifully curled blonde hair and a lovely silver dress that gleamed under the light was at the centre of it all. She seemed to relish the attention of those crowded around her, her face lit up with laughter and pleased amusement.

“I mean, you never know what your life is going to be like,” the woman said, her voice a thick drawl of wealth and confidence that nudged at his memory with its distant familiarity. “I'm bored with this drink.” She held a glass out to one side, and someone swept it away. “Anyway – oh, hello darling! Now, don't. Stop it.”

He reached out and turned the projector off, plunging the room into a silence that let him hear the soft squeak of wheels across the floor. He whipped around only to freeze in surprise.

“ _Cassandra_?” The Doctor asked, stunned. “What the – how the hell are you alive? You died.”

Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17, last seen bursting into chunks of soft tissue aboard Platform One, was exactly as he remembered her: apiece of thick, white flesh stretched from corner to corner on a medical stand, metal teeth biting into it to hold it in place, and a flattened face peering back out at him. The eyes bulged from the skin, too wide for where they were held, and there was a slash of red lipstick across what passed for a mouth.

“Aren't you lovely?” Cassandra said, her eyes flicking up and down his body as best they could. “But I'm afraid I don't know you. Not that it matters. You're travelling with Rose Tyler, so I suppose you'll do.”

“Rose?” He repeated. “What do you want with her?” He shook his head. “Never mind, it doesn't matter because it's me, Cassandra. I'm the Doctor.”

She drew in a sharp breath of air through her mouth. He watched it ripple through her.

“Not possible,” she hissed. “I know the Doctor. I know the man who murdered me. You're not him.”

“You killed yourself,” the Doctor scoffed. “But not before trying to kill everyone else first.”

“Prove it,” Cassandra commanded. “Prove you're him.”

“Rose wanted me to save you,” he said, coldly, the memory of that day shamed him but not for the reason Cassandra hoped. It had been a cruel, twisted thing to take Rose there simply she could feel some of the pain he felt at no longer having Gallifrey in the skies. “She asked me to help you, but I said that everything has it's time. Including you.”

Cassandra's eyes bugged against her flesh. “It is you! How? How is this possible? You've changed _everything_.” There was a thread of reedy jealousy in her words. “You really must give me the name of your plastic surgeon.”

He laughed, a mirthless sound. “Tell you what, you tell me how you survived, and I'll tell you –” a hunched form appeared out of the shadows, and the Doctor's words trailed off as he watched it approach, passing behind Cassandra. “That's a clone and not a very good one. He's force grown.”

“That's just Chip,” she said dismissively. “He's my pet.”

“I worship the mistress,” Chip agreed, his form visible through the stretched flesh. He picked up a bottle and began to moisturise Cassandra who sighed softly. “I love the mistress.”

The Doctor's face twitched. “That's a little gross. Why did you create a clone?”

“Chip sees to my physical needs.”

“Please mean food,” he requested. “Tell me how you survived because I saw you die.”

“You mean you killed me,” she said, snidely. “You and your little girlfriend.”

His voice turned sharp. “Cassandra.”

“The brain of my mistress survived,” Chip answered for her, wrapped around the side of her apparatus, possessive and devout. “And her pretty blue eyes were salvaged from the bin.”

“And the skin?” He asked, gesturing at her flesh. “You couldn't have put it back together because Rose complained that she kept finding small bits of you in her hair when she showered.”

“That piece of skin was taken from the front of my body,” she said, simply. “This piece is the back.”

The Doctor's face lit up, a grin started to spread across his mouth, stretching his cheeks. “So, you're literally talking out of your arse right now?”

Cassandra sniffed angrily, slit nostrils flaring as she did so.

“The mistress was lucky to survive,” Chip informed him, eyes wide and loyal. “Chip secreted m'lady into the hospital.”

“So no one knows you're here,” he said. “Of course they don't.”

  
“Chip steals medicine,” the clone continued. “Helps m'lady. Soothes her, strokes her, -”

The Doctor held up a hand. “Please stop, Chip.”

“But I'm so alone, hidden down here,” Cassandra sighed forlornly. “The last human in existence.”

“Not this again.” He rolled his eyes. “There are humans aplenty up on the surface if you cared to look, and so many more out in the universe in their space ships and colonies. You're not even close to being the last human.”

Cassandra spat. “Mutant stock.”

“No, _humans,_ ” the Doctor corrected, firmly. “This, right here, what you've done to yourself, this isn't preserving whatever purity you think is important; it's just about taking away anything that was ever human about you. You're not human, Cassandra, not any more.”

“You set the definition, do you?”

“No more than you do,” he said. “Although, you do have a knack of survival, I'll give you that, and there's something enterprisingly human about that.” He looked around the barren room and took in the pathetic form of Chip, slavishly devoted to his strange mistress. “Don't you get bored down here with nothing to do but watch old films and let Chip stroke you?”

“I've not been idle,” Cassandra said, “tucked away underneath this hospital. I've been listening. The Sisters are hiding something.”

That caught the Doctor's attention, and he turned back around to face her. “What do you mean?”

“These cats have secrets,” Cassandra teased the information, dangling it in front of him. “Hush, let me whisper. Come close.”

“Do I look like an idiot to you?” He asked. “I'm not coming within three feet of you.” He considered his options. “But I do think I can help set you up in a nice, comfortable prison cell. You'll be imprisoned, but it'll be better than this at the very least, and you need to answer for your crimes, Cassandra.”

“I disagree,” she said. “Chip, now!”

Chip lurched forwards and shoved the Doctor hard enough to make him stumble back. It didn't hurt but it did confuse him The Doctor frowned at them before energy shot out from apparatus that lined the wall that he had mistakenly passed over as piping; it held him tightly in his grip as the more he struggled, the harder the energy held him in place.

Cassandra laughed, delighted by her success. “Chip, activate the psychograft!”

“Don't you dare,” the Doctor warned, struggling to break free but it was agony to talk as the energy was holding him so firmly in place that he felt his jaw would fracture under the strain of speech. “They're banned for a reason!”

Pure white streamed down from a the psychograft overhead, and he was furious that he had been so careless as to not take in his surroundings better.

Whilst it wasn't the stupidest mistake he had ever made, it was definitely up there, and Jack was never going to let him hear the end of it. He was all about checking the corners and doors of a room when they were entering potentially dangerous situations, and the one true argument they had had was after their run-in with the Zygons in Berlin. Jack had felt that the Doctor was too cavalier with the safety of the girls and that a little respect of field protocol might be in order, and the Doctor hadn't taken kindly to being told what to do. The two of them had become heated, stepping into each others personal space, bristling, before Rose stepped in and made them cool off on opposite sides of the kitchen whilst Zoe dripped Zygon slime onto the floor.

The Doctor hated proving Jack right but his simple failure at following the very basic protocol that Jack had taught both the girls was going to do just that.

“The lady's moving on,” Cassandra sang with a smirk on her mouth. “It's goodbye trampoline, hel-lo gorgeous man!”

Quickly, so as not to risk giving her any access into his mind, he began to block off his memories and thoughts, throwing up a shell of protection around him. He hoped it would give the others time to figure a way to pull Cassandra from him without causing irreparable damage. Suddenly, he found himself pleased that Zoe had developed an unexpected interest in neurobiology of late, books and journals scattered throughout their room that she dipped into when she had the time. At least she would know to tread extremely carefully when extracting Cassandra.

Even as the pain grew within him, he was glad that it was him on the receiving end of the psychograft as his friends' brains were too delicate and squidgy in comparison to his; at least he would survive this when there was no guarantee that they would. Another burst of agonising pain wrapped around his mind and made him jerk furiously in the energy restraints. He felt himself slip away, a scream tearing from his mouth, and his last thought before he lost consciousness was of Zoe.

The Doctor's body collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.

He dropped from the restraints of the psychograft and hit the floor with a dull thud.

He didn't move.

Chip edged forwards nervously and hovered uncertainly at the side of Cassandra's dead flesh that hung limp and cold in its frame. Looking helplessly between the dead flesh and the unconscious body, he slowly moved forwards. A tattooed hand stretched out to poke the raised shoulder before stopping at the last minute; his mistress only liked him touching her when she commanded it and not before. He whispered to her but she didn't move, she didn't even twitch, and fear started to rise up in him and choke him as surely as hands wrapped around his throat.

“Mistress?” He tried again, shaking. “M'lady?

Cassandra groaned, the world rushing back into her, and she pushed herself up, blinking the lights that danced in front of her eyes away. Everything smelt different – sharper and more tangible. She smelt something warm and spicy that she soon realised was coming from her. She lifted her arm – _her arm!_ \- to her nose and breathed in deeply, pushing the sleeve up to stroke the skin beneath, watching as the dark hair shifted. She _felt_ it move.

Unaccustomed to operating a body after so long as stretched out flesh, she carefully rose to her feet and wobbled. The Doctor was tall, and his limbs felt awkward in her possession. She prodded at his mind only to find that everything had been locked away, which was disappointing but expected, and she stumbled around the room, bumping into the projector. The impact of her hip against it hurt. She paused and touched her side. She hadn't felt that flare of pain in a long time, and she delighted in the dull soreness that followed the initial pain.

She moved to a metallic plate on the wall and stared at her blurred reflection. Her breath caught in her throat. The Doctor's handsome face stared back at her. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling the structure of bones beneath the cool skin, running her fingers over her thin lips and then carding them through her hair before she realised that her heart wasn't racing but rather she had two of them.

“Oh my word.” She pressed her hands against her chest. “That's different.”

“Mistress?” Chip asked hesitantly. “Are you well?”

“Oh, yes,” Cassandra breathed, euphoric with delight. “Very well. Very well indeed.”


	6. Chapter 6

The doors to the lift opened, and three dishevelled and annoyed people emerged from it. Zoe shrugged out of her coat and fanned at the cashmere jumper beneath. She draped her coat over the nearest horizontal surface and began to struggle out of her now-ruined jumper, supposing it was her own fault for wearing something like cashmere when leaving the TARDIS as there was always the risk that she might end up wet, bloody, or covered in slime – sometimes all three if she was especially unlucky that day. The round neck of the jumper caught in her hair and Rose had to help her out of the rest of it, her thin strap top riding up her back in the process.

Jack scowled at his reflection in the perfectly shiny walls, jerking his long coat back into position as his hands tried to reorganise the mess of his hair. He removed the small comb he kept on his person and dragged the teeth through the stiff, tangled strands, pulling on his scalp.

“He couldn't have warned us?” He asked, annoyed. “Not even just a little?”

“I think he was trying to tell us to watch out for the disinfectant,” Zoe said, a little pink in the cheeks from her fight with her jumper. She touched her hair only to pull her fingers away, already resigned to the prospect of having to wash it upon their return to the TARDIS. “That was a little unpleasant. It got to places I didn't want it to get to.”

“I'm still damp,” Rose said with a grimace, shifting awkwardly before running her fingers through her hair. “An' I think I swallowed some.”

As Rose worked out the tangles from her hair, Zoe looked around with interest.

The lift hadn't taken them into the ward directly but had deposited them in what appeared to be a small waiting area with comfortable looking seats, plants that were blooming in one corner, and a TV screen showing the news. According to the rolling banner across the bottom of the screen, the New New York government had approved funding for the creation of a 'Fast Lane' on the Motorway in direct response to a petition from the citizens. There was a pompous-looking woman standing outside the New New York government headquarters to celebrate the fact, and Zoe was faintly amused by how politics never seemed to change no matter the time or the planet.

The smell of disinfectant was stronger in the ward, but she wasn't sure if that was her surroundings or just her The bland artwork on the wall did nothing to comfort and relax, though she was sure that someone somewhere had gone through various meetings and vetoes to settle on the ones that she had before her. She was much more interested in the plants in the corner – large, purple, and glorious looking; reaching out to touch one of the large leaves of the strange plant, it was soft like velvet between her thumb and forefinger. She rubbed a little too hard and the stem came away. Eyes wide, she stuffed it down the back of the white pot and turned, trying for casual innocence and failing magnificently.

She took a step away in order to distance herself from the crime when one of the cat nurses stepped out of the ward, her paws folded neatly in front of her.

“May I help you?”

She spoke in a calm, soothing voice that Zoe felt chip away at tension she didn't know she had. She wondered whether it was something that all of the Catkind were capable of or if it was a learned trait for the profession.

“Hello,” Zoe said. “Yes, maybe. I hope so. We're looking for someone but we're not exactly sure _who_ we're looking for.”

Stitched on the woman's white habit above her right breast – or at least where the breast would be if she was human – was her title and name, _Sister Jatt._ “You don't know who you're visiting?”

“That's right,” she said with a nod. “But I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out if we just –” her fingers performed a complicated motion, “have a gander.”

Jatt blinked at her, clearly attempting to assess whether Zoe was as idiotic as she seemed. Her paws tightened in front of her. “I'm afraid you cannot be allowed to simply walk around the ward in the hopes that you find someone you might know. This is a place of healing, not a zoo.”

“I never suggested it was,” she said. “But I still intend to have a look around, particularly since we were invited.”

“Invited by who?”

“By whom?” Zoe corrected, and Jatt's whiskers twitched. “And that's the question, isn't it? One that I can answer if you let us into the ward to see if we recognise one of your patients. I promise, we'll be as quiet as a church mouse.”

Jatt's yellow eyes lingered on her face. Zoe didn't blink or look away, she merely held her gaze with all the casual disinterest she had picked up in France before Jatt looked away. “I must check with the Matron. Excuse me for one moment.”

she inclined her head graciously. “Of course.”

Jatt turned on her heels and swiped her paw across the access pad. The clear doors gave the softest of beeps before they swept open and Jatt stepped inside. Jack stepped up next to her, his hair neatly styled once more.

“That was an abject lesson in how to make friends,” he said, pointedly. “Isn't there a saying in your time about honey and vinegar?”

Zoe looked up at him with raised eyebrows. “There's also a saying about the futility of beating around the bush.”

His nostrils flared with a huff of silent laughter, conceding to her. “You could've been nicer.”

“I was plenty nice,” she said, taken aback. “I was polite, wasn't I?”

“Don't take this the wrong way,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “But ever since you came to get us from the Game Station, I've noticed that you've been a little more to the point than you used to be.” He raised his hand slightly to quell her immediate reaction. “It's not a criticism, but it is an observation.”

“Have I really been bad enough to warrant you saying something to me?”

“You've not been _bad_ bad,” he was quick to tell her, “and a lot it has been because of the stress you were under from exams, but it's been noticeable.”

Zoe turned to her sister. “Rose?”

Rose looked as though she wanted to be anywhere else but there. “Oh, you know, it's been – you've been a little...” her face contorted, _“sharp._ ”

“Right,” she said, swallowing. “I – er – I know that I've been slightly difficult to leave with the last few weeks, and I've been trying to do better, but I'll try harder in the future.” She wished the Doctor was there. “Thank you for telling me, and I'm sorry if I've hurt you – both of you – with my...sharpness.”

“It's okay,” Rose said with a soft smile. “You've been alone a long time, an' like Jack's said, you've been under a lot of pressure.”

“We still love you,” Jack said, giving her a small nudge to soften his earlier words. She smiled slightly at that. Deciding it was necessary to change the subject, he looked around. _“Where_ the hell is the Doctor? Shouldn't he be here by now?”

“Probably got distracted by somethin' shiny,” Rose said. “I'll text him.”

She removed her phone to do just that, and Zoe took the opportunity to pull herself more tightly together. She had known that she was more impatient of late, but she didn't realise it was bleeding across into all aspects of her life. As much as she hated hearing it, she was grateful that Jack was the type of friend to tell her such things. She vowed to do better when Jatt returned, stepping out from between the sweeping doors that made no noise as they opened and then closed.

“Matron Casp has agreed to allow you to visit the ward so long as you remain quiet and don't disturb the patients,” Jatt informed them. They all nodded their agreement, and she held out small pins that identified them as visitors to the hospital. Zoe pinned hers onto the collar of her coat. “If you'll follow me, perhaps we can identify your friend.”

“Thanks very much,” Zoe said, deliberately making her words warmer and kinder than before. “This is a nice hospital by the way. My sister was saying earlier that it's much nicer than the stuff we have back home. Not overcrowded at all.”

“Thank you,” Jatt said with a small incline of her head. “The Sisterhood have worked hard to ensure that it is a place of healing, respite, and peace.”

“I'd say you've succeeded,” Jack said, falling into step with Zoe. “I don't much like hospitals myself but this one isn't so bad. Is it just your species that works here?” He paused, considering. “I'm sorry though, I don't actually know what species you are.”

“My species is Catkind,” she answered. “And yes, the Sisterhood is filled with my Catkind sisters, so the hospital is staffed primarily by us. There are locals who run the administrative and janitorial departments though as my kind are healers and not well-qualified at other tasks.”

“It must be a difficult job.” Zoe looked around the ward filled with patients of varying hues and levels of illnesses. “Taking care of people when they're sick and scared. It's not a job that anyone could do.”

Jatt looked pleased at the small compliment built into Zoe's words. “It is incredibly rewarding. Ever since I was a little kitten, I only ever wanted to join the Sisterhood. My parents...”

She hesitated, and Rose prompted her. “Your parents?”

“They are proud of me,” she confessed, “but they worried I was too young to make such a decision to join the Sisterhood. The Sisters of Plenitude take a vow to help and to mend but it's a lifelong one. They worried that I would come to regret my decision.”

“And have you?” Jack asked.

“No,” she said softly. “Not for a single moment.”

“I envy you your certainty,” he said sincerely, “and your commitment.”

Her smile was a lovely thing before she remembered herself and carried them through the ward in her wake.

It wasn't as advanced as Zoe thought it would be. The hospital just off the campus from MIT was significantly more developed than the ward around her. There were only six beds in the ward, and they were protected from the curious gazes of those that passed through by a white curtain that was pulled around them. There were no machines that Zoe could see, though she considered that perhaps they were built into the walls, and there were plenty of Catkind for each patient. She thought about Lambeth Hospital where she had had her stomach pumped nearly fourteen years earlier and how there had barely been two doctors and a scattering of nurses for an entire emergency room. It was so different from what she had been used to in her childhood that she experienced a small sense of dream-like wonder.

The patients that were on the ward were receiving treatments for their various illnesses through what appeared to be an IV drip. Each patient's arm had a clear drip leading out of it as a light pink-gold liquid was fed slowly into their system, presumably to keep them hydrated and infection free. She peered through the gaps in the privacy curtains, interested at what lay beyond and to see if there was anyone she recognised, but there was no one; however, being the person he was, Jack twitched aside curtains with no regard for maintaining the illusion that they weren't peeking.

“Excuse me,” a stiff, buttoned-up woman exclaimed. Jack jumped in surprise at the quivering sharpness of her voice. She rose to her feet and looked momentarily imperious. “Members of the public may only gaze upon the Duke of Manhattan with written permission from the Senate of New New York.”

Jack snorted, unable to help himself, and Rose's eyebrows rose on her forehead. Zoe was too distracted by the Duke of Manhattan's arm to share the moment with her friends.

“What is that?” She asked, fascinated, surging forward through the curtains to pause at the duke's side. His arm was stone. The rest of his skin was grey and looked abrasive, but his right arm had turned to stone. Her fingers twitched to touch it. She pulled back at the last moment, uncertain if it was contagious. “It looks like you're turning to stone.”

“Ma'am,” Jatt said, pained, “ _please_. The patients here have a right to privacy.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Zoe said, remaining where she was. “But this is honestly like nothing I've ever seen before. I mean, I once studied the calcification process in the Danubian Glow Worm for a course at uni, but this is – well, this is so much more than that. What is this?” She looked at the duke. “What's happening to you?”

“I'm dying, my dear woman,” the Duke of Manhattan groaned with a theatrical flair that made her quietly jealous. “A lifetime of charity and abstinence and it ends like this.”

“But what is it?” She asked again, fingers hovering. “Can I touch it?”

“Why would you want to touch it?” Rose asked, exasperated. “God, sometimes you're just like the Doctor.”

“I'm not about to lick it, am I?”

“Touch away, touch away,” the duke offered, unable to lift his arm due to the weight of it, but he managed to roll it closer to her. “Perhaps the touch of a beautiful woman before I die might bring me peace in my final hours.”

Zoe found herself grinning at him, oddly charmed. Carefully, she touched her fingertips to the stone flesh and sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Oh, wow, that's actually stone.”

She rapped her knuckles against it.

“Petrifold Regression, my dear, for which there is no cure,” he said, enjoying her attentions. “My life shall soon be at an end, and _oh_ what a life it has been. The things I've done, the people I've seen. Did you know that I once met Plumeria Lin Ityena herself?”

“I didn't,” Zoe said, having no idea who Plumeria was. “How did this happen?”

“It is a disease that often travels in food taken from the depths of the oceans,” Sister Jatt said, hovering uncomfortably by the drawn curtains. “Within sea anemones mainly, though this is a rare and difficult disease.”

Zoe let go of the duke's arm and rested her hand on his shoulder instead. He looked at her with eyes that were beginning to turn rough with the calcification process; soon, she was sure, it would hurt to blink.

“I'm sorry this is happening to you,” she said, his unharmed hand coming to rest over hers. “I hope you find peace.”

“Thank you, my dear, thank you.”

She tried to remove her hand gently but he held on. She tugged it free with a small grunt and gave him one last smile before stepping out of his space. Jatt drew the privacy curtain around the duke again, visibly relieved to do so.

  
“He'll be up and about in no time,” Jatt assured them.

“He will?” Zoe asked, surprised. “He thinks he's going to die. Besides, he's turning to actual stone. How can you fix that?”

“Have faith in the Sisterhood,” she said, simply, as Rose dragged in a breath of surprise behind her. “Now, please, is there's anyone here that you recognise?”

“There is,” Rose said, catching Zoe's attention. “I think I know who sent for us.” She pointed to the corner. “That's the Face of Boe.”

Jack swore in a language that neither of them recognised and that the TARDIS refused to translate.

“That's the Face of Boe!” He hissed in excitement under his breath. “The – Face – of – Boe.”

“He's a giant head,” Zoe said, staring at the Face of Boe in disgusted fascination. “Literally a giant head in a jar. That's – that's something, all right. Rose, are you sure?”

“The Doctor an' I met him before on Platform One,” she said with a nod. “He's the one we're lookin' for, I know it.”

“But he's a giant head,” she repeated. “A really big head.”

“Zo,” Rose hissed with a nudge.

“Right.” She turned to Jatt. “Thank you, I think we've found who we're looking for.”

“Very well,” Jatt said, eyes moving between them uncertainly. “I will leave you with Novice Hame. She is the Face of Boe's personal care nurse.”

“Thank you,” Zoe said, refusing to look at Boe again until she had to as his large face had an odd, hypnotic effect on her. “One last thing before you go, I think my friend might've got lost or possibly distracted on the way here. He was right behind us in a second lift but isn't here yet. Can you ask at for him at reception, please? His name's the Doctor.”

Jatt looked at her. “The Doctor?”

“Just the Doctor,” she repeated. “Thank you.”

Watching Jatt walk to converse briefly with Novice Hame, Zoe turned back to look at the Face of Boe.

She liked to think that she was open minded. She was someone who was as easily at home amongst the aristocracy of the French ruling class in the 18th century as she was on a council estate in London in the 21st century. She had adapted easily to life in the 32nd where there was more diversity and attitudes that often challenged her pre-existing ones. She rolled with the changes in her life and was able to befriend anyone and everyone, and she liked to think she didn't judge people by their outward appearances but the Face of Boe was challenging that. She had never seen anything like him – _her? it? –_ before, and she was staring.

She knew that she was staring.

She just wasn't able to stop.

The Face of Boe was a large head the height of normal man and the width of a car. His skin had a sickly golden-green hue to it that reminded her of a toad's skin. Wrinkles creased deeply on his forehead and around his nose and mouth whilst the rest of his skin sagged within the large, clear container he was settled in. His mouth looked oddly human, stretched across his face and in the shape of bow; instead of hair, he had long, fleshy tendrils that ended in muscular balls of the palest blue; and his eyes were mossy green with the whites stained with burst blood vessels.

“Zoe. Zoe. _Zo_.” She jerked around to look at Rose who had taken her arm and shaken her. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, embarrassed at her behaviour. “Sorry. I didn't mean...sorry.”

Rose frowned, worried, but she brushed it away after a moment. “Can you talk to Jack? I think he's about to have a panic attack.”

Zoe turned and saw that Jack did indeed appear to be on the verge of hyperventilating. She moved forwards quickly and slipped a hand under his arm, pressing her thumb into the pressure point her therapist Yatta had taught her. Jack immediately calmed. “Hey, you okay?”

“Are _you_ okay?” She asked, deeply concerned as he wasn't prone to great excesses of emotion, and she hadn't seen him like this before. “You need to sit down?”

“That's the Face of Boe,” he whispered again. He raised his eyes and saw a lack of recognition in her own. “How do you not know about him?”

“There's lots of stuff I don't know,” She said, keeping pressure against his shoulder. “Is he famous or something?”

“He's the Face of Boe.” She swallowed back the urge to roll her eyes since he was clearly in the middle of something she didn't understand. “He's a legend where I'm from.”

“You're from the 51st century,” she reminded him as though he had forgotten. “That's nearly five billion years ago, give or take a few thousand years. Is he a time traveller?”

“No, no, no.” Jack shook his head. “He's a fixed point in time.”

Zoe blinked at him. “I know I'm not as well-versed in these things as you or the Doctor, but I thought people couldn't be fixed points in time.”

“They can't,” he said. “That's what makes him so unique. He'd be a myth if he wasn't actually alive.” He reached up and covered her wrist with his hand, and Zoe realised there was something childlike and wonderful about his expression in that moment. “It's said that he's an immortal being _and_ that he's as old as the universe.”

Zoe looked over to Rose who seemed just as bewildered by Jack's out-of-character behaviour as she was.

Rose shrugged. “That's about what the Doctor told me about him. I didn't really get a chance to speak with him last time though what with everythin' that was goin' on, but the Doctor had a chat with him at the end.”

“Then big brain like that and as old as he is, I reckon he could send out a telepathic message to the psychic paper, don't you?” Zoe said, and Jack nodded.

“I can't believe the Doctor is missing this,” Jack muttered, shaking his head as though trying to regain his equilibrium. “Of all the times to go for a walk.” He looked to them, worried. “Do I look okay.”

“You look great,” Rose assured him.

“Gorgeous as always,” Zoe said, giving him a gentle tug to unstick his feet in order to lead them over to Novice Hame who was waiting patiently for them by Boe. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Not at all,” Novice Hame said, bowing slightly at the waist before them. “It pleases me to see that the Face of Boe has visitors. How well do you know him?”

“Not at all,” She said, honestly, gesturing at her sister. “But Rose met him once on Platform One some years ago. Can I ask what's wrong with him?”

Her yellow eyes flickered sadly before lowering. “I'm so sorry, I thought you knew. The Face of Boe is dying.”

“Of what?” Rose asked.

“Old age, the one thing we can't cure,” Hame said, features touched with sadness. “He's thousands of years old. Some people say millions, although that's impossible.”

“Improbable,” she said, looking at Boe, “not impossible.”

The Face of Boe turned his large eyes onto her, and she felt split open and stripped naked before him. The Doctor had once said that humans had no capacity for telepathy, and the rare human that did have the ability was always on the lower end of the spectrum. Yet, as she looked into Boe's eyes, she felt him in her head. Never before had she been aware of space in her mind, but she was acutely conscious of it now that it was filled with Boe's presence. She swayed on the spot, and Jack was there to grip her elbow and keep her upright, handling Boe's presence in his own mind with much more ease.

“ _Professor Tyler,_ ” Boe's deep, resonant voice said directly into her mind and those of her friends, his tone shrouded with respect. “ _It's been so long since we last met. It brings me joy to see you once again._ ”

“Hello,” Zoe said, her words shaking as her heart hammered in her chest. It was an unexpectedly visceral reaction that threw her off balance. “I'm sorry, but this is the first time I'm meeting you.” She shook her head. “Time travel, I'm sure you know how it is.”

His laughter was warm and honeyed. _“That I do. Still, no matter where we are in our friendship, it is always wonderful to see you.”_

Zoe swallowed and nodded her head as kindly as she was able. Boe's eyes moved from Zoe to Jack who shivered under the gaze.

“ _Javic._ ” There was a rich vein of warmth and affection when he spoke to Jack that made Rose's breath catch next to Zoe. “ _It's an unexpected and most welcome pleasure to see your face again after all these years._ ”

So taken aback was she by the tone of Boe's voice that it took a second for Zoe to realise that Jack had been called Javic. She looked at him and saw that he was pale with surprise. “How do you know that name?”

“ _I've known you by many names,_ ” Boe said, “ _and Javic is but one of them._ ”

Confusion twisted itself into existence on Jack's features. “You know me?”

“ _Yes._ ”

Zoe glanced between Jack and the Face of Boe before clearing her throat. “This is my sister Rose. You met about twenty years ago on Platform One.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Boe said. “ _Hello again, Rose Tyler_.”

Rose waved her fingers in greeting. “Hi, Boe.”

“ _But where is the Doctor?_ ” He asked. “ _Should he not be here, or have I misjudged?_ ”

“He's somewhere in the hospital,” Zoe said. “I think he got distracted by something.”

He laughed again. “ _That sounds like the Doctor I know._ ”

“You're the one who sent us the message then?” She clarified, and she felt Boe nod in her head, which was a strange sensation. “Why? Do you need help with something?”

“ _Perhaps, perhaps,_ ” he said, a sudden tiredness sweeping out from him and brushing up against the edges of their minds. Zoe felt her eyes droop and a yawn stretch her jaw. “ _Forgive me_ , _but all that must wait. I'm tired...so tired...I must sleep before we talk_.”

“Sleep well,” she said softly, watching as his eyelids fell slowly over his eyes as sleep claimed him.

His presence slipped from their minds like smoke, and Zoe sighed at having the space in her mind back. She rolled her neck and let her eyes linger on the Face of Boe, curious about how well they knew each other. She watched as Novice Hame drew the privacy curtains around Boe and made sure that his slumbering head was shielded from general view.

“I'm sorry,” Hame apologised. “He gets so tired lately. He finds it hard to be as he used to.”

“Well, he's very old,” Jack said, looking conflicted over the interaction. “It's bound to catch up with a man.”

Novice Hame gave a small, sad smile that seemed to live eternally upon her face. “Perhaps. Please, excuse me, I have other work I must see to.”

Rose pointed out back the way they came with a questioning expression. Out of all of them, she had handled the interaction with the Face of Boe the best; Zoe felt as though she was still shaking off the hit of having him in her mind, and Jack looked as bad as she felt. She took Jack's hand within hers and nodded to Rose.

Despite how strange it was to have something else in her mind – living and vibrant – she remained interested in why the Face of Boe had sent the message to her via the Doctor as he seemed in no particular hurry to tell her what was wrong or what he needed from her. She supposed that Boe might simply want to speak to someone who understood the universe as the Doctor did, someone kind to share his last moments with, but that didn't explain why he sent the message to Zoe, adding the Doctor almost as an afterthought. Passing through the silent doors again, glancing briefly at the Duke of Manhattan's covered bed space, she rubbed the back of her neck and wished the Doctor was there.

Pulling her phone from her coat, undamaged from the disinfectant shower, she sent him a quick message telling him to get to ward 26 as soon as.

They walked back into the waiting area, and Jack immediately sat down on one of the white seats. He looked done in by his meeting with the Face of Boe. Zoe and Rose exchanged a look before taking a seat on either side of him as the tannoy chimed softly overhead.

“ _Hope, harmony, and health. Hope, harmony, and health.”_

“That was interesting,” Zoe said as a means of breaking the silence. “Not sure I cared having his presence in my mind though. That was a little weird.”

Rose made a sound of agreement. “I felt a bit full.”

“Jack.” She touched his arm. “How are you? You look unnerved.”

He managed a smile but it was offensively false. “I'm fine.”

“You're not,” Zoe and Rose said in unison.

He huffed out an annoyed laugh. “I'll be okay.”

“Course you will,” Zoe said, “but, when he called you Javic you looked as though a ghost had walked straight through you.”

“I haven't heard that name in a long time, that's all,” he said, plucking at the edges his coat, pulling the sleeves down over his hands. “It was a surprise, nothing more.”

“Javic is an alias?”

“Javic's my name,” he said, avoiding their eyes. “The one I was born with, Javic Thane. Jack Harkness is an alias I picked up in London during World War Two from a dead RAF man. I took over his identity.”

“Oh,” Zoe said, surprised but not sure why. “Have we been calling you the wrong name all this time?”

His mouth twisted in a half-smile. “No. Javic – it's not a name I like. I didn't like the person I was when I was him. Jack Harkness suits me better.”

“I agree,” Rose said, tucking herself up against his side. “You'll always be Jack to me.”

He kissed the top of her head, closing his eyes as he did so.

“I don't think we're going to get anything else done until he wakes up,” Zoe said, carefully changing the subject. “And certainly not until the Doctor makes an appearance.”

“Yeah,” he frowned, looking up. “Where is he anyway?”

“I'll give him a call,” Rose said, easing away from Jack with a small sigh. “He's either got chattin' to someone or fallen down a lift shaft.”

“I really hope it's the former,” Zoe said, resting her ankle on her knee. “I'm not ready for another regeneration.”

Jack nodded. “I can definitely live without it.”

Rose lifted her phone to her ears and walked away to make the phone call. Zoe drummed her fingers against her thigh and looked at Jack who looked tired and drawn around the eyes, older than he normally appeared. She worried about him. Too often during their time in Massachusetts she had found him awake in the middle of the night when she was also up; he said he wasn't sleeping well but, sitting close to him, she realised that he might still be sleeping poorly. Beneath his eyes she saw the careful application of concealer to hide the dark smudges that she was sure bruised his skin.

“Are you still not sleeping well?” She asked, deliberately pitching her voice low so as not to attract Rose's attention. He looked at her, mildly surprised by her question. She tapped beneath her own eye. “Concealer.”

A sheepish look stole across him at being caught out. “It's nothing to worry about.”

“But here I am,” she said, “worrying. You can talk to me, you know? I hope I haven't put you off that with my attitude recently.”

“You haven't,” he assured her. “Though I'm really conscious of my breathing these days.”

Her skin flushed with the heat of embarrassment. “That was bad, yeah. Sorry for yelling at you for that.”

“You saved my life,” Jack said. “You can yell at me a couple of times.”

“Stop changing the subject,” she said, and he smiled. “I won't push you tell me what's wrong, but I'm here if you need me. Always.”

“Thanks, Zo,” he whispered, grateful.

She cleared her throat and looked away from him to give him the courtesy of dashing his tears away in private.

“Tell me more about Boe,” Zoe requested when he had blinked away the tears. “The way you reacted to who he was, it's like you have some connection with him beyond the usual fanboy experience.”

“Fanboy?”

“Someone who acts in an enthusiastic way towards something they like a great deal,” she explained. “Imagine what would happen if I ever met any of the cast of Star Trek.”

“A restraining order?”

“You're hilarious,” she said, and he looked pleased with himself. “But tell me about your connection to him.”

“I don't really have one,” Jack said, “but I am from the Boeshane Peninsula.”

Her brow puckered. “I thought you were from Earth.”

“It's an Earth colony,” he told her. “We were named after the Face of Boe because he allegedly founded the colony in the first push out from Earth.” He laughed slightly. “You know, when I was a kid, I used to a be a poster boy.”

“Colour me surprised,” she said, drawing a smile to his face.

“I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency,” he continued, ignoring her with practised ease. “They were so proud of me that they called me the Face of Boe.” He smiled at the memory. “I was so proud of that. Guess I liked the connection between a little nothing boy from the Boeshane Peninsula and the Face of Boe.”

She leaned back on her arm, turning her whole body so that she was angled attentively towards him. “That's really sweet.”

“Yeah,” he said before falling into a troubled silence. “It's just...”

“Just what?”

“I don't know.” He shrugged. “It just felt weird that he knew my old name. Felt a bit revealing, I suppose.”

She took his hand in hers and curled her fingers around him. “Your secrets are safe with us.”

“I know.” He kissed her fingers before shaking his head. “Sorry, I was supposed to be telling you about Boe.”

“I don't mind hearing stories about you,” she said, honestly. “But go on then. Like I said, I know nothing about him.”

“Well, firstly, the rest of Boekind became extinct long ago,” Jack said, rubbing her still-faintly bruised knuckles with his thumb. “Or he was the only one to ever exist. No one's ever been able to discover the truth of it, but it's generally accepted that he's the last of his kind.” Zoe thought of the Doctor and ached for the grief Boe must feel. “And the legends say that the Face of Boe has watched the universe grow old – from dust to dust, they go. There are all sorts of superstitions and secrets around him, but there's one that I think that the Doctor might want to hear.”

Zoe lifted her eyebrows and waited.

“One story says that just before his death, he'll impart his Great Secret,” Jack said. “The one secret he's kept hidden all throughout the lifetime of the universe, and he'll only speak it to one like himself.”

“What does that mean?”

He shook his head. “It's just a story.”

“Tell us the rest then.”

“It's said that he'll talk to a wanderer,” he continued. “To the man without a home, the lonely god.”

Silence fell between them as Zoe turned the words over in her mind.

There was no denying that the description fit the Doctor perfectly.

“Well,” she said finally, “it's not like we can shake Boe awake and ask him what his secret is. I reckon we should find out where the hell the Doctor's got off to.” She watched Rose approach them. “Where's his lordship then?”

“You sounded just like Mum, I swear,” Rose said, and Zoe's nose scrunched up. “He's on his way. Didn't say where he'd been but he was soundin' a bit odd.”

“Doctor odd or actual person odd?” Jack asked.

She considered the question. “Actual person odd, I think. His voice sounded funny.”

“He better not have caught anything,” Zoe grimaced. “He's absolutely miserable when he's sick.”

Rose sat down on the edge of the coffee table. “I don't remember him bein' sick before.”

“It was the year after Reinette died, hen it was just the two of us,” Zoe explained. “He caught a cold that only affects beings with two hearts, so I was fine, but, honestly, it was like the universe was ending.”

Jack chuckled lightly next to her before he abruptly leaned around her, attention caught by something behind her. She had to lean back to avoid being crushed, her vision blocked by his chest.

“Something's happening in there,” he said. “With the Duke of Manhattan.”

“He's probably passed away,” Zoe said, tugging him back. “That Petrifold Regression looked nasty. I don't like to think what it was like for him when it got to his heart.”

Rose jiggled her knees. “What is it anyway?”

“Google it,” she suggested, feeling too lazy to take out her own phone. “I'd quite like to know.”

She watched Rose work her phone, a little amused by how slow it was taking her as she was still getting used to the new technology Zoe had thrust upon her, before she pulled the information up and read it out loud to them.

“Petrifold Regression is a disease that turns the sufferer's body to stone,” she said, eyes on her phone whilst sitting crossing her legs on the low table in front of them. “When affected by the disease, the sufferer's skin turns grey an' develops hard deposits of calcification – whatever that is.”

“The accumulation of calcium salts in body tissue,” Zoe answered. Both Rose and Jack looked at her in surprise. She shrugged, defensive. “I studied Molecular Biology for four years, I know a little bit about the body now.”

“I bet you do,” Jack said with a slow grin.

She rolled her eyes. “Carry on, Rosie. What does it say about treatment?”

“'s like the duke said.” Rose scanned the rest of the article. “There's no known cure for it.”

“You sure about that?” He asked, watching the movement of the ward in the reflective surface of the doors.

Rose waggled her phone. “What it says here.”

“Interesting,” he said, pointing. “Because the duke's alive and not grey any more.”

“What?” Zoe leaned around to peer through the ward doors. She saw the duke clearly, privacy curtains pulled back, skin a healthy pink as he opened a bottle of champagne. “That's a miracle.”

“Is it?” He asked, voice warm against the back of her neck. “Or is it suspicious? Possibly fishy? Perhaps a little hinky?”

She pressed her tongue against her teeth to stop her laughter. “Not everything has an ulterior motive, no matter how many synonyms you use to say otherwise. Besides, Jatt did say to have faith in the Sisterhood.”

“Mmhmm,” he agreed, resting his head on his hand, knee bumping hers. “But the Face of Boe – the actual Face of Boe – sent the Doctor a message to bring you here, and I don't think it's just to say goodbye before he dies.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Come on, Zo. You know this feels a little bit strange, right? Right here.” He tickled her stomach, and she twitched away from him. “You want to investigate.”

“It's a little strange,” she admitted though they all knew that they were going to have a look no matter what. “But they might have found a cure.”

He looked sceptical. “Whilst we were here?”

“Jack's right,” Rose said, eyes sparkling. “We should probably check a few things out.”

“Do we have to go looking for trouble now?” She sighed even as she straightened her legs out. “I wanted a nice quiet hospital visit.”

“C'mon,” Jack said, jumping to his feet and she grinned at his back. He held out his hand to her. “Who needs the Doctor to have fun?”

She took his hand and let him pull her up. She stayed quiet as they descended on the Duke of Manhattan who was in a celebratory mood, demanding glasses of champagne for the three of them, loudly saying to all and sundry that Zoe was clearly his good luck charm. Since Jack and Rose were best placed to take charge of charming information out of people, she sipped her champagne whilst examining the duke's arm afresh. As she poked the lovely, soft pink flesh of the duke's arm, running her phone over it to scan the flesh and muscle that had been stone only thirty minutes before, she listened closely to Jack who was carefully pumping a new Sister for information whilst Rose spoke with the other patients.

“But I thought Petrifold Regression had no cure,” Jack said. “I thought it was a death sentence.”

“Primitive species would accuse us of magic but it's merely the tender application of science,” the Sister answered with pride.

He reached out and poked the duke's fleshy leg. “How on Earth did you cure him though?”

“How on New Earth, you might say?”

“Very clever,” Zoe said, lifting her head. “I do love a good pun, but I'm actually interested in learning more about this cure. I have something of a passing interest in molecular biology and I'd love to learn more about how you cured this.” She looked at the solution that was being drip-fed into the duke. “What's in this?”

“A simple remedy.”

She waited for more, but when nothing came, she shifted. “How... _secretive_.”

“Patient confidentiality is one of our most respected covenants here,” she said, coolly polite. “I don't believe we've met. My name is Matron Casp.”

“Zoe,” she said before pointing to Jack and Rose in turn. “This is Jack, and that over there is Rose.”

“A pleasure,” Casp said, tone implying it was anything but, before she bowed her head and excused herself.

“That was suspicious,” Jack said, accepting another glass of champagne from the Duke of Manhattan who seemed intent on celebrating his recovery in style. “She was acting suspiciously. Did anyone else think that was suspicious?”

Rose frowned at his champagne glass. “How many of those have you had?”

“This is the second,” he said, clinking glasses with the duke and knocking it back. He grimaced. “Ah, that's tart.”

“Duke, do excuse me, I just need a little bit of this solution for analysis,” Zoe said, hands deftly pulling out his IV drip and letting it drip into a small puddle on the duke's bedside table. She inserted the drip only moments after removing it, patting his shoulder. “Thanks.”

She searched her pockets until she found the small, thin stylus that she occasionally used for testing the soil in her garden and dipped the tip into the liquid. Setting her phone down on the table, she watched as it analysed the solution.

“This is weird,” Rose said, coming up behind her. “I've been chattin' to some of the other patients an' Googlin' what they've got, everyone on this ward has incurable diseases but all of them are makin' a full recovery.”

“What?” Zoe frowned.

“Other there, he's got somethin' called Macaroni's Disease,” she said, positive that wasn't the right pronunciation. “Google says it should take years to recover from, but _he_ says he only checked in two days ago an' he's nearly cured. The others have similar stories – terminal illnesses, quick recovery times.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Zoe said, gathering up her phone when it finished its analysis. She grinned at the duke. “Congratulations on your recovery, Duke. Enjoy yourself.”

“My dear, you must give me a kiss before you go,” he called after her, and Jack swept his arm around her shoulders. “I need your luck to see me through!”

“Gross,” Rose said, pulling a face.

“Got to love men trying their luck this far in the future,” Zoe said before showing them her phone. “Look at this. This is a cell-washing cascade. It's so incredibly advanced that when I came across it on Fluren's World, no one had any idea what it was and the temporal bazaar sees stuff from all of time and space. An acquaintance of mine there told me that it wouldn't be invented until the year eight billion and something. This is way too advanced for the time.”

“So I was right,” Jack said, holding her hands steady as he scanned the screen quickly. “Something suspicious is afoot.”

“Oh, absolutely,” she agreed. “But is it a bad thing? They're using the knowledge to help people.”

“Depends on where this has come from,” he said, “and it's never a good idea to speed along development like this, even in the area of medicine. The ripple affects could be catastrophic. We should – _finally_!”

Zoe looked around and saw the Doctor walking towards them. Relief at seeing him safe and sound spread through her and made her fingers and toes tingle. He was walking strangely though as he seemed incapable of keeping his stride steady – one long stride here and then three quick steps there. It was peculiar and made her think that he had ants in his pants.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jack demanded warmly when the Doctor reached them. “You've been missing out.”

The Doctor stopped before them and tugged awkwardly on his jacket. “Got lost.”

“Well, you're here now,” Zoe said with a smile that faltered when his eyes passed over her to settle on Rose. A small frown briefly flickered into existence on her forehead before it was wiped away. “Come look at this, you'll find it interesting.” She walked them back near the duke's bedside, keeping a respectable distance between them in case he made noises about kissing her again. “That's is the Duke of Manhattan, he was suffering from Petrifold Regression but is now completely cured. And that person over there – what was it, Rose? Macaron's Disease?”

“Marconi's,” Rose read off her phone.

“Already getting better,” she continued, reaching out to tug him along with her by his elbow. He moved with her although it was more stiffly than normal. “And this here – I've analysed the IV drip. The Sisterhood have invented a cell-washing cascade, which I don't have to tell you is medical science way too advanced for the here and now.” She turned around and looked up at him. “I really want to find out how they do this because I want to know why it's such a secret.”

“Whatever it is, there is something happening in this hospital,” the Doctor said, and all three of them looked at him, surprised. His voice was oddly accented, rising a little too high and a little too polished on sounds that normally dropped into lazy consonants.

“What's with the voice, Doc?” Jack asked, surprised and uncertain, blinking at him.

“Oh, I don't know,” he shrugged, lazily, his voice sliding through a hilly outcrop of accents and then back again. Something inside of Zoe ticked warningly as his fingers ran across the curve of his neck. “Just larking about, I suppose: new Earth, new me.”

“New new Doctor,” Rose said, looking as bewildered as the rest of them.

“Mmm, aren't I just?” He murmured, eyes sharp and thinking, and Zoe opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong before –

Rose gasped, startled. “Oh my god!”

Zoe's eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open.

The Doctor surged forwards, grabbed Jack by the lapels of his coat and pulled him in. Jack lost his balance and fell against the Doctor, mouth popping open in surprise before the Doctor leaned in and kissed him – _thoroughly._ Zoe felt as though she was watching a car accident happen in real time. It was horrible and traumatising but impossible to tear her eyes away from. Jack's arms pin wheeled in surprise before he gripped hold of the Doctor's upper arms and kissed him back. She and Rose stood there in a state of shock and just watched as there was nothing else they could do.

As quickly as it had started, it ended.

The Doctor pushed Jack away from him. Jack staggered back before slumping down onto the floor, mouth wet and bruised. He had an expression of dazed shock upon him, and the Doctor's hands trembled as he pushed his hair back and smoothed it down.

“Terminal's this way,” he said, breathless, pointing towards the waiting room, his gait unsteady when he left them.

Three pairs of eyes watched him go.

“Am I having a stroke?” Jack croaked, rubbing his chest. “Is this what a stroke is?”

“What the hell was that?” Rose questioned, wide eyed and horrified. “Why –? What the hell was that?”

“I didn't – I mean, he just _grabbed_ me – and –” he babbled. “Did I imagine that?”

“No, no,” Zoe said, weak from the shock of it all. “The Doctor really did just kiss you. Quite thoroughly from the looks of it.” She stared down at him. “Are you okay?”

“I – maybe?” He replied, confused. “Guys, I think there's something wrong with the Doctor.”

“Really?” Rose asked, a bite of sarcasm and almost envy in her voice. “What gave it away?”

“Well, him kissing me was a pretty big – oh, you're being sarcastic.”

“Come on,” Zoe said, helping him to his feet. “We need to keep a close eye on him whilst he's like – like this.”

They found the Doctor at a terminal that he had accessed by prying open one of the pale blue panels that lined the wall to create an aura of peace and healing. He was searching the map with great care and a frown on his face. Even the way he stood was wrong. Normally, he stood with an easy confidence but he looked like he did in the days immediately following his regeneration when his body was still new to him and he was getting used to his new parts.

“You found a computer terminal, that's good,” Zoe said, taking care to stand as close to him as possible so that she could run a scan without him noticing. Worryingly, he wasn't using his sonic screwdriver to access the restricted system within but a map of the hospital was displayed on the screen, and the four of them crowded around it. “I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. Jack?”

“Let's see,” he said, eyes scanning quickly. “Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. You've got surgery, post-op, nano-dentistry, maternity...this is interesting. There's no long-term care ward. Most hospitals have long-term care wards.”

“Could it be a separate buildin' entirely?” Rose asked.

“Maybe, I don't know,” he said. “We're a little too far past my time to know for sure, but everything looks normal.”

“No, it's missing something else,” the Doctor said, impatiently shouldering Zoe out of the way so that he could see better. Jack and Rose were stunned at his rough handling of her. “When I was downstairs those nurse cat nuns were talking about Intensive Care. Where is it?”

Zoe was convinced that something was horribly wrong with the Doctor. He had never, in any moment of heated disagreements or raised voices, thought about moving her out of the way as he had just done. Not once. His hands were always gentle when he touched her.

“Why would they hide a whole department?” He asked, frown deepening, and annoyance thickening in his voice. “It's got to be there somewhere.” He jerked his head at Jack. “Search the sub-frame.”

Jack pressed his lips together with a glance at Zoe who gave a tiny nod. “What if the sub-frame's locked?”

“Then try the installation protocol,” he said slowly as though talking to an idiot.

Zoe felt Rose's fingers knot in the back of her coat, worried.

“Yeah, of course,” Jack said. “Sorry, hold on. Can I have the screwdriver?”

The Doctor looked at him sharply. “What?”

“The sonic screwdriver,” he said again, hand extending. “It'll be quicker with it.”

There was no recognition on the Doctor's face, and Zoe suddenly wanted to cry. Something had happened to him, and she didn't know what but someone had _hurt_ him.

He reached into his pockets and pulled out a handful of items as though not sure what he was looking for. Jack pulled the sonic screwdriver loose and sent pale Starburst wrappers to the floor. Placing the screwdriver against the surface of the interface, the entire wall in front of them suddenly slid down into the floor to reveal a corridor that stretched off into darkness. The four of them stared down the long, dark depths where a cold breeze came up from the end of it, carrying with it a sharp, unpleasant smell. It was as though the room at the end had been doused in disinfectant time and time again but failed to cover the sickly sweet smell nonetheless.

“Intensive care,” Jack noted. “How ominous.”

“Come on,” the Doctor said with uncharacteristic impatience, stepping out of formation and striding off down the new corridor without waiting for them and without so much as a backwards glance.

The three of them looked after him, the silence heavy around them.

“We're all in agreement then?” Zoe asked without taking her eyes off of the Doctor.

Jack nodded. “There's something wrong with him.”

“What's happened to him?” Rose asked, face tight and worry curling in her chest, tightening around her like an iron band. “Why is he like this?”

“Someone's been messing around with his head,” Zoe said.

A dark, sticky anger replaced her fear as it was the only thing that made sense. His lack of recognition regarding the sonic screwdriver, the lack of looks in her direction, the kissing of Jack, all of it pointed to someone or something messing with his mind. A memory of Zoe Heriot slipped into her mind – sunlight falling across her and her cat as she tried to make sense out of her fractured, damaged mind only to grow more and more frustrated with herself as facts and events remained just out of reach. She thought of the Doctor in the same room, and she became dizzy from the anger that crawled through her.

“Someone's been _messing_ with his mind.”

Jack turned his head. “Don't.”

“Don't what?”

“I can hear how angry you are –”

“Of course I'm angry,” she snapped. “Do you have any idea the damage that can be done to a brain when it's messed with?”

“I do know,” Jack said, sharply, and shame filtered in when she remembered exactly _how_ he knew. “But being this angry isn't going to help you think clearly. You need to calm down before we go any further.” She opened her mouth to protest. “Calm. Down.”

Her nostrils flared as she drew in a deep breath. Jack watched her closely. She felt the initial swell of anger fade. It was still there within her but calmer and more focused; eventually, she nodded at him, grateful.

“Come on,” Zoe said. “We're going to find out who did this to him and make them put him right.”

She led the way into the darkness, certain they were right behind her.


	7. Chapter 7

The dampness of the cold air settled in Zoe's throat like a thin film of grease as she led Jack and Rose down the corridor after the Doctor, her anger keeping her company. The thought of someone having the audacity to touch the Doctor's mind, twisting it and playing with it for their own ends, made her burn with rage. After _everything_ she had learnt about the delicacy of the brain, it was impossible for her to comprehend how irresponsible a person had to be to manipulate someone's mind as they had. Years ago, the Doctor had altered her mind in order to accept the changes that looking into the Untempered Schism forced upon her, and whilst it saved her life, it had left her with a few issues that troubled her – insomnia the most powerful amongst them; yet, she was lucky. The Doctor had known what he was doing, more or less. She didn't know if the person who was playing with his mind had taken the same care as he had with her.

If he was hurt, or if his mind was lost to them, she wasn't sure what she would do to the people responsible. For now, all she was able to do was hope that he was still in there and that he hadn't been eradicated away by whatever had been done to him.

Forced to take long strides to close the distance between her and the Doctor, unwilling to let him out of her sight, she caught up with him when he paused the top of a large flight of iron stairs that went up and up to the top of the building and descended into the darkness of the bottom. He didn't turn to look at her, or stretch his fingers out to find her hand, when she stepped up next to him. Swallowing back the feelings swirling inside her, she looked out into the deep, cavernous well of a room that was lined with thousands and thousands of grimy, medical stasis pods. Sickly green lights pressed up from beneath the dirty windows and the white air of the cooling system brushed across them. It was a jarring distinction from the cleanly beautiful technology in the hospital proper.

In her experience, good never came from things hidden away from view.

“This is ominous,” Jack said, hand resting on her shoulder. Her gratitude for his presence filled her and reminded her that she wasn't alone, not any more. “I don't see any maintenance staff. Or anyone, to be honest.”

“It looks like we're alone,” she said, “but let's not take that on faith. Keep your eyes peeled, everyone.”

She stepped around the Doctor, the scan on her phone showing that he was as normal as ever, and put one foot on the top of the stairs. The metal screamed under her weight, and she snapped her foot back, heart racing. It was a long way down to the bottom, and Zoe felt her vertigo shift within her. With hands that shook, she reached out and grabbed hold of the metal railings on either side and focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not the drop that taunted her; no one rushed her, matching her steps until they reached the level beneath them. Stepping quickly off the metal staircase, her stomach relaxed.

“You okay?” Rose asked, quietly, coming up to her side. “That was a bit high.”

“I'm good,” she murmured, pulling herself together. She turned and watched Jack and the Doctor spread out. “Let's have a look around.”

Rose nodded and gave her forearm a squeeze before she slipped off to investigate. Zoe tugged her coat tighter around her, wishing that she was still wearing her jumper as it was cold. She was reminded of a time when Jackie had once dated a butcher in Lewisham and, as childcare was so expensive, she had to take her two daughters with her to hang out in the back room off the butcher's shop whilst she saw her boyfriend – the name of whom Zoe no longer remembered. She and Rose had been happy playing on the floor of the walk-in refrigerator, carcasses hanging down around them, bundled up in their coats. Looking back on it as an adult, it was a weird situation to be in, but the encompassing cold reminded her of that butcher's refrigerator.

The walls were damp and partially covered in a strange, slimy moss that smelt of mildew and mould. Zoe collected a sample from it as Jack tugged the sleeve of his coat down over his palm and wiped the condensation and dirt off the glass of one of the stasis chambers. He peered in through the fogged, distorted glass, stepping up onto the small ledge so that he could see inside. A face stared back at him, and sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

“Doctor,” he said, briefly forgetting before he corrected himself. “Zoe, Rose, over here.”

Zoe looked up from her phone that had analysed the sample as moss with some odd properties that faintly matched with the IV solution she had tested before. The tone of his voice was unusually serious and that was enough to make her stop what she was doing and make her way over to him. Rose hurried over and stepped up onto the small stone ledge only to gasp, dismay filling her features.

“Oh, no.”

“What is it?” Zoe asked, and Rose moved so that she could take her place. She stepped up and – “can you open it?”

Jack nodded. “Not sure I want to, but yeah.”

She stepped back and looked to the Doctor. It was automatic to seek his eyes out and a wave of hurt washed through her to find that he wasn't looking at her. He barely looked interested in what was happening, standing by the railing and watching from a distance. If ever there was an indication that something was wrong with him then it was the fact that he wasn't investigating and asking questions.

The gentle hiss of decompression as the door to the chamber cracked open made her head turn at the exact moment that Rose gagged. The sickly sweet scent of rotten apples mixed with baked bread and the sour smell of rotting flesh drifted together to make even Jack pale, pity etching itself onto his face. Zoe tugged the collar of her coat over her nose and mouth whilst the Doctor simply stepped away, a look of disgust twisting his features.

Inside the filthy chamber, body resting on a thin black slat, was a human being. Sticky, leaking boils dribbled yellow blood-stained puss over skin that was pulled taut and jaundiced with disease, clammy from the fever that burned through him as his overworked immune system tried desperately to fight all the diseases in the galaxy. Dried snot, saliva, and blood was encrusted beneath his nose that had a sore running from the corner of one bloodshot eye to the tip, flesh peeling away to reveal gangrenous muscle and cartilage beneath. In his arms and legs there were filthy tubes that kept him hydrated and nourished whilst those that led out from his hips and stomach removed faecal matter and urine.

The man's white hospital gown was drenched with sweat, dubious stains, and blood; even in his induced coma, he looked as though he was in pain.

“That's disgusting,” the Doctor said, bluntly, covering his mouth as he looked away. “What's wrong with him?”

Jack shook his head, helpless. “I don't know. Zoe, can you scan him?”

Zoe removed her phone and pulled up her scanner, approaching the man carefully, afraid of waking him. Scanning him from head to toe, she stepped back and turned her full attention onto her phone as an excuse not to look into the man's face. Whilst she waited for her phone to analyse the results of the scan, Jack wiped at the surface of another stasis pod and peered inside.

“It's the same here as well,” he said. “Exactly the same actually.”

“What disease is that?” Rose whispered. “What's wrong with them?”

the phone beeped, and Zoe tapped her thumb against the results, watching them spill out onto her screen in a stream of chemical formulae that took her a moment to understand. Confused, she cross-referenced it with the hospital computer – easy to hack into when one knew how – and then with the TARDIS database to confirm.

“Everything,” she said, scrolling down. “It says that he's infected with single disease in the galaxy. They've been infected with _everything_.” She looked around at the stasis pods that lined every level. “God, there must be thousands of people here.”

“What about us?” The Doctor asked, worry sharpening his tone, panic building on his face. “Are we safe?”

“The air's sterile,” Jack said, checking it with the sonic screwdriver. “Just don't touch them.”

“Why?” Rose asked, stricken. “Why would they do this?”

“I don't know,” he said with a shake of his head. “I've seen things like this before but on a much, much smaller scale. Nothing like this.”

“Where did you see this before?” Zoe asked, closing the door to the man's stasis chamber and stepping back, removing a small bottle of antibacterial hand gel and scrubbing her hands clean.

“After I left the Agency,” he said, looking tired. “A few months after I found myself in a spot of bother on Ventris Prime. I hid away in a small lab where they were running an experiment like this.”

“This is an experiment?” Rose asked, mouth twisting. “For what?”

“To find cures, I guess,” he said with a small shrug. “For Petrifold Regression, for Marconi's Disease, for everything. I bet this is how the Sisters have been healing people.”

“Good god,” Zoe breathed. “All these people have been turned into human subjects. This – _this_ is outlawed in our time. How is something like this possible now?”

“It happens everywhere, Zo, and every when,” Jack told her. “That never really changes. But these people, these Sisters of Plenitude, are deliberately infecting people with every known disease in the galaxy so they're able to create cures.” He shook his head, disgust pulsing through him. “'Have faith in the Sisterhood.' That's what Jatt said to you upstairs when you questioned her about the duke. _Faith_. What sort of faith lets people do this?”

“It's obscene,” Rose said with a coldness that wasn't usually heard in her voice. “You said there are thousands of people here. That's thousands of people livin' like _this._ They must be in so much pain.”

Her eyes turned to the stasis pods, and her fingers nervously played with the zip on her jacket.

“Not patients,” Zoe corrected, rubbing her knuckles against her forehead. “Lab rats. They're lab rats. This is the ultimate research facility. It's like Jack said. They're using humans to test their cures on.”

“No wonder the Face of Boe sent the Doctor a message,” Jack said, leaning against the wall, body slumped under the pressure of the truth. “It's not like he can do anything from his jar.”

She turned to him. “You think he knows about this?”

“The Face of Boe is a little like the Doctor,” he said. “He knows things about everything and always more than the next person.”

“I don't understand though,” Rose said, suddenly. Her sleeves were pulled down over her clenched fists at her side as she twisted to face them. “Why won't they just die? If they're so sick –”

“Plague carriers,” Jack interrupted. “They're always the last to go.”

In the shadows, something shifted. Zoe caught the movement from the corner of her eye, and she pivoted on her heel. Their departure from ward 26 had clearly been less discreet than it should have been as Novice Hame stepped out of the shadows and into the dull orange light that fell awkwardly over her. Her whiskers twitched to find herself the focus of their attention, but she stepped forward until Jack's body appeared to ripple with tension and she stopped.

“You don't understand,” Novice Hame said, the hair on her pairs shivering in the cool draft of air from the ventilation system. “It's for the greater cause.”

“The greater cause?” Jack repeated. “And what's then?”

“To save people,” she said, softly. “To _heal_ them. To make them well again.”

“An' what about them?” Rose asked, waving her hand furiously at the stasis chambers lining the wall. “Don't they deserved to be saved, to be healed? You're torturin' them!”

“But they're not real people,” she exclaimed. “They're specially grown for just this purpose. They have no proper existence outside of this life.”

“When you took your vows, did you agree to this?” Zoe asked. “Did you agree to hurt and torture people?”

Hame's yellow eyes looked around her, desperate for help that wasn't coming. She needed to make them understand; she needed them to see the value in what was being done as she had once been made to see it.

“Many years ago, I thought as you did,” Hame told them. “When I found out what was being done here, I too was horrified but I soon came to see the wisdom of this course of action. They are merely flesh grown from human cells. They have no life. They simply are. Don't be fooled by their human appearance, please. They're no more alive than a single human cell in a dish.”

Jack stared at her with realisation creeping into his brow. “You created them. The Sisterhood. You created these people.”

“We grew them in a lab,” she explained. “We tried with clones first but they weren't complex enough to react to the diseases as we needed them to do. We tried bio-cattle too, but it wasn't enough. So, we took samples of human cells, barely more than a scraping, from all those that came into the hospital shortly after colonisation. From that we were able to create our perfect incubators.”

“Why?” Zoe asked. “That's what I'm not understanding, why are you doing this? Science has always been a progression of theory, application, failure, and then another go at it. There have been those who've attempted shortcuts but it never works out for long, so why?”

“Mankind needed us,” Hame said, desperately. “You weren't here when they came to this planet with so many illnesses. They were sick and dying and looking for salvation. We couldn't cope. We tried. We did try. We tried everything but the results were too slow. During the outbreak of the Samalian Virus, 87% of all children on New Earth died. Can you even imagine what that was like? All those tiny burial pods...” her breath shuddered, eyes growing glassy, voice thickening. “They _died_ , and we were unable to stop it. We needed something more, something better, and so the Sisterhood grew its own flesh, but that's all they are – _flesh_.”

Zoe dragged her hand across her face. She looked over to Jack who appeared as conflicted as she was at the end of Hame's tale. Silence stretched between them, the hum of the stasis pods low and steady, lights flickering as the power dipped briefly. She sighed and looked to Hame, wondering what it was that made a person good and a person bad.

“Well, this is a fucking nightmare.” Jack huffed a dry, humourless laugh behind her. “No wonder Boe called us in.”

Hame raised startled eyes. “The Face of Boe sent for you? He knows about this?”

“That feeling that's going through you right now,” Jack said, “that'd shame.”

“What do we do?” Rose asked. “How do we stop this?”

A long, slow sigh pushed from Zoe. “I hate what you're doing here, Novice Hame. I understand it, but I hate it.”

“Sometimes we must do things that require a personal sacrifice to ensure the greater good,” Hame said, quietly.

She thought of the Doctor who had sacrificed everything to make sure that the universe knew peace after the Time War, sending his own people into dust and ash: _I accepted the price and I – I pressed the button_ , he said to her a long time ago. She knew how it weighed on him with restless nights when her presence in his bed wasn't enough to calm the tumult of his guilt. She knew what he would think about the Sisterhood's diseased flesh avatars, always a hypocrite when it came to stopping people making the same mistakes as him, but she was conflicted.

“What sacrifice have you made?” Rose snapped. “You're safe an' warm up in that hospital of yours, you're not sufferin' like these people.”

“They're _not_ people!”

“Enough,” Zoe said, cutting through the argument. She turned her back on Hame and faced Rose and Jack. “If we take apart what the Sisterhood has created here, what are the consequences of that going to be? We'll be breaking apart this planet's healthcare, their scientific research...how's that going to affect New Earth? Are we helping by stopping this, or are we condemning everyone to a short and horrible life when another disease comes through like the Samalian Virus?”

“Zoe.” Jack's voice was deep and serious. His compassion for the Sisterhood was limited, and his sense of right and wrong clear. “We have a responsibility to put an end to it.”

Her face creased. “Do we though?”

His eyes softened sympathetically. “You know what the Doctor would do.”

“Course I do, but I'm not the Doctor, am I?”

Novice Hame watched their backs nervously. “Leave us. Please. Just leave us.”

Harriet Jones popped into her mind and Zoe found herself wondering what her friend would do in her place. She would be horrified, of that Zoe was sure, but she understood the need for allowing people to make their own decisions. As much as she admired and respected the Doctor, Zoe knew that it bothered Harriet how the Doctor made decisions on Earth when he didn't have to live with the consequences of it; yet, Harriet would never choose to turn a blind eye to the sort of horrors that surrounded Zoe now. There was a line that must never be crossed and the Sisterhood had crossed it. She wished there was a rule she could follow – one that told her what to do in every situation but there wasn't. All she had to rely on was herself and her friends and hope that they were doing the right thing.

That was all she could do at the end of the day – _the right thing_.

“I really wish I could,” Zoe said on a heavy sigh, turning back around. “I really wish we could just walk away from this because I know that this decision is going to have consequences I can't foresee, but those people –” she pointed at the stasis chambers. “They've had no one to speak for them their entire lives. Until now. Until us. They are living, breathing men and women that you and your Sisterhood have imprisoned, tortured, and debased in the name of science. I believe you're a good person, Novice Hame, but this has been the act of a monster.”

Jack and Rose visibly relaxed at her decision whilst Hame grew more anxious, her whiskers fluttering madly.

“But think of those humans out there: healthy and happy because of us!”

She shook her head. “Not everything is worth the price that needs paying.”

“But this has saved the lives of so many,” Hame said, desperately. “It's returned people back to their families, back to their lives. How can that ever be a bad thing?”

“The ends don't justify the means,” Jack said, hand warm on Zoe's back. “It never has. We're ending this today. These people are going to be freed _today_.”

Hame stared at them, exhausted from the lies and the secrets but unwilling to give way because she truly believed in the work that was being done. At that moment, the Doctor leaned forwards and broke the tension in the air.

“Just to confirm,” he said, fingers absently stroking the side of his neck. “None of the humans in the city actually know about this?”

Hame looked at her paws. “We thought it best not.”

Zoe's eyes flicked from the Doctor to Hame. “What have you done to him?”

The Doctor didn't look surprised, but Novice Hame did. She shook her head, confused. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Please,” Jack scoffed, arms folded across his chest. “The Doctor isn't the Doctor right now. It's obvious to anyone who's spent even a minute alone with him.”

“There are people dyin',” Rose said. “He'd care, an' he'd be the first in line to shut this down.”

Zoe held Hame's eyes. “I want to know what you've done to his brain. I want to know every single thing that's happened to him because the brain is unbelievable delicate, and whilst his has various fail safes, it's not indestructible. So, I want that information, and I want you to reverse whatever's been done to him. _Now_.”

“We haven't done anything,” Hame protested. “I swear it.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, body curving like a wave when he moved. “I'm perfectly fine.”

“No, you're not,” Rose said. “Since when do you not care about people's sufferin'?”

“And since when do you kiss me?” Jack asked. “There's something wrong with you, Doc. You're not yourself.”

His tongue clucked against the top of his mouth and sighed heavily.

  
“Oh, all right then, little miss know-it-all,” the Doctor said, aggrieved. He scowled at Rose and eyed Jack with a dark look. “Smarty pants.”

“What's happened to you?” Zoe asked, worried.

“I knew something was going on in this hospital, but I needed this body and the help of other minds to find out what.” His eyes swept over Zoe, and it was like staring into someone else's face. “And aren't you a treat? Nice sharp mind, glorious hair. _Mmm_ , I wouldn't have minded taking you instead.”

Worry shifted to anger in the space of a heartbeat. “ _Who_ are you?”

“The last human.” A smile spread, and he dipped into a mocking bow. “Lovely to see you again, Rose.”

Horror dawned like a sunrise over Rose's face. “Cassandra.”

“Who?” Zoe demanded.

Rose gaped. “How? You died. I saw you die.”

“You mean you watched him murder me,” Cassandra said with a scowl. “Let him rip my flesh apart like a monster.”

She scoffed. “You deserved everythin' you got.”

“I'm really confused right now,” Jack said, looking back and forth. “Who is this?”

“A piece of flesh,” Rose spat, stepping closer to her and jabbing her finger into her shoulder. “A piece of bitchy, surgical altered flesh.”

“I'm still confused.”

“You're all so boring,” Cassandra said, rolling her eyes. “Here you are wrestling over the morality of it all. Cry me a river, baby. Honestly, it's been so tedious having to listen to you.”

“I don't really care” Zoe said, stepping forward. “I don't know how you've done what you've –”

Rose dropped, unconscious, and Zoe and Jack stared, taken aback.

Cassandra tucked a small vial of liquid back into the pockets of her trousers. She smiled delightedly at them. “Wasn't that absolutely thrilling, darlings?”

Jack dropped to his knees next to Rose and turned her onto her back, hand sliding around to cup the back of her head, lifting her up. He glared up at Cassandra, the tendons in his neck taut with anger. “What did you do to her? What was that?”

“Oh, just a little something I made for just such an occasion,” she replied. “I must say though, I didn't expect her to go down quite so hard.”

“You've hurt her. I don't understand,” Hame said, claws tearing fine shreds in the skirt of her habit as she backed away. “I'll have to fetch Matron.”

“You do that,” Cassandra said, features sharpening. “Now run along, and sound the alarm!”

Zoe barely noticed Novice Hame scurrying off, her attention focused on the woman in the Doctor's body. Rose had told her about Cassandra once, long ago, after Zoe first joined the TARDIS. They had come back from seeing Queen in concert in Montreal after a week spent on the planet Gaju. The Doctor sent them off to relax and chat and _do whatever it is sisters do,_ and Zoe had crawled into Rose's bed and asked about her first trip in the TARDIS. At the time, she felt that she was fortunate for having a pleasant week on a planet filled with festivals, food, and fun, whereas Rose got taken to the end of the Earth; Rose wove her story of Platform One, the tiny spider creatures, and the Lady Cassandra who had tried to kill them all.

So, Zoe knew she was dangerous.

And she suspected she would do whatever it took to remain alive, which put the Doctor's mind in danger.

It was that thought that stilled her from immediately reacting. She stepped up against the wall and used the shadows to help conceal her as she watched Cassandra pull the small lever on the wall, alarms blaring, lights flashing. Laughter spilled from her mouth, and Zoe's blood chilled in her veins. It was the Doctor but not. None of his usual mannerisms were present, and it wasn't his laugh that swept out. Zoe wondered if this was what the Valeyard was going to look like: the Doctor's face but everything inside of him twisted and wrong.

With the alarms screaming overhead, the noise in the stasis tunnel increased. Cassandra pirouetted, revelling in the chaos that she was creating. Behind her, Jack tried desperately to wake Rose; he reached into his pocket and removed a small vial of smelling salts that he kept in his emergency kit as one never knew when it was needed. Rose shot up, gasping and choking, distracting Cassandra for one vital moment.

Zoe decided to risk it. Trusting in the Doctor's superior biology, she rushed forwards and slammed into Cassandra. Normally, he was stronger than she was by a great deal, and sometimes he had to be careful not to squeeze her too hard when they were in bed for fear of doing more than bruising her, but Cassandra wasn't familiar with the Doctor's strength and didn't know how to spread her weight evenly to keep her stolen body upright. When Zoe's body hit the Doctor's, Cassandra fell beneath the attack. On the ground, Zoe twisted herself around, wrapping her arms and legs around her like an octopus, careful not to knock the head into the ground.

“What have you done to the Doctor?” She demanded, legs immobilising her arms whilst she gripped the neck in her arm just hard enough to render movement impossible but not hard enough to cut off oxygen. “Is he still in there?”

“Oh, yes, crying and screaming and trying to get out,” Cassandra lied, wriggling beneath Zoe to try and buck her off but to no avail.

The Doctor's memories were impossible to access. Unsurprisingly, his mental control was excellent, but it remained irritating as she couldn't even skim the surface memories and retrieve bits and pieces that might give her some useful information.

“Get out of him,” Zoe ordered. “ _Now_.”

“Absolutely not,” she said, trying to buck Zoe off but to little avail, enjoying the press of another body against hers. She tended not to prefer women as sexual partners but her body was responding pleasantly to Zoe, and she wriggled to get more friction. “I quite like this body: lithe, strong, gorgeous hair. Shame about the man parts, but beggars can't be choosers and all that. I think I'm going to keep it.”

“Not on my watch you're not.”

She launched herself up with the strength of her hips and spun herself around on top of Cassandra, who let out a scream and scraped her nails across Zoe's cheek the moment her arms were freed. She fought harder to get away, twisting and attempting to bite whatever part of Zoe she could reach, but it was too late. Zoe shoved her hand into the pocket of the Doctor's trousers, which he never filled with things because it apparently ruined the line of his outfit, and pulled out the small vial of liquid. She bit down on the cap and spat it out before spraying it directly into the Doctor's face.

Cassandra blinked and sneezed before her vision swam.

She groaned and slumped back, eyes rolling into the back of her head. On top of her, Zoe breathed heavily and stared down at the Doctor's unconscious face. She lightly touched his forehead, resting her palm there, whispering a promise to save him when her head jerked up at the sound of something heavy dropping to the ground near her: a pale, tattooed man whimpered on the floor, cradling a bloodied nose.

“Zoe, we need to get out of here,” Jack said, appearing at her side, dragging a drunk-looking Rose with him. “Her minion just activated the cell release. I can't stop it.”

Zoe glanced behind her and saw that there was a countdown on the cells opening. Lights flashed all around as the colours slowly faded from red into green as the systems prepared to release the poor souls within.

“Well, isn't that swell?” She clambered to her feet. “Rosie, you good?”

“I'll be okay,” Rose said, blinking heavily. “I'm already feelin' better.”

“All right.” She nodded and swallowed against her dry mouth. “Jack, you grab the Doctor. I'll keep an eye on Rose.”

“No,” Cassandra's servant cried out, scurrying across the floor like a crab. He clutched hold of the Doctor's arm covetously. “You won't be taking the mistress anywhere without Chip.”

“Who's Chip?”

Jack pointed. “I think he is.”

“Right, yeah.” Zoe shook her head, casting a worried glance at the cells that hissed open. The foul stench from before rolled out, and Rose turned green. “Fine, Chip, you want to protect your mistress, you help Jack carry the Doctor's body. Understood?”

Chip nodded eagerly, already pulling one of the Doctor's arm around his shoulders, trying to bear the weight by himself.

“The Doctor – _Cassandra_ – is going to metabolise whatever that spray was quicker than Rose,” Jack warned. “She'll be awake soon, I'm sure of it.”

“Fuck.” She put her arm around Rose and tilted her upright. “You don't happen to have any handcuffs on you, do you?”

“Nothing that wouldn't break under the Doctor's strength.”

“Shit.” There was nothing for it. “We'll just have to deal with it when it comes. I want to avoid hitting him though. God knows what that'd do to his brain.”

“You got the spray thing?”

Zoe held out it to him, and he pocketed it. “If she tries anything, I'll hit her with that.”

“Thank you,” she said with feeling before pulling Rose forward. “We'll lead the way and find a path for you. Stay close behind.”

“Copy that,” he nodded. “And whatever you do, don't touch the sick!”

Jack heaved the Doctor further up and over his shoulder, locking an arm around his waist. Chip was shorter than him by a good foot so the Doctor was hanging at an angle between them, but he had carried people in worse positions before and so made do. He drew in a steadying breath before hurrying after Zoe who led them out of the walkway and back onto the stairs as the sick stepped out of their stasis chambers, confused and delirious. He didn't dare look back for fear of losing his footing and trusted Zoe to tell him if there was a problem as she kept throwing looks over her shoulder every five seconds with Rose stumbling over her feet, falling twice before she found a rhythm.

At the top of the stairs where they had entered, Zoe pulled back with a cry of surprise as the sick from the upper floors streamed down the old iron stairs and cut off their exit. The stench from the sick swept over them like a storm crashing overhead and diseased hands stretched out to them, words spilling from cracked lips. She turned on her heel, catching Rose who spun and nearly toppled over the side, before rushing towards Jack and Chip.

“Other way, other way,” she urged. “Down, down, down, down, down!”

“We have company,” Jack warned, Jatt and Matron Casp hurrying towards them down the corridor that led back to ward 26. “Seal off the ward! Seal it off!”

Fear settled on their furred faces as they took in the scene before them. Casp's mouth stretched wide with horror. “What have you done?”

“For god's sake, move,” Zoe snapped, impatiently.

Jack propelled himself back into action, hurrying down the stairs after her, the Doctor's feet and shins dragging across the stairs as he did so. Sucking in desperate lungfuls of damp air, the terror that he would put his foot down wrong and stumble, losing his grip on him and sending him hurtling into the abyss below, was a powerful focus for the mind. It was a long way down, and he would never forgive himself if something happened to the Doctor because he was clumsy or inattentive.

Between him and Chip, Cassandra stirred with a small moan. As predicted, the Doctor's body had metabolised the spray quickly and, whilst Rose continued stumbling like a drunk meerkat, Cassandra convulsed once and came to with perfect lucidity. Her stolen body sprang free of Jack and Chip, and Jack had to lunge forwards to stop her careening over the edge. She screamed – a bizarre sound to hear from the Doctor's mouth – when she saw the infected flesh trying to reach them.

Jack gritted his teeth as he tried to grab a flailing arm. “Stop screaming!”

“What's happening?” She screamed.

“We're being chased, _obviously_!”

“Why?”

“Because you're an idiot, that's why,” Zoe yelled back over her shoulder. “Your little minion opened the fucking cells, and now we're being chased!”

Cassandra screamed again as the infected grew ever closer. She clutched hold of the Jack's arms tightly, wrapping herself around him, and Jack never thought he would see the day when he didn't want the Doctor's body wrapped around him. Prying himself free, he grabbed her hand and dragged her along in his wake.

Ahead of them, Zoe shouted something back to them but Jack couldn't hear her over the sound of his rapid heartbeat and the sounds of the alarms that swirled around them, a cacophony of noise that seemed to have been created for the sole purpose of deafening him. Concrete ground appeared under his feet, and he followed Zoe through a messy maze of old hospital equipment, rusting pipes, and dust motes that lingered in the beams of light that slanted through the small windows at the very top of the walls. Zoe slammed her shoulder into a door to open it, teeth clacking together, and they burst into a small, square room filled with an old gurney, piles of plastic, and discarded metal rods. Rose immediately fell to her knees, groaning, and Jack flung the Doctor inside before helping Zoe barricade the door with anything they could put their hands on.

There wasn't a moment to breathe. The second the door was sealed, Zoe spun and grabbed Cassandra. Jack thought she was going to slam her into a wall but, ever conscious of hurting the head, she dragged Cassandra in close instead, Chip squawking in protest.

“Get out of that body, Cassandra,” Zoe ordered, eyes flashing, mouth pressed tight. “Now!”

Chest heaving from the most exercise she had had in decades, Cassandra felt euphoric. “No, thank you.”

It was great fun having a body again – the way her hearts thundered rapidly in her chest, the feel of hair dishevelled above her, the touch of a handsome man's body against her – and she had no intentions of giving it up.

“I'm not asking,” Zoe threatened. “You're going to leave his body now even if I have to rip you out of him!”

“But I've got nowhere to go,” she whined, stamping her foot and at the perceived injustice. “My original skin's dead.”

“How's that our problem?” Rose groaned from the floor, and Jack hurried to her side. “Just get out of him, Cassandra. The Doctor'll help you find another body. He can grow you a clone or whatever – just get out of him.”

“He will not,” she said. “He said he was going to take me to prison. Why should I let that happen?”

“Because you deserve it?” Jack suggested.

“I don't care what happens to you,” Zoe said, seriously. “All I care about is getting the Doctor back unharmed. Get out. Give him back to us. I won't ask again.”

“Fine,” Cassandra said, angrily, upset that she had to give up such a wonderful body, but it wasn't as though she didn't have three other options to choose from. She sneered at Zoe. “You asked for it, darling.”

She closed her eyes and focused on her consciousness, gathering it to her like she was berry picking; she held onto herself tightly before exhaling slowly. From the outside nothing happened, but she lifted herself into the air and out of the Doctor's body. It was impossible to see when she was in such a form, and she had to move by feel and emotions – Jack felt strong and steady, Rose felt young and vibrant – but she focused on Zoe instead. She found her way to her by following the feeling of strength and anger that was limned with deep concern.

_Touching,_ she thought to herself as she flooded Zoe's body, enjoying the sense of panic that was soon squashed. _The poor girl's in love with him._

Pain overwhelmed the Doctor when Cassandra left his mind, and he swayed, catching himself on the wall. When his vision cleared moments later, he touched his body, checking that everything was still in place and looked around the room, relief sweeping him when he saw Jack, Rose, and Zoe.

He blinked at them, wondering why Rose was on the floor in Jack's arms. “Where'd she go? Cassandra, where is she?”

“I don't know,” Rose said, words slurred. “She was in you an' then not.”

Jack stared at him, eyes tight with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I think so, yeah” he said, blinking.. “Sorry. I'm trying to – one minute I was being held by the psychograft, the next minute I'm here. It's a little – where did she go though?”

“Oh, my,” Zoe said, catching their attention. They watched as her hands travelled over her body with a delighted expression on her face, and Jack's stomach sank. “This is wonderful.”

“Fuck,” Jack swore. “Fucking fuck.”

Rose groaned, annoyed.

The Doctor stared. “Cassandra?”

“Goodness me, this is absolutely lovely,” Cassandra said with a laugh, her hands running all over the Zoe's body with an ownership the Doctor found offensive. “Young, energetic, absolutely gorgeous, and what's this?” Her hands went into Zoe's hair. Her eyes went wide. “And all this hair! My, my, my, it's even better than it looks.”

His eye twitched. “Get out of her, Cassandra.”

“She's lovely,” she continued, ignoring the Doctor, hands sliding around to cup her arse in her hands, and the Doctor clenched his jaw. “And a little bit sexy.”

“Cassandra!”

The barricaded door creaked at the press of the flesh against it. The metal bar used to hold the door in place began to bend, and Chip scurried away, hiding behind Cassandra who looked alarmed at the reminder of what was chasing them.

“We need a way out, now,” Jack said, untangling himself from Rose to slam his body against the door, holding it in place. “The ladder?”

“I'll check it,” Rose said, dragging herself to her feet as quickly as possible. The Doctor watched her stumble like a toddler before she grasped hold of the bottom of the ladder and climbed up onto it. She peered up above her. “It looks like the bottom of a lift shaft. Or maybe – maybe it's a – what's the word?”

He turned to Jack. “What's wrong with Rose?”

“She got sprayed with a thing,” Jack explained, reaching into his pocket and tossing it to him. He lifted a leg to brace his foot against the wall, using the extra support to hold the door. “She's a little loopy right now but doing her best.”

The Doctor sniffed the contents of the vial, and his nose twitched. “It's a type of chloroform. No wonder she –”

“Access tunnel,” Rose exclaimed, cutting across him. “It looks like an access tunnel.”

She grinned, proud of herself.

There was a strong push at the door, and Jack was thrown forwards. He hit the ground and rolled as the doors fell back and diseased fingers pushed through the crack in the door, prying it back and open. Terror overtaking him, Chip ripped the plastic off a plastic refuse container and jumped inside even as Cassandra screamed and jumped to hide behind the Doctor, hands gripping hold of the his coat, slapping his shoulder desperately.

“What do we do? What do we do?” She demanded, fearfully. “Doctor, what the hell do we do?”

“Up,” Rose said, pointing. “We go up.”

“You'll fall,” Jack said, concern making him short. “You can barely walk in a straight line let alone climb.”

“I can do it,” she said. “I'm feelin' better.”

“I don't have anything to combat the effects of the spray,” the Doctor said, “but I do have something that'll help you focus for a short period of time. It's going to make you feel awful later.”

Rose looked at the door, worried. “Do it.”

“You sure?”

“Do it!”

He shoved a small orange sweet into her mouth. She chewed automatically, and the Doctor watched as her pupils expanded to fill her eyes. Her nose scrunched up, head shaking vigorously before gnashing her teeth.

“I can see colours,” she said.

“That's how you know it's working,” he assured her, putting her hands back on the ladder. “Now climb, we'll be right behind you.”

“I don't think so,” Cassandra exclaimed, pushing forwards. “Out of the way, blondie!”

The Doctor caught Rose and watched as Cassandra used Zoe's body to climb the ladder. He set Rose right and sent her up after her with a pat on her leg. He watched her in concern but the tablet was doing its job. Turning to seek out Jack, he found him already at his side.

“Age before beauty,” Jack offered.

The Doctor jerked his thumb up. “Get up.”

he grinned. “I've missed you.”

The Doctor glanced over to the plastic container where Chip remained hidden. The lid was cracked and fearful eyes peaked out. He pressed his hand down in the air, and Chip dropped back inside to remain concealed. The infected broke through the doors, climbing over the twisted metal, and he began his ascent. Ahead of him, Cassandra and Rose had made good progress and Jack was swiftly catching up. He had no idea of what was happening or who they were running from as a consequence of sealing his mind off to Cassandra was that he hadn't been able to use his eyes to keep watch over his friends. If he had had more time to prepare his mind, it wouldn't have been a problem. As it was, he found himself plunged into the middle of something chaotic and dangerous without any warning.

It was thrilling in a terrifying way.

“Rose, look out,” Jack cried, suddenly

The Doctor leaned back to watch as Matron Casp jumped out of the open lift shaft and clung onto the rungs of the ladder, separating him and Jack from Cassandra and Rose. Diseased hands reached out after her, and his breath caught in his throat as he watched one hand grab hold of Rose's ankle. It was only the fact that Rose was ankle boots that saved her from being infected as well.

Jack tried to climb faster as the matron grabbed hold of Rose's calf, tugging on her. “No! Let her go! _Casp_!”

Below him on the ladder, the sick started to climb. They were penned in from all angles and the only way was up. As he climbed, he searched his pockets for his sonic screwdriver, and fear that he had dropped it or Cassandra had thrown it away distracted him from the danger of a hand reaching out towards him. Pulling away at the last moment, he used his fingers to rip open the covering on the wall and close the doors by crossing a few wires, concealing the pale, agonised faces of the sick from view.

Above him Rose was trying to free herself from Matron Casp. “Get off me!”

“Everywhere, disease,” Casp cried, claws sinking into Rose's flesh through her jeans. “This is the human world. _Sickness_!”

“Watch out,” Jack yelled, but it was too late as one of the flesh reached through the lift door and grabbed hold of Matron Casp who screamed in agony as the diseases entered her body, boils and pus erupting and leaking out of her. She lost her grip on the ladder, and Jack's eyes went wide. “Doctor, move!”

He followed Jack's lead and swung himself around, pressing himself between the ladder and the wall. He watched as Casp's body fell past him, her scream fading into nothingness before the _thud_ of her body reaching the bottom made him wince.

He eased himself back out and started climbing again. “Rose?”

“I'm fine,” she called back, breathless. “But the doors are locked up here! I can't open them an' Cassandra's bloody useless!”

“There's no need to be insulting,” Cassandra said at the top of the ladder, as far away from the danger as she could possibly get without being stuck to the ceiling. “How do I open them?”

“If we had Zoe, this wouldn't be a problem,” Rose snapped.

“Oh, boo-hoo-hoo,” she said, sharply. “Can't you just use that glowy thing?”

The Doctor frowned. “Glowy thing? What the hell is the glowy thing?”

“The screwdriver,” Jack said, patting his pocket, and the Doctor felt a trickle of relief. “And no. Get out of Zoe, Cassandra. She can open the door.”

“But I don't want to!”

Impatience filled the Doctor. “Do it!”

Cassandra let out a strangled scream of exasperation before she went from Zoe and into Rose.

Zoe slumped against the ladder, disoriented from the possession and at being so high up without any warning. She paled. “Oh my god.”

Cassandra looked down at herself and groaned. “Oh, chav-tastic.”

“Cassandra,” Jack yelled, voice cracking with anger. “Get out of Rose!”

“Stop yelling,” she yelled back.

“You're going to compress her to death,” the Doctor called up to her. “Leave her, now!”

Stomping her foot on the rung, she swept into Jack who shuddered.

“Oh, this is much nicer,” she said, pleased, patting Jack's chest with one hand.

“Cassandra,” the three of them shouted, furiously.

“Why are you all yelling so much?” She demanded. “Honestly, no matter how bad the situation there's no need to yell.”

Rose screamed in surprise and fear. “Zo, open the door, quickly! They're comin'!”

The Doctor looked down and hurried up another two rungs. Above him, he could hear Zoe swearing under her breath as she ripped open the side panel and crossed a few wires before the doors hissed open. They climbed up, muscles burning from the effort, and as soon as the Doctor was on solid ground, he grabbed Zoe and pulled her into his arms. He didn't even think about it, clinging to her as though she was his lifeline. She was shaking like a leaf in the wind and her arms wound around him, fingers in the back of his jacket, nose pressed into his shoulder.

Releasing her, he looked into her face to assure himself that she was fine – pale beneath her freckles but otherwise in one piece, smiling when he realised that she was doing the same to him. He squeezed her arms before letting her go to seal the locks. The doors clamped shut, and Rose stepped forwards and grabbed Cassandra by the back of Jack's coat, yanking her back violently. Cassandra cried out in surprise only to start whimpering in pain when Rose threaded her fingers into her hair and gripped tightly.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Cassandra winced, doubling over in an effort to lesson the pain but Rose was unforgiving and twisted her fistful of hair. “ _Ow_!”

“Get out of him,” she ordered. “ _Now_.”

“Let me go, you little chav!”

“Not until you get out of Jack!”

“Where will I go?” She complained, hands batting at Rose's who took the blows despite the pain. “I don't have a body any more.”

  
“I don't care,” Rose snapped. “None of us care, but get out of Jack. You're goin' to kill him!”

“Oh, he's fine.” Cassandra rolled her eyes. “He's closed his mind off to me. I can't feel anything from him.”

“That's not the point/” The Doctor stalked forward, and Cassandra's breath hitched in her throat, fear flooding her at the sight of him. She had forgotten what his anger looked like – different face, same man. “Get out of him!”

“But where am I to go?” She asked, plaintively, staring up at him from her bent position. “If I go into any of you, you just yell at me!”

“You can –” Zoe started before her eyes flared wide with panic. “ _Run_!”

Too long spent arguing outside the lift had allowed the flesh to catch up with them, spilling down the corridor, lurching and focused, from the stairwell entrance. Rose released Cassandra's hair, and the Doctor grabbed her hand to make sure nothing happened to Jack's body as they ran.

It was easier than expected to give the sick the slip in the winding, behind-the-scenes corridors of the hospital. They sprinted down side corridors and through old storage rooms until they came to a wall that brought them to an ungainly stop. The Doctor shoved his hand into Jack's pocket, earning a delighted _oh, yes please_ from Cassandra, before using the sonic to open the wall. They tumbled out onto ward 26 inside the ward itself rather than the waiting room; the Face of Boe appeared to still be sleeping in his, and Frau Clovis, the Duke of Manhattan's assistant, charged at them with a roar, brandishing a metal stand.

They pulled back, hands up.

“Whoa, whoa,” the Doctor exclaimed, shoving Zoe behind him. “We're safe, we're clean! Look, _look_.”

“Show me your skin,” she demanded, the metal stand shaking in her terrified hands.

“Look, clean,” Rose said, showing her unblemished skin, and the others did the same. “If we'd been touched, we'd be dead.”

Clovis hesitated, her eyes uncertain, but she eventually nodded and lowered the stand.

“Okay, good, so,” Zoe began, catching her breath, rubbing at her side. “How's it going up here? What's the status of the rest of the hospital?”

“There's nothing but silence from the other wards,” Clovis told them, voice quivering as she stepped towards them. “I think we're the only ones left. I've been trying to override the quarantine. If I can trip a signal over to New New York then they can send a private executive squad.”

“Do _not_ do that,” the Doctor ordered. “If they forced entry, they'd break quarantine. New New York wouldn't stand a chance.”

“I'm not dying here!”

“We can't let a single bit of this disease get out,” he said, urgently. “There are ten million people in that city, we can't risk them. Now, stop what you're doing”

“Not if it gets me out.”

“Great, sure, okay.” Zoe lost the thread of patience her temper had been dangling by. In the space of forty minutes, she had been forced to make a decision that she wasn't sure about, chased by the plague in human form, possessed, and woken up at the top of an obscenely high ladder, and Frau Clovis appeared to be the cherry on her ice cream sundae of awful. “It looks like we have to stop you lot now too, doesn't it? But that's fine. That's great, in fact. Really, I love working under pressure, so, _fine._ You bunch of unbelievable assholes can stay here and be selfish, we'll be over here trying to think of a way to not kill people.”

She slapped the stand out of Frau Clovis's hands to hear it clatter on the ground and stormed off.

“We need a plan,” Rose said, keeping a tight hold of Cassandra who was relaxed now that they were behind the sealed doors of the ward. “D'you have a plan? Do either of you have a plan?”

“To be honest,” the Doctor said, “I'm not 100% sure of what's happening right now. I was able to close my mind off to Cassandra but, by doing so, I wasn't able to keep an eye of what's going on.”

Zoe rubbed her forehead. “So you just sort of woke up in the basement with no idea what's happening?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” She released a laugh and found she couldn't stop. Rose and the Doctor looked at her askance. She waved an apology at them. “Sorry, sorry. It's not funny. I mean, it is, but it's not.” She glanced at Rose. “Think we should tell him about the kiss?”

Rose snorted and dissolved into laughter.

“What kiss?” The Doctor asked, looking between them. “Who did I kiss?”

“Like I was going to pass up the opportunity to kiss a handsome man,” Cassandra sniffed. “It has been a whilst after all.”

“Jack?” He yelped. “You used my mouth to kiss _Jack_?”

“Made his day, I'm sure,” Zoe said, forcing the mirth from her face. “But that's going to have to be dealt with later.” She clapped her hands together, and he gave her his full attention. “Here's a quick rundown: the Sisters of Plenitude are maintaining a huge lab of what they're calling _flesh_ but in reality are sentient beings grown from the human cells of every patient that has ever come to this hospital; they've infected them with every known disease in the galaxy in order to cure diseases like Petrifold Regression and Marconi's Disease. Cassandra here –” Cassandra gave a little wave at her name, “ordered her minion to open the cells and release them into the hospital, which more or less leads us to now.”

The Doctor blinked. “Succinct, thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“But I don't have a plan,” he said honestly. “You two, any ideas?”

“Er...” Rose's mind went blank. “Nanogenes?”

“It would take too long to programme. Next?”

“An airborne solution to knock them the fuck out?” Zoe suggested.

“Getting warmer,” he nodded. “How are they curing these diseases?”

“What?”

“What treatment are they giving them?”

“It's a cell-washing cascade,” Zoe said. “They administer it through an IV drip in the patient's arm. Why? Is that important?”

“Yes, possibly,” he said. “Hard to tell right now.”

“Oh, _oh_! I have a thought,” Rose exclaimed, surprising herself. She clicked the fingers of her free hand rapidly. “Zo, you said that the medicine here is advanced, like really advanced, right? It's curin' all sorts of things that it shouldn't?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why don't we just give them the cure?” She asked, looking into the blank faces of the two smartest people she knew and started to doubt her own idea. “Would – would that work?”

“Rose,” Zoe said slowly as her mind worked over the idea. “You're a little bit of a genius.”

Rose beamed.

“Genius,” the Doctor said, pointing at her excitedly. “Of course! But how would we get it into their system? We can't inject them all at once.” His mind was whirring before the solution struck him. “But Zoe's already said it. We send it airborne.”

“That might not work,” she cautioned. “The Sisters were using IV. What if we make it rain instead? The medicine can then seep into their sores without us having to inject it.”

“Much easier,” he said, rapping his knuckles against her shoulders. “How?”

“The lifts?” Rose suggested. “We got drenched by the disinfectant shower – thanks for the warnin' by the way.”

The Doctor grinned.

“What about the fire suppression system?” Zoe said, taking Rose's idea and running with it. “That would cover more ground.”

“I don't know,” the Doctor said. “They use a powdered formula in this time. It might take too long to adapt. Hey, you, Sister Cat.”

A frown pressed against Zoe's brow. “Novice Hame.”

Hame approached them cautiously. “Yes?”

Unaware of the tense relationship between Zoe and Hame, the Doctor ploughed on. “Where's the disinfectant tank located for the lifts?”

“On top of the lift itself, they each have individual tanks,” she answered, nervously. “Why?”

“Because we have an idea,” he said, raising his voice to speak to the rest of the ward. “Get me the intravenous solutions for every single disease.” No one moved. “Move it!”

Everyone leapt into action, and even Cassandra hurried to help though she wasn't allowed too far from their sights. Zoe grabbed every bag she could find and brought it back to dump on the Duke of Manhattan's bed whilst the Doctor pulled the heavy silk ropes off of the duke's outfit and wound it tightly around his body. She took the bags of solution and started to attach them to the rope, standing close to him to make sure that they were attached as securely as possible as Rose tore the place apart, making sure that no stone was unturned.

“Why do I get the feeling you're about to do something incredibly dangerous?” Zoe asked, tugging on the rope.

“Probably because I am,” he said. “It's really nice to see you again.”

She smiled up at him. “I'm glad you're okay. I was really worried for a moment there.”

“Takes more than a possession to knock me out for the count,” the Doctor said. “You can quote me on that.”

Her nose scrunched. “I probably won't.”

As expected, the plan was ridiculous and reckless but all of their best plans were. Once he was weighed down by the bags of solution, Zoe checking three times to make sure they were secure, he opened the lift doors and peered down into the shaft. Whilst he didn't fear heights as Zoe did, he did have a pretty strong fear of hitting the ground after a long fall; his body was more resilient to any injuries he might obtain from such a fall than a human body was but that didn't stop it from hurting just as much and he wasn't a masochist.

“Rose, take a seat, you look drunk again,” the Doctor said, firmly, and she nodded, her pupils beginning to contract back to normal. “Zo, don't let Jack's body out of your sight.”

“I don't like you going alone,” she said. “Someone should be with you.”

“Rose is drugged, Cassandra will brain me the first chance she gets –” Cassandra nodded her agreement, “and you need to keep an eye on the patients. I'll be fine. Don't worry.”

“I'm physically incapable of not worrying.”

“Don't I know it.”

“What?”

“Nothing, dear,” he said with a flash of a smile.

Rose worried her bottom lip, already beginning to feel uncomfortable as the drug wore off. “What are you going to do?”

“Something stupid,” he said, mouth tipping up in a grin. “Make sure Clovis doesn't break quarantine. Knock her out if you have to. If it breaks, we're screwed.”

Zoe nodded. “We'll be fine. Go. Be a hero.”

His eyes flashed at that.

“What are you going to do?” Cassandra asked. “The lifts aren't working.”

“Not moving, which is an entirely different thing,” the Doctor told her. “Right, here we go.”

“You're not...” Cassandra trailed off as she figured out what he was going to do.

The Doctor stuck the sonic screwdriver between his teeth and took off at a run. Cassandra gasped when he pushed off from the edge and flung himself into the empty lift shaft, catching himself on the thick cables. The pressure in his arms was momentarily agonising before his weight settled, the material of the wires ripping against the flesh of his palms but he held on by wrapping his leg around the cable. Carefully, he attached a piece of altered equipment to himself and connected it to the main wire. Removing, the screwdriver from his mouth, he winked at Zoe.

“See you in a few.”


	8. Chapter 8

The alarms exacerbated the headache Zoe had from Cassandra's possession, her temples throbbing with each swell of the siren, but she refused the medication Novice Hame tentatively offered her. Around her, the ward was tense. The doors were sealed shut, only able to open under the Doctor's sonic screwdriver or her own phone, and there was lack of movement that Zoe found more unnerving than if the infected were pressing themselves against the doors. Fortunately, Frau Clovis had dropped her attempt at overriding the controls when Cassandra – the moment the Doctor was gone and Zoe was distracted by a Rose's rapid deterioration – tried to escape. Currently handcuff to the Face of Boe, a sulky expression was painted across Jack's face, Zoe's swift actions in incapacitating Cassandra had given Frau Clovis second thoughts.

Zoe was more concerned about Rose than anything else at the moment as there was nothing she could do to help the Doctor. Her sister was reacting badly to the drug draining out of her system. sweat clung to her, hair turning dark and soaking her clothes through until they were sodden and dripping; skin was hypersensitive which made inserting a saline solution to keep her hydrated difficult. Zoe wanted to sedate her, but she didn't know if doing so would create an adverse reaction with whatever it was the Doctor had given her. As it was, all Zoe had been able to do for her was to unceremoniously kick the Duke of Manhattan out of his bed and set Novice Hame to care for her without any ill-created medication.

She looked back over her shoulder and saw Hame mop Rose's brow. Her heel dug into the bed as the pain of withdrawal lanced through her, the damp cloth a small respite that didn't last long enough.

Tearing her eyes away from the sight her sister presented, she looked back out of the window onto the ground below. The hospital was cordoned off by police lines, and there were other emergency services present as well as the outside world tried to figure out what was happening. She caught sight of news drones and turned her face from the window when one soared up to the 26th floor to look inside. Resisted the urge to check the time on her phone as the Doctor had been gone for only twenty minutes, though it felt much longer, she folded her arms across the chest and stepped into the flood of sunlight that fell over the Face of Boe.

It wasn't easy being the one left behind. She didn't like not knowing what was going on and resented her inability to do anything more than keep an eye on people to make sure they didn't do anything stupid.

“Zoe,” Rose cried out, pained and desperate. She was across the ward and at her sister's side immediately. “It hurts! My head – my chest. Everythin' hurts. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, slipping her hand into hers and letting her grip it as tightly as she needed. “I really am, but I don't know how to help. I promise, as soon as we get you back to the TARDIS, you'll feel better. You just need to hold on till then. Okay? Can you do that for me, Rosie? Please?”

Rose's face contorted as a huge sob welled up and fell out.

She swallowed against the hard knot of guilt in her chest. Biting back her pride and anger, she turned to Novice Hame. “Do you have ginger tea? It might help with the nausea.”

“I'm sorry,” Hame apologised. “I don't know what ginger is.”

“It's probably extinct, that's why,” she said, sighing. “Ginger is this spice that's used in cooking but it also is used in some folk or traditional medicine to deal with the symptoms of nausea. Do you have anything similar?”

Hame's rough tongue darted out in thought. “There is a powder that we use for such things. It's an old medicine from before we – from before.” Her eyes darted guiltily away. “It's derived from a plant that flowers only in the Southern Hemisphere. Will you allow me to try it on her?”

“You give me your word that it's not a result of your experiments?”

“It's an ancient medicine,” Hame assured her. “Thousands of years old. You have my word that it's not from – from _them_.”

“Then get it, please,” she said, turning her attention back to Rose whose pale skin was flushed red, blotches creeping down into her chest. She had already thrown up so much that Zoe worried what would happen if another bout of nausea swept over her. “We're going to try something to help with the nausea.”

“No – medicine,” Rose gritted out. “Don't want it.”

“I know,” she said. “This isn't from their experiments. It's traditional medicine like ginger tea back home.”

Novice Hame returned with a small silver packet and a glass of water. Zoe scanned the pale purple powder with her phone before she allowed it to be mixed into a liquid form and given to her sister. The effect was immediate. Her breath came easier, the tension around her eyes fading, and she fell back with a sigh. She was still hot and was sweating far too much, but it had taken some of the symptoms of distress away.

“Try and lie still,” Zoe suggested, softly. “If the Doctor doesn't come back soon then I'll figure out a way to bring the TARDIS to you.”

“Go,” Rose murmured, eyes closed. “Go check on him.”

She hesitated but leaned down and kissed her sweaty forehead. “I'll be back, I promise.”

Rose grunted and waved her away, curling up on her side in a tight ball, hugging a pillow to her chest.

Zoe glanced over to where the other inhabitants of the ward, who, with the exception of the Duke of Manhattan, didn't seem to like her much, were gathered. The way they were huddled together - nervous, afraid, and silent - reminded her of the court of Louis XV the night that she burst through the Time Window. For a moment she was there again, seventeen years old and full of righteous anger, before the memory faded and she came back to herself. Blinking the memory away, she approached the access panel that she had opened earlier to make sure the hospital remained under quarantine. It was a little difficult to slip past the built-in firewalls to access the cameras, but once it was done, she transferred the link to her phone and flicked through the security feed until she found what she was looking for.

The entrance to the hospital was filled with the infected flesh and more and more kept pouring in front side corridors and down the stairs. She wondered what it was within them that made them congregate together, whether there was a sense of community or society within them or whether the need to be around other people was intrinsic. Scanning the crowd in search of the Doctor, worried he had got himself infected as well, he was easy to find as he was so much taller than the others, but her heart slammed into her chest at the sight of him _hugging_ those that were infected.

“I'm going to kill him,” she muttered, watching him extricate himself from the others to jog to the large reception away, sliding over the counter before disappearing out of sigh. “What is he –?”

The alarms stopped.

There was a brief moment when Zoe thought she had gone deaf.

“Is that it?” The duke asked, hopefully. “Is it over?”

“I think so,” she said. “But no one's to leave until we receive word from the Doctor.”

Frau Clovis opened her mouth to protest but one sharp look from Zoe kept her silent. She tried to find the Doctor on the screen again but he was gone from view. A flick of her fingers across her phone dismissed the video and she put it away. In an effort to control her impatience, she breathed in for a count of three and out for a count of five. The soft ping of the elevator made her turn and relief exploded through her when the Doctor stepped out of the lift, dripping with moisture, hair slicked back. He smiled his wide, toothy grin before giving her two enthusiastic thumbs up.

She laughed and pointed at the door. A glow of the sonic screwdriver set the doors opening, and she threw herself into his damp arms that went around her and lifted her from her feet.

“The mad plan worked then?”

“Chemistry,” the Doctor said, happily. “When in doubt, chemistry.”

“I thought it was, 'when in doubt, bananas'.” He laughed, setting her back down on her feet. She held his face between her hands. “Let me look at you a second.” Holding still, he let her drink her fill. She smiled and released him. “Okay, I'm done.”

He scrunched his nose fondly at her before casting his eyes around the room, surprise registering in the lines around his eyes. “What happened here?”

“Rose is having withdrawal symptoms and really needs to get back to the TARDIS as soon as possible,” she explained, “and Cassandra tried to slip away the moment your back was turned so I borrowed the Face of Boe and handcuffed her to him.”

A frown creased his forehead. “Where did you find the handcuffs?”

“Frau Clovis had them.” His mouth opened to ask her _why_ but she cut across him. “Don't ask. Listen, is there anything you can do for Rose until we can get her to the TARDIS? I''m really worried.”

The Doctor smoothed his hands down her arms. “I'll take care of her. You get rid of the others though. The police are going to want to talk to them, then we'll take care of Cassandra.”

She smile.. “It's good to have you back.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead before stepping away to see to Rose. Zoe turned to face the patients, the softness and sweetness that the Doctor inspired in her disappearing; Frau Clovis twitched at her approach, but the Duke of Manhattan greeted her effusively.

“My dear,” he said, welcomingly. “Are we safe? Is the danger over?”

“It's all been taken care of,” she said. “You're able to leave now. The lift is working again so just head on down, but make sure you speak with the police, tell them the truth of what's happened here. And spread word in the city. Don't let anyone cover this up.”

“You have my word,” he promised, struggling to his feet. He seized his hand before Zoe was able to pull away. A flicker of disgust passed across her face when his wet lips massaged the back of her it. “You are indeed a most fortuitous person to have around!” Lurching forwards to try and kiss her, Zoe ducked under his outstretched arms and reclaimed her hand. “Oh.”

“Bye, duke,” she said with a stiff smile. “All of you take care now.”

She rubbed the back of her hand dry on her coat as they left. She considered warning them about what awaited them in the entrance but thought that Frau Clovis needed a good shock to the system. Behind her, the Doctor had put Rose to sleep with his fingers resting against her temple and was waiting for her. She crossed and took his hand in hers where he raised her hand and rubbed at the skin where the duke's lips had been.

“That seemed horrible.”

She leaned into him. “I think I'll survive. Before we deal with Cassandra, I think the Face of Boe has been waiting for you.”

“For me?”

She found his delighted surprise charming and led him across the ward to where the Face of Boe was waiting patiently, unperturbed at having someone handcuffed to his jar. His eyes watched them approach, and she wondered if that was a smile she saw flicker across his strangely-human mouth.

“Tell me something,” Zoe said, amusement filling her words. “How much of this did you really sleep through?”

Boe's laughter filled her mind and the Doctor's. “ _I'm an old, old being, professor. Sleep overtakes even the best of us regardless of how exciting events seem to be._ ”

She laughed slightly. “You know, I'm not a professor yet.”

“ _And the Doctor holds no medical degrees, yet he is the Doctor, is he not_?”

“I have a diploma in Nursing,” the Doctor told them. Zoe looked up at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “Seemed like it'd be an interesting thing to study. I was on Caraxas, and they use bananas to cure a lot of their illnesses.”

“Bananas?”

“Good source of potassium.”

Warmth and affection rolled out like a wave from the Face of Boe. “ _I've missed this. It's been such a long time since I've seen the two of you act like this._ ”

Zoe rested her temple against the Doctor's arm, comfortable in the Face of Boe's company. “You're a strange one, Boe.”

“ _That I am_.”

“So,” she began, “you called us here because you knew something was happening in this hospital?”

“ _Not having limbs tends to restrict how much I'm able to help_ ,” he admitted. “ _And perhaps I simply wanted to see some old friends again._ ”

“Mmm,” she said with a nod. “Novice Hame tells me you're dying.”

“ _We're all dying_ ,” he said, simply. “ _Every moment of every day. We are, all of us, dying. I believe you taught me that._ ”

“Did I?” She asked, surprised. “How philosophical of me.” Boe laughed, and the Doctor gave a small chuckle next to each other. “We know each other well then?”

“ _There is time to come when you will know me better than I know myself.”_ His rich tones spread through their minds. “ _I've lived such a long time, I've met so many people, yet you are the one who's impacted me the most. When I was lost, you found me; when I was unforgivable, you forgive me. The life that I have had, Zoe Tyler, I owe entirely to you._ ”

She stared, taken aback. “I – I don't know what to say to that.”

“ _What a treat for me then to have finally rendered you speechless._ ” A laugh was startled from her. “ _But tell me, h_ _ow fare's the day?_ ”

Glancing sideways at Zoe, the Doctor answered, “we won, as much as it can be called winning that i. The police are here to arrest the Sisterhood and there's a new species of humans that will need to be integrated into society, but everyone lives.”

His large eyes closed in what Zoe realised passed for a nod. “ _Then it is a good day_. _”_

“We didn't get to talk much last time,” he said, hope creeping into him. “There are so many things I'd like to ask you.”

“ _I'm sure there are_ ,” the Face of Boe said. “ _A mind like yours is never satisfied with unanswered questions._ ”

The Doctor smiled, accepting the accusation with ease. “There are legends saying that you're millions of yeas old.”

“ _Are there_? _But that would be impossible._ ”

“Nothing's impossible, just a little unlikely,” Zoe said, thoughtful, trying to comprehend a future where _she_ was the most memorable of all those that he had met. “But I kind of got the impression that there was something you wanted to tell the Doctor.”

He hummed in their minds, and Zoe was reminded of a small child playing a game. “ _A great secret_.”

“So the legend says.”

“ _It can wait._ ”

“Oh, does it have to?” The Doctor complained, suddenly desperate to know what secret someone like the Face of Boe might want to share with him. “I mean, we're right here. Why wait?”

“I thought you were supposed to be dying, Boe,” Zoe said, amused suspicion in her words.

“ _There are better things to do today,_ ” he replied, sounding energetic and vibrant, a shiver of laughter slipping into their minds. “ _Dying can wait. I've grown tired with the universe, professor, but you and your friends have taught me to look at it anew._ ” His eyes blinked at the Doctor. “ _Farewell, Doctor_.” He turned his gaze onto Zoe. “ _And until we met again, old friend._ ”

The bright white light of a teleport swept over the ward and made them shield their eyes. When it cleared, the Face of Boe was gone and Cassandra was sprawled over the ground, hands still cuffed together.

The Doctor was impressed. “Enigmatic. That was just textbook enigmatic. Wasn't that enigmatic?”

“I wonder why he wouldn't tell you the secret,” Zoe said. “He seemed as though he wanted to earlier.”

“Who knows? But I imagine I'll find out one day.” He looked at her. “What secret anyway? I think I missed that bit.”

Zoe glanced down at Cassandra who was trying to twist her wrists out of the handcuffs. She kicked her in the thigh, hard enough to startle but not hard enough to bruise, and she dropped her arms with a scowl.

“Jack told us that there's myth,” she explained. “It says that, before dying, Boe will reveal his _great secret_ to one just like himself – a wanderer without a home, a lonely god.” She watched his face as she spoke. “We assumed that meant you.”

The Doctor scratched his right sideburn. “Interesting. I haven't heard that before, but there's a lot I haven't heard. Still, there's nothing to do about it now. I'm sure we'll come across him again at some point. For now we should get Rose back to the TARDIS and deal with Cassandra.”

They both looked at Cassandra who was still on the ground, Jack's long legs splayed out in front of her, posture slumped in a way that was guaranteed to give the true owner of the body a backache. She looked up at them, mutinously pathetic.

“Do you have to?” Cassandra asked, sulkily. “Everything's happy, everything's fine. Can't you just leave me?”

“Absolutely not,” Zoe said, gesturing at her. “And definitely not in that body. It doesn't belong to you.”

“But it's so handsome,” she whined. “And I want it.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “You've lived long enough. Leave that body and end it.”

“I don't want to die!”

“No one does, Cassandra,” Zoe said, her mind touching on the dark memories of those last few weeks in France where bravery had given way to fear. “But you can't live at the expense of Jack. It's not fair.”

“I don't care about fair,” she argued. “I care about living.”

“And we care about Jack living,” Zoe snapped back. “It's over Cassandra.”

“ _No_.”

Zoe's cheeks blew out with the strength of her exasperated sigh, and she looked up at the Doctor and sought help from him. “Is there a way we can forcibly remove her? I'm concerned about the damage to Jack's mind if she's in there for much longer.”

“There are risks with a forcible removal,” he admitted, “but Jack's brain is a little more durable than the average human's. It might be okay.”

“I don't like that might.”.

“Nor do I,” Cassandra exclaimed. “You'll be killing me if you do this. _Again_ , I might add.”

“And you're killing Jack,” the Doctor replied. “You can't stay in him.”

“But I –”

“Mistress!” Chip burst through the doors with his strange side-to-side run where his arms remained clamped against his body. In all of the chaos, Zoe realised she had forgotten about him entirely and guilt twanged within her. “Mistress, I found you! You're safe.”

Cassandra's eyes looked Chip up and down appraisingly. “Well, it's certainly no handsome Jack the Lad, but it's certainly better than death. Chip, I'm coming in.”

“Cassandra, don't you dare,” the Doctor said but Jack was already slumping to the ground as Cassandra left his body; Zoe dropped to his side immediately to catch him in her arms and support his descent. “For Rassilon's sake!”

“Jack,” Zoe said to her groaning friend, catching his head in her hands. He leaned his weight into her, fingers gripping her thigh as he anchored himself. “Jack, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, wincing at the pain that throbbed in his head. “Where is she?”

“In Chip now.” Releasing his face, she opened the handcuffs, stuffing them into her pocket, helping him stand. “Everything's over. The Doctor took care of the flesh, and the Face of Boe's gone.”

“Oh, no.” He looked to where the Face of Boe had been, disappointment crashing over his pale face as the Doctor's loud and continued chastisement of Cassandra made him flinch into Zoe. “Really?”

“Sorry,” she said, walking him slowly over to Rose's bed where her sister looked better curled up in her sleep. Novice Hame helped her put Jack into the bed next to Rose, placing a soft pillow under his head and finding a sleep mask to stop the light sending stabbing shards of pain into his mind. “Just lie there until we can get the TARDIS, okay? Keep your eyes closed and rest.”

The line of his throat moved when he swallowed. “Okay.”

He clumsily patted her arm. Leaning over, she pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead that felt hot beneath her lips before she returned to where the Doctor was glowering at Cassandra. Sparing her a single look of disdain, she spoke to the Doctor. “What do we do now?”

“There's nothing we can do,” he said, annoyed. “Chip is a force-grown clone and not a good one at that. If we try to remove her, he'll die, but he's going to die anyway because he's not built to withstand something as complex as a human consciousness.”

Confusion flickered through Zoe's eyes. “Doesn't he already have a consciousness?”

“Not like you and I.” His hand rubbed a path over the back of his neck. “Chip was grown to service Cassandra. That's all he does. He doesn't think for himself, he doesn't learn, he just does whatever she wants. It's a cheap and nasty way to build docile labourers.” Eyes like flint swept over Cassandra. “I imagine the difficulties of holding your consciousness within that body is already causing it to shut down. The kidneys should be failing soon.”

Cassandra shivered in fear as a sharp pain in her side dug into her with fiery tendrils. She bent to one side, crunching in on herself in an attempt to escape the pain. “Make it stop.”

“I can't stop this,” he said, heavily. “He was dead from the moment you went into him, and now you're dying to.”

“You can – you can get me another body,” she said, gasping for small breaths filled with pain. “You said it before. You said you'd find me something. Anything. Do it now.”

“It's too late, Cassandra,” he said with a small, regretful shake of his head. “That would have been possible if you were still as you were, but it would just take too much time.”

A scowl ripped over her tattooed face as pain sent her to her knees. She slapped away the Doctor's hands when he tried to help her. Her teeth ground against each other as she groaned, nostrils flaring.

She glared up at them. “Then I'll go into _her_ to get more time.”

Zoe sucked in a sharp breath of air, fearful, before she realised that nothing happened. She looked at Cassandra and watched the fear and confusion played out across her face as she tried to transfer her conscious from Chip and into Zoe.

“No,” Cassandra breathed. “Why isn't it working? Why am I still here?”

“You don't have enough strength,” the Doctor explained, fingers resting gently on Zoe's back to move her out of the way; he crouched in front of Cassandra. “Chip was never built for a full life. He doesn't have the energy and strength the rest of us did. The moment you left Jack and moved into Chip, you trapped yourself there.”

“No.” She refused to accept her fate even as her liver started to disintegrate within her, toxins spreading through her stomach, making her cry out. She lurched forwards, the Doctor catching her, drawing her into his arms. Her eyes moved rapidly, desperation filling them. “This isn't it. This isn't how it ends. I can't – this isn't how I die.” Her face twisted with anger, and she hissed her next words out. “I'm not done. There's still more for me to do.”

“There is always something more for people to do,” the Doctor said, legs on either side of her, bent to support her weight; her fingers dug into his arms, the pain washed through her in a constant ebb and flow. “No one ever finishes their lives wrapped up in a neat bow. We have our time and do what we can with it, but then it's over.”

“What do you know?” The words spat from her, draining her energy further. “I've been inside you. I've felt how long you're going to live. What do you know about death?”

He gave a soft, sad smile. “More than you'd think.”

Cassandra groaned again, her hips lifting from the ground as her lungs tightened. “Make it stop. Make me better.”

“Ssh.” His hand smoothed her hair back in a slow, comforting motion. Zoe watched him and his mercy in fascination: Cassandra had hurt them, all of them, but there he was trying to give her comfort in her final moments when the last time they had met he had let her die. He rocked her gently in time with his hand in her hair. “It's okay. Cassandra, it's okay. You're not alone.”

“No.” Her body twitched as she tried to fight the inevitable, tears stained with blood sliding down her cheeks. “I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Doctor. Don't let me die. Save me. _Please_. Doctor. Please.”

In Cassandra's final, bitter moments, Zoe turned away from the sight of her pleading for her life in the Doctor's arms and instead took in how the sunlight passed through the white privacy curtains. Only when she was certain that Cassandra was dead did she brush away the tear that had fallen down to check on the Doctor. His torso was bent over Chip's body, murmuring words in Gallifreyan that she didn't understand; she stepped close to him to rest her hand on the back of his neck.

“You can let her go now, Doctor,” she said, quietly. “She's gone.”

He dragged in a deep breath, easing his grip on the body. Between them, they lifted Chip's body up onto one of the empty beds where Novice Hame waited to perform a silent ritual over it before drawing the privacy curtain around the bed and lowering her head in prayer. Zoe looked up at the Doctor and watched as he dragged a hand over his face, exhaustion creeping in. He hadn't slept the night before and it had been a busy day with Rose's coronation and being possessed.

“I'll go get the TARDIS,” she said, catching his attention. “You wait here.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I'll come with you.”

“Doctor.” She placed a gentle hand on his chest. “Wait here. Keep an eye on Jack and Rose.”

His hand came up to curl around her wrist, thumb pressing into her pulse to feel it thrum reassuringly, before he nodded and took a seat at their friends' bedside. She suspected he would drop off sooner rather than later but a ten-minute nap would do him the world of good. She glanced over to Novice Hame who seemed awkward and out of place now that everything was over; Zoe inclined her head to the waiting room. Even as she stepped out of the doors she heard the soft, snuffling snores that told her the Doctor was asleep.

“Thank you for your help,” Zoe said, sincerely. “But it's time for you to hand yourself into the police. It'll look better for you if you turn yourself in rather than them having to track you down.”

Hame folded her paws in front of her, and Zoe realised that she was quite pretty in a soft, delicate sort of way. “Perhaps you will not believe me but I truly only ever wanted to help. Healing was my life's calling. From kittenhood it was all I ever wanted. I never meant to harm.”

“I do believe you,” she said. “But at some point your desire to help crossed over into something that hurt.” Hame lowered her head, ashamed. “There's a saying where I'm from – I don't know if it's used here – but it's this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You have a good heart, Hame, but you allowed yourself to be persuaded into accepting something truly awful.”

“And I must live with that,” she said, understanding. “And I shall. I won't flinch from what I've done, but I will do my best to make amends in whatever way I can.”

Zoe gave a small smile. “That's all any of us can do, I suppose. Do better tomorrow what we failed to do well today.”

“Maybe we'll meet again one day,” Hame said before she bowed and took her leave of Zoe, walking slowly and purposefully into the lift.

The last Zoe saw of her was as the lift doors closed over her resigned face. She exhaled a long breath of air and rolled her shoulders. It was at least a ten-minute walk to the TARDIS but she also had to avoid the police cordon and any enterprising reporters who might want to interview her. Not looking forward to the walk ahead, Zoe consulted her phone to look for a back way out.

* * *

The Doctor grunted when he awoke, disorientated with the lack of familiarity, and he sniffed and rubbed his eyes, watching as the TARDIS finished materialising in front of him. It was a rare occasion when he got to see the TARDIS appear from the outside, and he felt a smile pull at his lips at the sight of his old girl. All of the things they had seen and done together, she possessed his hearts quite thoroughly. The other sentient being that held such a hold over him stepped out of the front door and met his eyes.

“You're awake,” Zoe said. “Good. Feeling better?”

“A little,” he said, rolling his neck to crack it. “Any trouble?”

“I had to dodge an overeager journalist,” she said, approaching him to brush his hair from his eyes. “I might have destroyed their news drone but accidents happen and all that.” He smiled. “Think you can take of Rose for me? I'll look after Jack.” She waggled a hypospray in her hand. “I've got something for your head here.”

“You're perfect,” he said as she pressed it against his neck, the pain receding from him. He stood up and looked down at Rose's curled, shivering form. “Poor thing. I almost regret giving her that tablet.”

“She would've fallen without it.”

“Still.” He slid an arm under her legs and shoulders, lifting her with ease. “She's going to have a rough day whilst it gets out of her system.”

“Why did you even have it in your pocket?” She asked, loading the hypospray again for a still-sleeping Jack.

To be honest, I thought it was a jelly bean.”

She choked on a laugh, and he gave a half-shrug before he carried Rose into the TARDIS to tend to her. Zoe carefully lifted the eye mask off Jack and stroked his hair, whispering his name until he woke up slowly, a cracked groan greeting her.

He tried to cover his eyes. “No.”

“I've got something for the pain,” she whispered, taking care to keep her voice low and even. “Can I give it to you?”

“ _Please_.” She pressed the hypospray against the vein in Jack's neck and watched as it took effect. His features cleared, eyes opening fully. “That's better.”

“Good.” She helped him sit up. “Do you remember anything?”

“No,” he said, stretching his limbs out with a grimace and a wince. “I didn't kiss anyone, did I?”

She laughed. “No, you didn't. You're fine.”

“Good, because I'd want to remember if I snogged you,” he said, catching her off guard with a waggle of his eyebrows.

She poked him in the shoulder. “Careful, Mickey might get jealous.”

His cheeks turned pink before changed the subject by taking note of the empty ward. “So everything's been taken care of then? The flesh, and the Sisterhood?”

“The Sisters are being arrested as we speak,” Zoe said, glancing towards the doors to the ward, aware that it wouldn't be long before people came up to investigate. “And the flesh look as though they're going to be given help to integrate into society there. There's probably going to be a huge scandal about it all. I doubt people are going to like what they learn.”

“It was a pretty horrific thing,” he said, standing whilst using her shoulders as support. She looped an arm around his waist, and they made their way over to the TARDIS as he worked out the aches and pains Cassandra's poor use of his limbs had left him with. “Which makes me wonder why you hesitated before.”

She tripped over the small step into the TARDIS and hissed. “Jack.”

“I don't understand why you did,” he said, keeping her upright. He reached behind them and pulled the doors shut. “What was that all about?”

She looked straight ahead as they made their way up the ramp.“I made the decision you wanted in the end.”

“I'm not criticising.”

“It sounds like it.”

“Zoe,” he sighed, and she relaxed a little due to how tired he sounded. She was reminded of what he had told her earlier about her impatience and manners, and she forced back her feelings of defensiveness. “I'm just curious.”

“Sorry,” she apologised, propping him up against the jump seat as she quickly set about dematerialising the TARDIS and putting her into the Time Vortex where they could idle until they were ready for another adventure. When she was done, she turned back and let him use her as a walking stick again. “Today was the first time that I've had to deal with something like this since before.”

“Before what?”

“Before nearly losing you and the Doctor,” Zoe clarified, carefully navigating them around the coral strut, acutely aware for the first time that there wasn't actually a lot of space around the console. “The things I dealt with during the time I was at university were all solely focused on getting you two back safe and sound. I didn't have to worry about wrestling with the morality of it all because you two safe was all that mattered to me. Then Christmas happened, and I was speaking to Harriet about dealing with the consequences of making unilateral decisions for people, and suddenly a decision just like that was in front of me.” She shrugged. “I froze a little.”

“Hell of a time to freeze,” Jack noted. “Is this something you've been worrying about?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not really. It's something I've thought about before because of Harriet, but it's not something I've really truly worried about until today.” She sighed and managed to get them out of the console room. He was moving a little easier now but he was still unsteady on his feet. “Don't you ever worry about making the wrong decision?”

His elbow locked into place, and he grunted in pain and annoyance. Possession always had this affect on him: body awkward and clumsy afterwards, like an engine with gunk in it that needed cleaning out before it was able to work properly again.

“No,” Jack said honestly, shaking his arm violently until his elbow cracked and it bent again. “But you and I are very different. I had a very strict set of rules to live by as a Time Agent. I knew when and where to interfere and anything that deviated from that I ignored. Then I was on my own for a whilst but, well, you saw what I was like – or you will see, sorry, I always forget you haven't lived that yet.” She smiled at what was still to come. “And then I met the Doctor, and he expects the people who travel with him to follow a particular moral code, so it wasn't difficult for me to adopt that as my own. In the situations you're talking about, like today, I always ask myself what would the Doctor do, then I do it.”

“I wish I had your certainty,” Zoe said, “but there are some things I've done that I did to get you and the Doctor back...they weren't exactly Doctor-approved.”

Jack looked down at her, concerned. “I assumed that you went to university. Was there something else?”

She realised in that moment that, other than the Doctor, she hadn't spoken to anyone about what she experienced during the four years it took her to find a way to rescue her foolish, heroic boys. Zoe twitched her nose and decided that honesty with Jack was always going to serve her well and that he deserved more than a vague comment.

“I needed the delta wave pattern of a Dalek brain,” she started, “so, I found a way around the Time Lock on Skaro and went there with a Time Lord I tracked down from the Doctor's past to do just that.”

Jack blanched white.

“ _Zoe_!” He managed as they entered the corridor that held their bedrooms. “That was dangerous.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, dryly. “Please spare me the lecture as the Doctor's already seen to that.”

They approached his bedroom and conversation ceased as she reached out and opened his door, shuffling them across the threshold. The lights instantly turned on when they entered, and he limped over to his bed. A sigh of relief left him when he sat down and she helped tip him back, working on removing his boots as he just lay there, enjoying not having to move a muscle.

He looked at the top of her curly head. “You know what your problem is?”

“Do tell.”

“You're so used to being alone,” Jack said. “You were travelling with the Doctor for what? Not even six months before you ended up in France? Then you were there for six years. After that you travelled with him for a year, then Mondas happened and you got sick. Then we get stranded and you went off to university for four years.” Hearing it listed out like that made her shoulders tense. She set his boots down by his bed and sat on the edge of it. He looked up at her. “No wonder you're having trouble figuring out what to do. You've been trying to figure it out by yourself all these years.”

Zoe rested her hands in her lap. “So, what should I do?”

“If you were anyone else, I'd say to do as the Doctor does, but you're not the Doctor.” He reached out and rested his hand on her thigh. “Truth is, Zo, I don't know what you should do. I know you made the right decision in the end today; so, whatever thought process got you there is one that you should hold onto.”

She frowned and looked so much like a child that it delighted Jack. “That's not very helpful.”

He grinned. “No, it's not, is it?”

“Out of interest,” she said, resting her hand over his. “What would you have done if I'd decided differently?”

Jack looked up into her lovely brown eyes and wonderfully familiar face and felt love for her move within him. Six months ago he hadn't even known that she existed and now he couldn't imagine a day without her or Rose or the Doctor. It still stunned him how much his life had changed in such a short space of time.

“I'd have taken care of it,” he said, unable to lie to her. “You've got to do what you think is right, just as I've got to do what I think is right even if it pits us against each other sometimes.”

“Hopefully not often,” she said as there was a knock at the door and the Doctor stepped inside without waiting for an answer. They both smiled at him in welcome but didn't drop their conversation. “But you'll let me know if you think I'm making the wrong decision? You'll make me listen?”

“I will, I promise,” he said, squeezing her thigh gently before he looking over to a curious Doctor. “Hey, how's Rose?”

“Sleeping in her bed,” he said, leaning against the wall to fold his arms as he used to do when he wore leather and had big ears, but he felt awkward and ungainly now and so shoved his hands into his pockets instead. “She's going to be out for at least twelve hours, maybe more, and we're not going to be able to do anything for a day or two. She needs time to rest as that drug hit her a lot harder than I was expecting, but she'll be okay.” He swept his eyes over Jack. “How are you? Your head okay?”

“A little achy but better than it was,” Jack assured him. “My body's a little jammed up at the moment, but it'll pass soon enough.”

The Doctor nodded and looked between them curiously. “What were you two talking about?”

Zoe gave Jack's hand a squeeze. “Morality and ethics.”

“Heavy stuff,” he said, Zoe and Jack watched as he turned awkward and uncomfortable. “Listen, Jack, I've been told that whilst Cassandra was possessing me, I might have – well –”

“Kissed me?” Jack finished for him, glad to have something to laugh about. “Made me see the stars? Rocked my world? Lit my flame?”

“I think kissed covers it,” the Doctor said, cheeks pink. “I apologise for that.”

“Not your fault, Doc,” he said, easily. “But do feel free to kiss me any time you like. I won't be saying no.”

“I probably won't do that.”

Jack clucked his tongue and shrugged. “Shame.”

Zoe patted his hand and stood up. “We'll leave you to get some sleep. Do you want anything though? A cup of tea? Something to eat?”

He sniffed and shook his head. “Just my phone. I want to call Mickey. I promised I'd keep him up-to-date with everything we're doing.”

“If he'd come with us, you wouldn't have to call him,” the Doctor said, still not over the fact that Mickey had turned him down three times now, which he believed was a record. “He'd be here knowing it all first hand.”

Zoe took the Doctor's arm and directed him out of the door. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at Jack. “Goodnight. Yell if you need anything, and give him our love, yeah?”

The Doctor was beginning to droop as well, and Zoe wanted to enjoy the soft comfort of her bed so she guided him to their bedroom and gave him a gentle push inside. By the time she had shed her coat and pulled off her shoes, he was already in his pyjamas and tucked up beneath the covers. It took her a little longer as she wanted to brush her teeth, get a glass of water, and braid her hair, but he was still awake when she finally crawled in next to him.

“Don't ever move,” the Doctor said, nose in her hair. “Just stay right where you are forever.” She made a small sound of agreement in her throat, exhaustion beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes even as her mind continued to keep her awake. “What was that about with Jack? It sounded serious when I walked in.”

“We were just...” she trailed off, wondering how best to describe their conversation. “I guess we were just getting on the same page about things.”

He hummed. “Sounds adult.”

“Only a little.”

He used his free hand to take her fingers within his, thumb pressing against her wedding band, enjoying the smoothness of the metal beneath his touch. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” She repeated with a small, incredulous huff. “Out of the four of us, I'm the only one more or less unharmed.” There had been a headache but as soon as she had got to the TARDIS she had given herself an analgesic to chase it away. “I'm fine.”

“I mean you seem a little off,” the Doctor said. “Did something happen whilst Cassandra was in me? She didn't say or do anything horrible, did she?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It wasn't nice having you look at me and there being nothing there but that's it.”

“It's been a difficult day,” he agreed, “and you three had to do most of the heavy lifting today. I can't imagine that was a lot of fun.”

“I think the three of us can fill in for you quite nicely actually,” Zoe said, enjoying the sight of his long fingers tangled with hers. “Three humans can do a passable Time Lord impression if today's anything to go by.”

His chest rumbled with a laugh. “I don't doubt it, but I know that there's something bothering you. Do you want to tell me what it is, or do you want to sit with it for a bit and tell me when you're ready?”

“You know -” his ability to see through her was both annoying and endearing. “You have this really annoying habit of always knowing when I'm even the slightest bit out of sorts.”

“It's only because I know you,” he said, nose bumping against her temple. “You do the same to me.” He poked just beneath her breast. “Talk to me.”

“I just had a momentary crisis earlier,” she admitted, glad that she couldn't see his face. “I hesitated over what to do about the flesh the Sisterhood were using. Jack was worried about it.”

“Why did you hesitate?”

“I wasn't sure what the right decision was.” Irritation bubbled within her. “I blame Harriet for this, you know. She got in my head. God, this is what she probably felt like when I got in hers. No wonder she was annoyed.”

“Harriet?” The Doctor asked, surprised. “What does she have to do with it?”

“Oh –” she fluttered her fingers dismissively over his arm. “At Christmas we had a bit of a heated discussion about things. I think we both went away with something to think about.”

“That's the mark of a good friendship,” he said. “But I need a little more information here.”

Zoe scrunched her nose up, realising that she hadn't told him about the weapon. Turning in his arms so that she was on her back and could look at him properly, she settled. “Harriet and I were discussing the consequences of making decisions when it may not be our place to do so. The Sycorax were coming, and she was preparing a weapon –”

“She was what?” The interruption was sharp and expected. “You didn't say.”

“You got stabbed and then I got distracted by you regenerating, and then it didn't matter because she never used it,” Zoe reminded him, unhappiness radiating off him, face taking on a pinched expression, but he nodded his head. “I found out about it when you were off having a chin-wag with Alistair. I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of not needing a weapon because you were there to help. She made the point that you weren't always going to be there and that Earth needs its own defence against what's out in the universe.” Her chest rose with another sigh, exhaustion pulling at her. “It all got me thinking about the fact that we can make these decisions but we don't have to live with the consequences afterwards. It's why I hesitated. I didn't know if the consequences of my decision to put an end to what the Sisterhood were doing was to be good or bad. I still don't.”

The Doctor listened silently, hearing her worries and fears and not dismissing them. He tucked her in closer against his body, brushing stray hairs from her forehead, fingers ghosting down the side of her face, thumb brushing over the corner of her mouth. Throwing a leg over hers, his forehead rested against temple so when he spoke he did so with no space between them, her vision blurring until he was just a mess of pink skin and brown hair.

“You've got a good heart,” he told her in a soft rumble. “You'll always make the decision that you think is best.”

“But I don't know if it's the _right_ decision,” she said, desperate for guidance. Jack was right, she had been floating along by herself, trying to figure out the rights and wrongs with no help, and it clearly wasn't working. “When you do it, do you know if it's right? Do you know for sure that it's the right thing to do, or are you just using your years of experience to make the call for you?”

“I'm different,” the Doctor said, gently. “I can see the timelines, you can't.”

“So, you have a relatively good idea if it's going to help or cause chaos because you can see the various outcomes?”

“More or less, yeah.”

“You and Jack are both supremely unhelpful.” He smiled against her cheek “You say to follow my heart, he says to do what you would do. Both of you are awful.”

“His advice isn't bad, you know?”

“I don't want to do what you'd do,” Zoe said, aware that she was beginning to whine. “I want to do what _I_ would do.”

The Doctor wasn't surprised as she had never been eager to follow blindly down the path he showed those who travelled with him. Even early on when they were on Thanatos and she just _acted_ and nearly drowned in the process, she had shown herself to be less enamoured with the principles he imparted to his friends. It wasn't that she didn't embrace them, it was more the fact that she questioned _why_ before taking them for her own. He had thought it might annoy him but she was Zoe, the woman he loved, and the one that he was going to break his hearts for so it wasn't fair to expect her to simply do as he would do.

“The way I see it,” the Doctor said after a long moment of silent thought, “is that if you can look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and not be ashamed then you're doing well.”

She rested her head against his. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“As simple as that?”

“There's nothing simple about it, but it's all I've got,” he said, apologetically. “I hope it's enough for now.”

Her body softened in his arms, and she turned her head to rub her nose against his. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“I'm sorry about Cassandra,” she said, his chest tightening. “I didn't like her, but I saw how it affected you when she died.”

“It was a better death than her last one, but it just felt ugly.” The breath he sighed was shaky and long before he shifted to an easier topic. “It was nice to see the Face of Boe though. He was as amazing as I hoped.”

“Oh, you missed it,” she said with a bright smile. “Jack's something of a fan. You should've seen him when we realised it was Boe who sent the message. He was all nervous and trying to fix his appearance. It was kind of cute.”

“Yeah, I suppose he would know of the Face of Boe,” the Doctor considered. “He's from the Boeshane Peninsula after all.”

“See, I didn't know that,” Zoe said. “I thought he was from Earth.”

“There you go,” he said, “you've learnt something new.” He blinked as a giant yawn took over him that let her count his teeth. “Blimey, I'm tired.”

“It's been a long day like you said.” She kissed his jaw on its downward, yawning stretch. “Go to sleep, love. Best if we put this day behind us.”

They shifted and tried to get comfortable – a task made all the more difficult by the reluctance of the Doctor to release Zoe. Soon enough they found a comfortable position, and the Doctor said something in Gallifreyan and the lights went out. The darkness of the room was only broken by the ceiling that resembled the night's sky, casting them in a silvery glow and letting the Doctor see the stars whenever he wanted. She was beginning to drop off to sleep when his lips moved against her skin, words drifting up like smoke to her ears.

“I'd like to explore New New York some day,” he said, words drugged with tiredness. “Take you out on a proper date there.”

Warmth bloomed within her as her eyes blinked heavily. “That sounds nice.”

“It does,” he murmured, “doesn't –?”

He slipped into sleep mid-question, and Zoe soon followed.


	9. Chapter 9

_ G.E.S.S Nebulus _

_ Second Grifari System _

A shot of fire-red energy from an outdated blaster long past its safe usage slammed into the bulkhead, denting it, a scorch mark burning across the metal surface. Hebe ducked low, her bare foot sliding in the hot blood that ran like a river down the corridor, knee slamming into the sharp jut of a supporting beam that was bending under the heavier-than-normal gravity. Grinding her teeth together, she ignored then pain and palmed her blaster – picked up off one of the dead crew; swinging herself around the protective wall of metal, she fired before jerking herself back in. Adrenaline pulsed through her, and she dragged in a deep breath that made the smoke in the air burn the edges of her lungs. To her left was her brother was flat on his back, strong legs wrapped around one of the Grifari, his uninjured arm choking off their oxygen.

Three weeks ago, Timar had been a sculptor.

“Thraine, get down!”

Hebe twisted and threw herself to the ground just in time as an explosive was thrown into their midst. The explosion sent a shock wave through the deck that lifted her off the ground before slamming her back into it, knocking the air from her lungs and bruising her ribs. Ears ringing in the aftermath, she blinked away the blood that slid down from her forehead and looked up, squinting through the smoke-filled corridor. Someone was screaming and another was weeping. She blinked, squeezing her eyes shut, before opening them and shaking her head. Bits of fine metal dust fell from her hair and shoulders. Grabbing the wall, knees wobbling beneath her, she hauled back to her feet and spat a mouthful of blood and saliva onto the ground.

“They're falling back,” someone yelled, blasters firing again. “They're sealing the bridge off!”

“Do _not_ let them,” Hebe shouted back, ears ringing. “We lose the bridge, we lose the fight. Ulan, Dextra, push forward!”

Years ago, she sat next to Ulan and Dextra in school. Now, she watched as they fell beneath a volley of fire, their deaths giving Hebe the opportunity to get the Grifari in her sights and shoot them dead, punching a hole in their defensive line that her people took advantage off. They were falling back to the bridge, trying to seal off the emergency doors as they went, but the damage that Hebe and her people had inflicted to the deck made it impossible. A small team of engineers were working on fixing the turbolift that stood open, a melted control panel sliding down the side of the wall, burning red with the ferocity of the heat. Hebe's eyes darted about, watched as one of the Grifari climbed onto the shoulders of their shipmate and climbed up onto the top of the lift, their feet disappearing with a twitch. She raised her gun and shot the Grifari acting as a ladder, watching with satisfaction as they crumbled to the floor, blood seeping from their wounds, the taste of pleasure in her mouth.

Her fingers flexed on her weapon, stepping over the bodies of her dead friends, calling behind her for the others to follow. The fight had been raging for hours, beginning in the cargo hold and spreading up level by level through the ship, taking as much as they could and killing as many as they were able. Every part of her ached, sweat forming a hard crust against her skin, but the end was in sight – the turbolift, when working, led up to the command centre where she could put a stop to everything that was happening. Victory was within her reach. She wasn't used to failing at the last hurdle, used to overcoming the obstacles in her path, and the certainty that she, and she alone, could stop what was being done to her people gave her the energy and fortitude to push past the pain in her body and the anger in her heart.

The strip lighting flickered overhead before finally fading, plunging them into a darkness.

Hebe immediately lost all sense of where she was.

A blaster lit up the corridor, and her surroundings became nothing more than flashes out of horrific nightmares. Blood stained the wall and clung to the air – burnt, hot rust that made her sinuses ache. Grifari and Dolmaran bodies were twisted together, united in death in a way that life refused them; she recognised each of the Dolmaran bodies that she stumbled across, her ankle twisting painfully when she caught her foot on her neighbour's body, pitching her to the ground. They were her friends, the people that she had been elected to serve, and now they were dead because of Grifari greed. She hurled herself behind another patch of broken bulkhead and checked her weapon, the energy levels low, before leaning around the corner and firing fired a fresh wave at her people's oppressors.

“We're not going to make it,” Timar said, panting.

The emergency lighting kicked in, and Hebe watched sweat slipped down his face in fat rivulets, distracting her from the gaping wound on the curve of his shoulder where a blaster had taken a bite : ragged chunks of flesh hung off of him, and she was able to see the white bone of her brother's collarbone.

“We have to,” Hebe said. “We need the command centre.”

“They'll be holed up in there with a fucking arsenal,” he hissed at her, blood smeared across his teeth. “We go through those doors, we'll be like pigs to slaughter. You know this.” Her nostrils flared at the sharp chastisement. “We need to fall back. Regroup.”

“We fall back, we die!”

“We stay here, we die,” he snapped back, pressing the strong band of his arm across her chest as he leaned out to fire. She saw their mother and father in his features when he turned back; _Gods be good_ she missed them. “Let them have the bridge for now. We need to live to fight another day.”

Falling back felt like she was admitting defeat, and the ship was covered in the bodies of her people who had followed her this far.

“If I order us to fallback now, then what will this have been for?” She argued. “How many of us have died just to fail? If I don't push on, I have no right to expect anyone to follow me again later. We need to do this _now_.”

“There won't be a later.” Frustration bared his teeth. “We've lost this one, Hebe. We need to save who we can.”

Her eyes flashed. “No.”

“Then how many more must die before you realise we're not going to win this?” His hands flexed with a desire to shake sense into her. “Not like this, not this way. They have more weapons than we do and they know the ship better. We're not going to overpower them.”

Her mouth stretched in a grimace. “We've come this far –”

“And no further!” He shielded her with his body as another explosion rocked the hallway. She smelt the sharp tang of his sweat and the familiar earthy undertones that she associated with home. “Hebe, they won't leave if you don't give the order. Don't let them die because of your stubbornness. Find another way.”

She gripped his shirt tightly. “There isn't one. There's only – AH!”

She saw the flash of fear and panic on Timar's face as she buckled, her leg shot out from beneath her, blinding white pain consuming her vision. When it cleared she looked down at her leg and saw that her thigh was open and weeping blood; Timar stripped out of his shirt and wrapped it around her thigh, bracing her arm on his shoulder, laying down fire as best she could whilst sweat poured pouring out of her and pain made her dizzy.

“We can do this,” she panted panted through the pressure her brother applied to the wound. “We can.”

“Hebe,” Timar said, the softness of his voice at odds with their surroundings. Gently, he stroked his thumb over her knee like they were children again and he was tending to her cuts and bruises. “It's not failure...it's a tactical withdrawal.”

She gripped his wrist, her face twisting into a snarl even as her eyes shone with tears that would not fall. “They have taken _everything_ from us.”

“And we'll get it back,” he promised, and he was the only person she would believe those words from. “But we need to fall back.”

Her hand tightened on his wrist and her throat moved. They were _so_ close she could taste their victory, but the thought of bursting through the doors only to be gunned down one after the other made her turn cold, wound throbbing. She looked at her brother as the door to the turbolift finally hissed shut and the last of the Grifari were swept away to the safety of the bridge; the silence that followed was heavy. She heard her heartbeat in her chest and the sound of her people breathing heavily and crying out in pain. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask them to push just a little more – a little further – but Timar squeezed her knee, pleading with her silently, when the decision was taken out of her hands.

“What's that?” tasting chemicals on her tongue, she startled. “What the hell is that?”

Hunched over with exhaustion, Jural straightened and grabbed hold of a strip of dangling wires and lifted himself up off the ground, muscles shifting beneath the slick surface of his skin. He held his hand in front of a vent before drawing it to his mouth. He dropped down and spat viciously onto the ground.

“We're being gassed.” Fury was visible beneath the blood on that coated his face. “They're going to suffocate us to death.”

Hebe grabbed hold of the bulkhead and Timar's good shoulder and heaved herself up, wobbling precariously until he looped an arm around her waist. “No, we're worth nothing to them dead. They want us alive. Someone show me where they're venting the gas!”

“Here, Thraine,” Isa said, hurrying forwards. Sodden with blood, the hem of her skirt clung to her calves and the front of her shirt had been torn asunder, bruises already blossoming on her breasts. She thrust a cracked data pad under Hebe's nose. One slender finger traced the route for her. “They're venting everywhere on the ship, except for –”

Hebe's fingers tightened on the data pad. “The cargo bay.”

“They're herding us like fucking animals,” Jural spat. “Thraine –”

“Fall back.”

Jural stared at her. “What?”

“You heard me,” she snapped. “Fall back. Everyone now. Send out the word. We all fall back to the cargo bay now.” Her furious gaze turned to the security cameras that were focused on her, pouring her hatred into their lenses even as the gas started to compress her head with pressure. “They've won this fight but we're not done yet, _move_!”

Jural looked at her, tension running through his body, and she met his eyes, daring him to argue. He finally inclined his head in agreement and started gathering the wounded as more gas started to fill the hallway.

“We're not done yet,” Hebe promised herself. “Not by a long shot.”

Getting back to the cargo bay was difficult. The ship was falling apart with exposed live wiring and pieces of bulkheads falling down on them as they stepped over dead bodies and spread their toes in pools of blood. The gas kept spilling out of the vents and Hebe had to pause, bend double and vomit before she was able to move on. With every throbbing pulse in her head her hatred for the Grifari grew more and more pronounced. Timar carefully guided her the rest of the way, and she drew in deep gulps of clean air to clear the pressure in her mind the moment she crossed the threshold to the cargo bay. Her brother sat her down on the floor, her back sliding down the wall, and she stared at her blood-stained feet as she caught her breath.

“Mum.” Her son crouched beside her, hands fluttering over her before she raised her head and looked into his face; a cool swell of relief passed through her at the sight of his uninjured body. “Are you hurt?”

“Just my leg.” She reached out to touch his face. Pecath leaned into her palm, the tension around his eyes fading a little. He was too young to be so worried, and she managed a smile. “Go help your uncle. Go on now.”

He hesitated but slipped off to help Timar pull the last of their people inside. Resting the back of her head against the wall, she looked around the room that was filled with her people, noticing the gaps where the dead should be. Failure gnawed at her, eyes lingering on Somme and Frela who were holding each other tightly, their daughter nowhere to be seen. Her eyes shifted away from them, conscious of being a witness to private grief, and settled on Haro who was laid out flat on his back whilst holding a wad of bloody material to his head. He moved it,and her mouth became slick with bile when she saw that he was holding his skull cap in place. Haro was eighty-six years old and should be enjoying a well-deserved retirement, not trying to keep his head together.

She closed her eyes and thought of the pale green skies of home.

Although it wasn't what she expected when she was elected to be Thraine of the Dolmar a year and a half ago, she would see to it that her people stood under their sky once more. They were a peaceful people, small in size but large in spirit, and didn't deserve what the Grifari were doing to them. She would see the Dolmar returned home and the Grifari in agony for what they had done, she just didn't know how to set those things in motion, not yet anyway.

“Thraine,” Rebara said, crouching in front of her. Half of her hair was singed off and there was a thick paste slathered across the burned skin making her look as though she was glistening in the poor light. “Let me look at your leg.”

“The others –”

“Don't be a martyr,” the doctor warned, unwrapping Timar's blood-heavy T-shirt from the wound. “It's not a good look on you.”

Hebe rasped a laugh and winced as she drew her knee up. The wound looked about as bad as it felt, and she kept her face turned away from it as Rebara worked. Her attention was on the cargo bay doors that slid shut, the heavy sound of them locking echoing around the room, trapping them once more. A tight feeling of claustrophobia crawled over skin but she slowed her breathing down and focused on the pain in her leg so as not to become overwhelmed with what she wasn't able to fix; Rebara jabbed something into the soft flesh of her elbow and she looked down to see a tube running out of her, attached to an antibiotic drip. The Grifari might be treating them like animals but they didn't actually want them to die so there was a lot of medical supplies and food in the cargo bay.

_A small mercy_ , she thought, bitterly.

“Please stop poking me with things now,” Hebe requested, covering the taped tube with her hand. “Things are bad enough as they are without you sticking tubes in me.”

“Do not remove this until I tell you to,” Rebara said, ignoring her with her usual efficiency. “Unless you'd like the next thing I do to you to be amputating your entire leg.”

Hebe watched her go, grateful for the respite. She shuffled on the floor, struggling to get her good leg beneath her. Clenching the bag of antibiotic fluid in her teeth, she clawed her way up the wall until she was upright and dizzy. Nearly falling over, she managed to keep herself standing until it passed. Sticking the bag of fluid in the belt of her shirt, she limped forward. Pain shot out from her wound and only her pride kept her from asking Rebara for something to numb it; instead, she used it as momentum and focus.

“Mum.” Pecath hurried forwards to help support her, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth in an unspoken rebuke. She placed her arm around his shoulder, grateful for the support. “You shouldn't be –”

“I shouldn't do a lot of things but I still do them,” she interrupted. “Where's your uncle?”

“Here,” Timar's deep voice said, his hand touching between her shoulder blades. “How's your leg?”

“Still attached. How is everyone?”

“Shaken.” There was a low murmur of noise – tears being wept, pain being managed, grief being lived – that dulled at the sight of Hebe on her feet. “Upset. Angry. _Hurting_.”

Hebe nodded. “Get their attention for me.”

It wasn't a difficult thing for Timar to do as he was capable of being loud when the situation called for it. Pecath helped Hebe up onto a box so that she was more easily visible. She stared down at the tops of her people's heads. There had been three hundred and sixty-two when they were taken from their home, enough that it had made the cargo bay cramped, and now she saw properly the spaces where the others should have been, the gaps that glared out at her. She didn't know how many had been lost but one was too many. There were more on other ships that had hid themselves in the gap in their sensor network, and she hoped that they were faring better than her group was.

Swallowing back her anger and clearing her throat of grief, she cloaked herself in the comforting shrouds of the power they had given her.

“This is not the end,” Hebe told them. “We're not beaten yet. We're not beaten until every one of us no longer draws breath. The Grifari have taken us from our homes. They're trying to take our freedom. Our freedom isn't theirs to take.” She swallowed and set her tongue to her cracked lips. “You elected me to serve as Thraine in different circumstances. I was only ever supposed to be an administrator, someone to liaise with the Central Solar Government, but that isn't my job now. My job is take us home and free our brothers and sisters on the other ships before I make the Grifari pay for what they've done to us with blood. I promise you, no matter how long it takes, I will get us home. You have my word.”

Faces lined with stress, tension, and exhaustion stared back up at her.

“How?” A voice came from the crowd. “Your last plan nearly killed us. It did kill some of us.”

Hebe absorbed the hit without showing the damage. “And what would you have had me do? Sit here and wait as we're taken to a fate worse than death? Appeal to the good nature of the Grifari government? We have to fight. If we don't, then we've already lost.”

“ _You have already lost_.” Shrieks of surprise and fear were quickly muffled as family reached out to family, friend to friend, and held each other as the voice of their captor sank into them, slithering around the room. “ _That was a brave attempt to retake the ship, Thraine, but a foolish one. You lost a lot of people doing that._ ”

She worked her jaw. “I hope that upsets you.”

“ _Dolmaran deaths don't upset me_ ,” they continued. “ _The deaths of my people upset me. I should have you spaced for the harm you've caused._ ”

“The harm _I've_ caused?” Incredulity crashed through her.. “You stole us from our homes that you burnt to the ground to satisfy your greed and you dare speak to me of the harm I've caused?”

“ _Your home is part of the Grifari Empire_ ,” they reminded her. “ _You were illegally squatting on territory that never belonged to you._ ”

“The Dolmar have lived on Ketchwa since the Grifari were nothing more than bacteria in the soil,” she snapped. “Just because you claim something to be yours does not make it true.”

“ _Perhaps not,_ ” they agreed, “ _but the strength to support those claims does.”_

She closed her eyes and her chest expanded outwards. “Don't pretend that you're acting on behalf of the Empire. Your pretence is never going to hold up in any court. You and I know perfectly well what it is you're doing here.”

A low chuckle slipped around the room, and a cold shiver ran down her spine. _“That bothers you.”_

“Of course it does,” she said. “It would bother you too.”

“ _The difference between a Grifari and a Dolmaran is that a Grifari would never allow themselves to be captured,_ ” they said. The desire to hurt and kill swept through Hebe with a force that nearly rocked her off her feet. “ _You've lost, accept it._ ”

“Never.”

“ _So be it_ ,” they said softly, the words kissing her ears like a cruel caress. “ _Sit there in your anger and let it eat at you. There's nothing you can do any more. Above you, below you, around you, gas fills the corridors. You can't leave the cargo bay, but you have food, water, and medicine – enough to last the trip to Nola, more now that many of your people have died. There's nothing you can do, and you're going to have to accept that._ ” She heard their breathing over the open communication. “ _Enjoy the trip, Thraine._ ”

The connection clicked off, and Hebe unclenched her fist. She held up a finger to her lips, silencing the reaction that wanted to break free and gestured to Jural. He approached her. Bending over at the waist, catching hold of his shoulder for fear of tumbling off the box, her lips brushed against the shell of his ear.

“Can they see us?” He gave a small nod. “How long will it take for you to shut that down whilst making sure they also can't hear us?”

“Less than a minute,” Jural said in a whisper that stirred the short hairs on her neck. She turned her face, nose scraping across his cheek, and looked at him. His grin was feral. “Watch.”

He turned and examined the walls and ceilings. Everyone was silent, waiting for something to happen, and he raised his blaster, taking out the security cameras one after another. They sizzled in their holds, sparking outwards, and he looked back at her. “No need for anything complicated when you have a blaster.”

“Thank you,” Hebe said, gratefully, speaking normally again. “That gives us a little privacy at the very least.”

“Then what now?” Taking her upper arm, he her her down. She grunted when her weight landed awkwardly on her bad thigh, her fingers digging into his firm arm as the pain made her vision swim. “Thraine?”

“I'm fine,” she lied. “What the Grifari are doing is illegal, even their cover story will never hold up in a court of law. Despite what the captain of this pathetic ship thinks, we have rights under Imperial law. Forced displacement is illegal no matter what way it's looked at: Ketchwa is ours. They had no right to remove us from it.”

“I don't think that matters to the captain,” he glowered. “Besides, they aren't taking us to a new home.” Hebe met his eyes. “And it's not like we can lodge a complaint.”

She swallowed, pulling her arm out of his grip. “Yes, we can.”

“Hebe.” Timar shook his head. “We're trapped in a room with no way out and no way to communicate with the outside. We can't fill in a form and complain.”

Annoyed at the lack of imaginative thinking from the men around her, Hebe glared at them.

“Captain Ston is a smuggler, a good one if they've graduated to people,” she said. “They might be an official transport ship but my bet is that we're going to be dropped off long before we reach the final destination that's logged in the manifest.” She wiped the sweat from her brow with the collar of her shirt, smearing blood and dirt across it. “For all the Grifari faults, they're a race of bureaucrats. All we need to do is get a distress signal out. We flag another Grifari ship and they are duty-bound to respond to it because it automatically logs in the central system on Ventrix Major. Once they get the call, Captain Ston will have no choice but to let us go.”

Jural stared at her. “What's to stop them from spacing us?”

“Absolutely nothing,” she said. “But hundreds of dead Dolmarans floating in the black doesn't scream innocent, does it?”

“There's still the problem of getting a distress call out,” Timar pointed out. “We're shut out of the computer systems down here and they've filled the space around us with gas. If we make a run for the bridge again, they'll flood the corridors with more of it.”

Hebe lifted a single, slender finger and pointed. They followed her eyes to an air vent the size of a heating module.

“Using the vents will allow one of us to get to the bridge and initiate an automatic distress signal,” she explained. “We've all worked on Grifari ships before. We know the systems. It's easy enough to access the distress call simply because there's no security in place.”

“There is a code though,” Jural said.

“87694,” Hebe said. They stared at her, and her nostrils flared with exasperation. “Did neither of you pay attention during your year of service?”

“I worked in sanitation,” Timar shrugged.

Jural pointed at himself. “Kitchens.”

She rolled her eyes. “Above every door the emergency code is engraved so that everyone knows it.”

“Lax security,” Jural noted, arms folded across his chest.

“It's because of the oxygen leak on the Dresmar,” she said, receiving blank looks. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she sighed. “The ship was venting oxygen and they needed help, but the only person on the bridge was a new officer who wasn't aware of the emergency code. Four hundred and ninety-six people died because of it. After that the Grifari made sure to make the code as obvious as possible so that even a child is able to input it if needed.”

“A child's what we're going to need to get through that vent.” Timar squinted at the grating. “None of the adults are going to fit.”

Hebe frowned at the fact she had overlooked before a voice piped up.

“I can do it.”

She turned, stomach sinking, and looked at her son.

“Mum, I can do it,” Pecath said, a look of eager determination painted on his face. Ever since his father's death he had been so anxious to break out of the cocoon of protection she had wrapped him in, afraid of losing him too. “You know I can. I'm really good with computers. I can do this.”

“Hebe...” the voice of her brother was a low warning but she didn't take her eyes off her son.

The day he was born was the happiest day of her life. She never wanted children before finding herself unexpectedly pregnant at the age of nineteen. It wasn't something she had planned for and whilst she considered ending the pregnancy she wasn't able to go through with it when her appointment rolled around. As her body shifted and changed to accommodate the new life growing inside of her, she doubted her capabilities as a mother again and again, worried that she would resent the life stretching her skin for keeping her from the things she wanted to achieve. But then Pecath was put into her arms and his soft, downy weight sank against her exhausted chest and everything else had disappeared as she marvelled at the tiny creature she had created. Every day since had been a joy and a challenge in equal measure, but she wouldn't have changed it for anything.

He was her entire world.

“Mum,” Pecath said, eyes finding hers and holding them. He looked so much older than twelve and she saw his dead father peering back at her. “I can do this.”

“Of course you can,” Hebe said. “But –”

“You can't keep me locked away forever,” he argued. She snapped her mouth shut, pained. “I can help. Let me help.”

“Mind your tone,” Timar warned.

Hebe looked out over her people, measuring them. Pecath was the only one small enough and with enough knowledge to pull it off; the other children were either too young or too broad around the shoulders. She reached out and dragged her son into her, cupping the back of his head as she bent over him, breathing in the smell of his closely cropped hair. His thin arms wrapped around her waist, and she thought longingly of the days when he wanted to spend his time around her instead of rushing off into danger to prove himself.

“Okay,” she whispered before clearing her throat. “Okay.”

Timar stared at her. “Hebe.”

“Pecath is the only one who can do this,” she said, pulling back and cupping her son's face. “You go in, you input the code, then you get straight back out. There'll be a panel –”

“Under the console,” he finished for her. “I'll need to cross the green and orange wires to directly access the emergency system to save time, then I need to put the number into the console.” Hebe raised her eyebrows. He looked sheepish. “I like computer systems.”

“We'll talk about you reading things from my office when we're home,” she said, warmth seeping into her tone to take the edge of. “You make sure you are you're as careful as possible. You're all I have left in this world. Don't you dare make me lose you.”

Straightening his shoulders, he tried to make himself look taller. “I promise.”

Jural clapped Pecath on the shoulder. “Come with me, son. Isa will have the layouts of the vent system. We'll find you a path.”

Pecath glanced at his mother for permission. She nodded, and he followed Jural into the crowd as the heat of Timar's body warmed her shoulder.

“It's a suicide mission,” he murmured into her ear. “The Grifari will open fire the second they see him.”

Pain filled her at the idea. “Get the vent open.”

“Hebe –”

“You heard me,” she said, firmly. “Get the vent open.”

Her people worked open the vent, Isa speaking quickly and clearly to Pecath who focused on her the way she wished he had focused on his homework the week before. Her heart caught in the spokes of her ribs, making her way towards her son; he was so much like his father and too much like herself that she feared what the next few hours would bring. She realised that the feeling burning through her was the same feeling her parents had felt when she was Pecath's age and full of the belief that nothing in the world was able to harm her – how she wished she could speak to them again and apologise for the grief she put them through. Her hand came down on her son's shoulder, feeling the round bone through his warm skin. When he looked up, she smiled.

“Ready?” He nodded, determined, and she cleared her throat. “All right then.” She cupped the back of his head again. “You come back to me, you hear?”

“I'll be fine,” Pecath said in the manner of children everywhere who believed their parent was worrying for no good reason. “In and out, like you said.”

“What's the number?”

“87694.”

“Good boy.” She pressed her lips to his forehead. “Be safe.”

Hebe stepped back, her hand falling from Pecath with reluctance, and she watched as Jural lifted him and pushed him into the vent. She watched the bare soles of his dirty feet disappear into the network of vent tunnels and found herself praying to the gods she had abandoned after her partner's death for the safe return of her boy.

Twelve floors above the cargo bay in the only undamaged area of the ship, Captain Ston scowled in the captain's chair. The bridge was louder than they would have liked but, given the circumstances, they kept their peace. Their crew needed to work and figure out a way to get back into the rest of the ship without losing control of the gas that filled the corridors around, above, and below the cargo bay. Anger made the glands on their neck throb and pulse, blood rushing up into them and making them stain a dark purple colour. The Dolmar they had in their cargo bay were more troublesome than any others that they had transported since they had started moving people across the Empire.

Sixteen successful trips – each more lucrative than the last – and it was a group of Dolmaran savages that was going to smash everything they had worked for to the ground. Eight members of his crew were dead and the only comfort to that fact was that the Dolmaran dead far outnumbered their own. It had been a foolish attempt at freedom as they had no weapons and were exhausted from being cooped up in the cargo bay for the last two weeks, but Ston had to hand it to them, they seized the opportunity the moment there was a slackening of security. They should have known better than to leave a new crewmember guarding the cargo bay doors, but they had got accustomed to everything going without a hitch that they hadn't expected the small uprising or the fact that the crewmember would feel sympathetic towards the Dolmaran.

Sometimes they forgot that others didn't view flesh of the Outliers as they did.

Dirty.

Feral.

_Profitable_.

“Captain.” Ston looked up and saw the ship's doctor moving towards them. “Please, let me look at your arm now.”

They slowly extended the aching mass of flesh and bone. They had tried to avoid looking at the skin that hung off the burned muscle like spiderwebs, the skin melted away, leaving only agony behind. They would need a dermal graft and muscle stimulation; nothing that was going to come cheap of course, but they might just do away with the arm entirely and get a bionic replacement as it would at least be more useful in their line of work. Doctor Tirn knelt at their feet and barely touched their skin before a hiss shot through their lips.

Orange-flecked eyes glanced up, wary, a tight-lipped look of disapproval that Ston was used to staring up at them. If they wasn't such a good doctor, Ston would have replaced them years ago.

“This is going to hurt until it doesn't,” Tirn said.

They shifted in their seat. “Just get on with it.”

Ston's nostrils flared out up the bridge of their nose when Tirn injected local anaesthesia to dull the pain. Slowly, as the pain relief began to take effect, they breathed a little easier. They looked down at the glutinous flesh that dripped off them, stretching like soft toffee until it pooled on the floor like puddles of wax, and considered that it served them right for not being aware of what was happening on their own ship. Coming out of the fresher, the uprising had taken them by surprise, arm on fire before they realised what was happening. The injury was severe because instead of putting it out immediately, Ston had charged down the corridor to tackle one of the Dolmaran to the ground. Only when its windpipe was crushed beneath their knee did they think about dealing with the fire.

“Your tendons are going to need time in vasa fluid,” Tirn said. “I have some aboard, but it's going to be a long process to get full flexibility back: a year, maybe two.”

“Amputation?”

Tirn arched a heavy eyebrow. “I'm not in the business of chopping off perfectly functional limbs, captain.”

“My skin is drooling on the floor, doctor,” Ston pointed out. “Does it look functional to you?”

“Not yet, but it will be if you follow the healing schedule I'm going to put you under.” They closed their medical kit, pulling off dirty gloves. “Not everything has a quick and easy fix.”

“Thank you for your words of wisdom,” they said, sarcastically. “Perhaps you should turn your attention to the rest of the crew instead of –”

“Hey, you little shit!”

Ston snapped their head around and watched as Yaren dragged the squirming form of a Dolmaran child out from beneath the console. They were up and on their feet before the child was set down.

“What did it do?” They demanded, clicking the fingers of their good hand. “Someone speak to me.”

“Hold on, captain,” Primulan said as they scuttled over to the console where the wiring had been ripped out from beneath. “I – er – shit.”

“Don't just say _shit_ , tell me what's wrong.”

“A distress call,” they said, looking over their shoulder with wide eyes set against a face of soot and sweat. “It sent out a distress call.”

A calm sense of anger swept over them, looking down at the child struggling in Yaren's white-knuckled grasp, intrigued at the Thraine sending a child into the den of their captors. The child glared up at them, defiance giving way to fear, and Ston wondered how best to teach the Thraine a lesson. There was no way for them to send a message to the cargo bay since the cameras and speakers were destroyed, which was a shame as Ston wanted the Thraine to see what its continued resistance had wrought.

Ston unhooked their weapon from the dark belt around their waist, raised it. The child's mouth opened in a pleading cry, and Ston fired. Blood and brain matter drenched the front of Yaren's uniform but they didn't even flinch. They held the limp arm of the child's dead body in their hand, awaiting orders.

“Get that signal shut down before anyone picks it up,” Ston ordered a terrified Primulan. “Yaren, clean up my bridge.”

They walked back up to the chair in the centre of the room and ignored the silence that wrapped around the room. If the distress call was picked up, the Thraine was going to pay for the trouble tenfold.

* * *

It was a well-known fact that sending a distress call in space was like spending your last £2 on a lottery ticket – optimistic, but ultimately worthless. The space between things was so large and so devoid of life that the likelihood of someone picking up your distress call was next to nothing. Even in busy shipping lanes with dozens of ships moving through them each day, the reality of the situation was that even if a distress call was picked up and answered the responding ship would be arriving to collect the bodies of the dead or to detail the remains of an exploded ship.

Space travel was dangerous, something that people tended to forget until there was a disaster that brought the fact to the forefront of public debate only for it to fade away again when enough time had passed to sweep it aside as an anomaly.

Yet, sometimes, the universe aligned in such a manner that not only was the distress call answered, it was answered by the Doctor.

In the case of the imprisoned Dolmarans, an unusual twisting of circumstances took place that ensured their distress call stretched across three galaxies and ten thousand years to reach the TARDIS's sensors. At the time that Pecath crossed the wires beneath the console and input the emergency code, a school of telepathic pitcher fish – a delicacy in certain parts of the universe – passed the outside of the G.E.S.S. Nebulus's sensor array that was attached, rather precariously, to the hull surrounding the bridge. In the moments before he died, Pecath's mind screamed out in fear and slammed into the school of fish that scattered under the unintentional assault. One of the youngest of the group panicked to such an extent that they swam directly into the path of the distress call, its smooth scales conducting the message through its body.

Not liking the sensation of the signal running through its body, it twisted and turned and tried to shake it loose but the message was buried deep in the scales that were delicately laced with metal perfect for conducting messages from Grifari ships. As the Nebulus fell behind it and it lost sight of the swarm, the young pitcher fish tumbled tail first into the smallest of space-time eddies that had been left behind by the Last Great Time War. Normally, only particles of dust and specks of rock passed through it – although, once a golf ball slipped through for reasons unknown only to reappear in the soup bowl of Her Excellency, the Greatest Horror, Olane'a`z, commencing three hundred years of war between her and her husband whom she blamed for the act; but, on this occasion the pitcher fish went through it in a panic and travelled across three galaxies and ten thousand years in the space of a heartbeat.

The shock of the journey was too much for the pitcher fish which gave a convulsing pulse before it died, its body releasing the energy stored within and broadcasting the distress call from its metal scales. The distress call then reflected off the surface of a passing asteroid, travelled for some hours before it bounced off a relay satellite and continued on its way to the planet of Drana, galactically famed for its purple oceans and excellent seafood.

Down and down the distress call went, slicing through the atmosphere of the planet, until it was caught in the TARDIS's sensor web. The console beeped in recognition of a call being lodged, the computer screen flaring to life as the TARDIS traced the signal back through its unusual journey to find the point of origin. Such a distress call would be routed to wherever the Doctor was working at the time in order to get his attention, though recently the TARDIS had started sending such things to Zoe's phone as it was almost always on her person except for when she wasn't wearing pockets; as it was though, in that moment, she had to wait.

The Doctor and his friends were busy.

“Jack,” Rose yelled, panic making her stumble into the warm purple waters. “Hold on!”

“Get off of him,” Zoe shouted, swimming towards the Doctor who was being pulled under the water by angry water nymphs. “Oi!”

Jack burst through the surface of the water, gasping for breath, before his eyes went wide as hands wrapped around his throat and dragged him under again, Rose unable to help him as she wrestled with a starfish attached to her face, suffocating her.

Deciding that her odd collection of passengers had enough to be dealing with at the moment, the TARDIS shunted the distress call further down the timeline, tucking it away in her system, ready for a quieter moment to bring it out – or maybe she would surprise her Doctor with the destination as it had been a whilst since she had done that. In the meantime, she resumed her silent observation of her Time Lord and his funny friends, marvelling over the fact that a simple picnic had, yet again, turned into attempted murder.

Not for the first time was she pleased that she had stolen her particular Time Lord.

He did make life fun for her.


	10. Chapter 10

Jack's grievances filled the kitchen two days after their departure from New Earth. He was dripping wet and scrubbing vigorously at his hair with a soft pink towel whilst complaining about his treatment at the hands of the water nymphs of Drana. Rose moved her mouth until she caught the straw of her milkshake and sucked, cheeks hollowing out. Jack made for a pleasant sight, stripped down as he was to his small swimming trunks, muscled torso flexing as he rubbed his hair dry. She was content to sit there and watch him even as his complaints slowly began to circle back in on themselves. She was the only one paying attention as the Doctor was braiding Zoe's wet hair with deft fingers on either side of her head whilst her sister occasionally fed him some of her banana split over her shoulder, operating on a two-spoons-for-her-and-one-for-him method. Jack didn't seem to notice the lack of attention, annoyed as he was by the events of their attempted picnic on Drana, a beautiful world with purple seas and pink sand and the smell of hibiscus in the air.

It was exactly what Rose needed after her recovery from the foul tablet the Doctor had popped into her mouth on New Earth. It wasn't that she held her suffering against him as she knew that she had needed something to help her focus as whatever it was that the late Lady Cassandra had knocked her out with had left her feeling drunk and giddy – which was not a good combination for climbing a ladder – it was just that she wished she was able to skip the day and a half of flu-like symptoms mixed in with a hangover that wasn't easily cured. For the last thirty-six hours, she had curled up in bed watching films and being waited on by a semi-guilty Doctor who peered down at her with concern set in the lines around his eyes.

She didn't mind that bit.

She liked the fussing.

Once the universe had stopped spinning and her muscles stopped cramping, the Doctor took them to Drana for their picnic. It had been going well until Jack and Zoe went out into the purple waters for a swim and accidentally disturbed a underwater city of the water nymphs that no one realised was there. The Doctor, elated to discover something new, waded out in an attempt to make friends, but that had also ended badly; Jack, having swum further out than the rest of them, suffered the worst of the attack as the red line around his throat and bruises blossoming on his skin showed. He tossed his head back and dug the towel into his ear, rubbing pointedly, scowling at the sight of Zoe feeding the Doctor, upset that they weren't paying better attention. Only when he tossed the towel down with a small huff did they both look up with innocent smiles that fooled no one.

“All I'm saying is that we need a quicker response time to people in trouble,” Jack said, hands on his hips. Rose sucked harder on his milkshake and wondered what a night with him would be like. “I nearly drowned because you lot took too long to get to me.”

“In our defence,” Zoe said, holding her wrist out so the Doctor could take a hairband from her. “We were a little busy with our own problems. Rose had a starfish trying to smother her to death, the Doctor was also being drowned, and I was falling in love.”

Jack raised an eyebrow whilst the Doctor gave her braid a tug, testing it. “Falling in love?”

“Did no one else feel the muscles on them?” She squeezed the air before her, making Rose choke on her milkshake. “They were firm and – _yeah_.”

“Far be it from me to judge someone's taste,” Jack said, “but really?”

“I've got a thing for strong women,” she shrugged. “What can I say?”

The Doctor made a sound behind her before releasing her the end of her braid. “Besides the attempted murder, it was actually quite fascinating. I've been going to Drana for years and I never knew that there were water nymphs living in the seas. Can you imagine the type of society they've created beneath the water? What must that be like?”

“I don't think it's likely we're going to find out,” Jack said, sitting down and picking up a spoon to attack his melting banana split. “They were extremely possessive – territorially that is – and I don't think they liked men. Did you notice that there were no men in their group?”

Zoe leaned back in her chair and bumped knees with the Doctor. “Why d'you need men if you're an underwater tribe of warrior nymphs? They'd just get in the way.”

Rose laughed around her straw, a move that aggravating the raw skin on the side of her neck that was healing under a thick, brown cream the Doctor had slathered on her; the starfish had left small sucker marks across her skin that were raw and painful to the touch.

“How did they breathe underwater?” She asked curiously, batting Jack's spoon away from the cherry she was saving for last. “Did they have gills or somethin'?”

Obviously itching to return and find out, the Doctor bobbed his head. “Probably.”

Jack looked around in exasperation. “Oh, are we done with my thing that?”

“You've been complaining for like thirty minutes,” Zoe said, yawning. “We were done with it twenty-five minutes ago.”

The Doctor nodded his agreement next to her whilst Rose stuffed more ice cream into her mouth so that she didn't have to contribute.

“You three are horrible friends,” Jack said. “And you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“Kind of not though,” the Doctor said, face lined with amusement. “But no harm, no foul. Besides, we met _water nymphs_. We discovered something new today. How cool is that?”

Zoe looked over at him and smiled fondly.

“Pretty amazing.” Her fingers touched his hand lightly. “You know, we could go back and –”

“We are absolutely not going back,” Jack interrupted. He lifted his bare foot so they could all see it. “My foot is going down.” He planted it firmly on the floor. “The foot is down. We're not going back. Nope, nu-uh, no way.”

“I think it's sweet you think we'll listen to that,” Rose told him.

“All's well that ends well and all that,” the Doctor said, leaning across the table to steal some of Rose's banana split.

“Doctor, stop it!” Her laugh brightened her eyes. “You've got your own.”

“Yours tastes better.”

He stole another scope before dodging Rose's spoon. “So where to next then? The ice hills of Ulax Flax? The fire caverns of Ruipar? The Maiespce Festival of the Vestal Virgins?”

“Sometimes I think you just make this stuff up,” Jack said, the banana split going a long way to soothe his ruffled spirits. “The what festival of the who virgins?”

“Maiespce Festival,” the Doctor corrected, obnoxiously. “And I don't make stuff up unless it's for my own entertainment.” Zoe grinned behind her mug. “Maiespce is a country on the planet Wesa famous for the devoutness of its citizens and none are more devout than the Vestal Virgins. From birth, all children – male and female – who weigh exactly 7lbs 2oz are given over to the Temple to become Vestal Virgins. They learn history, culture, religion, language, literature – they're the walking memory of their country – and once every five years there's a festival to celebrate them. People go and give thanks to the Virgins for keeping history alive. There's food, dancing, a boring speech, and some fireworks.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “It's actually more exciting than I've just made it sound.”

“If we're going to go and see Vestal Virgins, why don't we just go to Ancient Rome itself?” Zoe rose to pour herself a fresh cup of coffee. “I'd really like to visit and walk around the ruins before they're, y'know, ruins.”

Jack tapped his spoon against the side of his glass bowl thoughtfully. “I do love me a Roman. Half-naked men in leather does it for me any day.”

She rolled her eyes. “I'm surprised you know about the Romans. I thought you didn't study early Earth history.”

“I didn't, but I accidentally ended up in Ancient Rome once for a very wet, very exhausting week.” They looked at him, expectant, and he elaborated. “Not sex, unfortunately. My Vortex Manipulator was out of sorts and I might have appeared in the middle of a gladiatorial combat. I was enslaved and set to fight in the pits during a thunderstorm. A little unpleasant but otherwise manageable until my partner came to get me. I can tell you though, I did not hear the end of it at the Time Agency for a long time. The amount of paperwork I had to fill in still makes my fingers ache.”

“Sometimes I wonder if _you_ make some of this stuff up,” the Doctor said, Jack's face splitting into a grin. “But Rome could be fun if we keep you away from the gladiator pits.” He mashed up some ice cream so that it turned to soup. “We could always see a play. I haven't been to a proper Roman play since I helped Plautus write one of his farces. Maybe we could drop in and see him, but he wouldn't recognise me these days, I suppose.”

“I like the idea of a play,” Zoe mused. “I think the last time I went to the theatre was with Reinette.”

The Doctor stuck his spoon into his mouth. “What did you see?”

“Can't remember,” she said. “We were up in one of the balcony seats and it was just a little too high for me to pay proper attention. I do like the theatre though. It's a shame we didn't get to go much when we were little, but it was too expensive to justify.”

“So...play then?” He asked, sweeping his eyes around them. “Zoe's a yes. Jack?”

“Go on then,” he said. “But I'm going to want to deal with my aches and pains first since I nearly drowned.”

The Doctor scrunched his nose at him. “Rose?”

“Do we have to?” She groaned, already dreading the experience. “I fell asleep the last time I was in the theatre.”

“When was that?”

“It was a school trip or somethin',” she shrugged. “Think we went to the Globe. There was a lot of swords an' stuff.”

“She's talking about Henry V,” Zoe said, helpfully, turning her eyes onto her sister. “And you fell asleep because you and Shareen were sipping booze from a water bottle all morning.”

Rose grinned. “Oh, yeah, that's right. Mum was fumin' because I'd nicked her vodka.”

“You were a little troublemaker, weren't you?” The Doctor asked, amused.

“Well,” she said with a gleam in her eyes, “I did run away with a bloke in a box because he asked me too.”

“Only when I asked twice!”

“Had to make you work for it, didn't I?” She said, mouth spreading in a grin. “Fine, let's go to the theatre. I'm sure I'll be bored stiff, but whatever. It'll make you lot happy at the least an' maybe stop Jack complainin'.”

“I – nearly – died.”

“But – you – didn't,” Rose mocked, yelping when he tossed the wet towel into her face. “But can we at least do a fun play? I don't want to have to watch a borin' one.”

Zoe looked at her. “There's nothing boring about plays, you heathen.”

She stuck her tongue out and maintained eye contact as she blew a raspberry, long and slow. The Doctor pressed his chin to his chest to try and hide his laughter whilst Jack didn't even bother.

Zoe narrowed her eyes at them.

“Good luck trying to find a stola to wear in the wardrobe without me,” she said, a smile shadowing the corners of her lips.

“What's a stola?” Rose asked.

“Oh, if only you hadn't been mean to me, I might have told you,” she sighed, rising from her seat to glide from the room with a glance over her shoulder at the Doctor. “Be a good Time Lord and get us to the Ancient Rome.”

“Wait!” Rose scraped her chair back. “What's a stola? Zoe!”

The Doctor watched as Rose hurried out after Zoe and Jack ambled out after them at a more leisurely pace. They all knew she would help them find the rights clothes but, depending on her mood, it might take a whilst. He ate the rest of Rose's banana split before rinsing the glass bowls and headed to the console room with a bounce in his step at their new destination. He didn't mind taking orders from Zoe – although, she called them suggestions – as her ideas normally led to a lot of fun all around. He hummed to himself as he input the coordinates for Ancient Rome when the computer beeped at him.

“What was that for?” He asked. “Why are you beeping at me?”

_Beep_.

“I hear you,” he said, “but why are you beeping?”

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

He pursed his lips. “I feel like you're taking the piss right now.”

_Beep._

His fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard and accessed the distress call that had been waiting for him. Dragging it out, he threw it into the speakers and canted his head to one side as he listened to it. It was a Grifari signal, which was unusual as the Grifari tended not to like outsiders coming into their system at any point in their history; there was no accompanying message with it – just a slow, looping repetition of a standard distress call. The Doctor tapped his fingers loosely against the keys to hear them clack, reluctant to get involved with Grifari affairs, but it wasn't in his nature to ignore a call for help.

“Who am I kidding?” He said to the TARDIS. “Of course I'm going to answer this.” He flipped the rarely-used ship's intercom on and directed his voice to the wardrobe. “Guys, we're taking a little detour. I've picked up a distress call, and we need to answer it.”

There was a pause before Zoe responded. “ _Christ, I've just wrapped myself up in a stola. Do you have any idea how difficult that is?_ ”

“Very?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

He shut off the intercom with a small chuckle. They joined him in the control room a few minutes later dressed for Ancient Rome. The sight of Zoe in her burnt orange stola made the Doctor's mouth dry out and his hearts beat faster. It wasn't fair that she could make a square piece of material look so enchanting, especially when he couldn't do anything about it. As though sensing the direction of his thoughts, her eyes met his as she fiddled with her hair and a slow smile curved on her mouth, eyes darkening with a teasing promise. Afraid of embarrassing himself in front of the others, he snapped his eyes to Jack only to pause.

“You weren't that tan twenty minutes ago.”

Using the reflection of the computer screen to adjust his toga, chest perfectly bronzed, Jack met his eyes. “You didn't know you had a tanning booth onboard?”

“I do?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Three corridors off from the library and six rooms deep. It's lodged between a room full of bouncy balls –”

“I thought I'd lost those!”

“And a room with a glowing orb in the centre of it.”

“I have no idea what that is.” He blinked. “That's exciting though.”

Zoe stepped up next to him and slid her phone into his pocket before leaning past him to look at the computer screen. “Who's calling for help then?”

“A Grifari ship,” he said, adjusting the screen so they were all able to see. “The G.E.S.S Nebulus.”

Rose lifted her eyebrows. “G.E.S.S?”

“Grifari Empire Space Ship.”

“Imaginative.”

“Empire,” Zoe repeated. “Is this a friendly-type of empire with common goals and peace and love, or a British-type of empire with brutal oppression and naked greed?” He looked at her, surprised; she shrugged. “I'm reading a book on the British Empire at the moment. We were, quite frankly, shits.”

“I won't argue that,” he said. “And the Grifari Empire is definitely more of the British type than I'm comfortable with. Still, we'll be in and out in no time at all. Check to make sure they're okay. Fix what needs fixing. Off to Ancient Rome before you can say Jack Robinson.”

Jack frowned. “I don't get that reference.”

“Me neither,” Zoe admitted.

“Jack Robinson,” the Doctor said as though repeating his name made things clearer. “He was a man who paid such quick visits to his acquaintances that there was barely time to announce his arrival before he was already gone.”

Rose nudged Zoe. “Sounds like you.”

Zoe flicked her hip as the TARDIS arrived at their destination with a gentle landing. None of them rushed for the door; instead, they waited for the Doctor to run external checks. It was one thing to set the TARDIS to random and stroll out the doors without a care in the universe but it was another to walk into a potentially volatile situation. He checked the atmosphere to make sure they were able to breathe and confirmed their location before he gave them a nod and grabbed his coat, swinging it onto his body.

“We're in a storage room a few decks below the bridge,” the Doctor informed them. “Thought it best to have a poke around before we run into anybody.”

“Sensible choice for you.” Jack slipped past him to stick his head out the door. “ _Whoa,_ there's been a hell of a fight in here.”

Zoe squeezed out in the space between Jack and the door, gripping hold of the skirt of her stola and giving it a tug when it got caught. She looked around the corridor and covered her mouth with her hand. Fresh death lingered in the air. Stepping out of the small storage room, just big enough for the TARDIS to squeeze into, she looked around at the damage, careful where she put her feet. Blaster marks marred bent bulkhead walls, wires hung down from the torn-apart ceiling, and the bodies of the dead lay where they had fallen. She crouched by the nearest body and pressed her fingers to the where the pulse point was on humans, alarmed by how cold the skin was.

“Oh my god,” Rose breathed, horrified. “What happened?”

“Blaster fire,” Jack said, examining a body with a frown. “Nasty ones as well. They took chunks out of the bodies.”

The Doctor stood above one of the corpses and looked down at it. “They're not Grifari.”

“What?”

“These people, they're not Grifari.” Jack creased his brow and twitched an eyebrow, silently asking if he was sure. “Trust me, the Grifari are very distinctive. About four foot nothing, no discernable gender, a row of exo-cranial ridges along the top of their heads.” He drew his finger in a line to mark the path. “I don't know who these people are but they're definitely not Grifari.”

Rose stepped delicately over an extended arm that was missing its elbow to take the Doctor's hand. “Invasion?”

“Maybe,” he said, frowning. “Don't know why though. This is a cargo ship and not a very good one. I doubt they're carrying anything worth stealing.”

“You'd be surprised,” Jack said, peeling open a loosened panel. He peered inside at the mess of wires. “You can sell anything on the black market if you know which black market to go to.”

Thinking of the bazaar on Fluren's World, Zoe nodded. “He's got a point.”

“Zo, can you make any sense of this?” Jack asked, extending a hand to help her over the bodies, and the Doctor dug out her phone, tossing it to her.

The technology wasn't as sleek or as logical as she was used to aboard the TARDIS, nor was it particularly attractive to look at. When the Doctor burst into her life, she had hoped that space travel was beautiful and comfortable; for her, it was, as she travelled aboard the TARDIS but most space ships resembled the Grifari ship – utilitarian, functional, bordering on the uncomfortable. According to the Doctor, pleasing aesthetics never really made it into mainstream ship interior design unless it was a ship for the offensively rich. She supposed it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but it disappointed her a little.

Holding her phone between her teeth, she reached into the mess of wires to make sense of it, her surroundings falling away as she worked. After years spent wrestling with code for her Doctor in Distress program, computers were comforting and relaxing; the fact that they either worked or they didn't pleased her. There was no confusion as there was a solution to every problem with a computer and that was especially true of the system before her. All she wanted was access to the mainframe and that involved stripping back the protective rubber layer, twisting strands of individual wires together, and plugging it into her phone with a makeshift adapter of a bobby pin and one of Rose's earrings.

“I've a thought,” Rose said whilst Zoe worked. “Why isn't the ship at mauve alert?”

Jack stared at her. “That's a good point. If the ship was attacked, why aren't the internal alarms going off?”

“They could have turned them off,” the Doctor said, picking through the pockets of the dead in the hope of finding some clues to their identities. “Or the systems were damaged in the attack. I'm more concerned about the fact that no one's discovered we're onboard yet. There are cameras all along this corridor.”

Rose and Jack looked up to see small cameras fitted in the crevices of the wall.

“Cameras are broken,” Zoe said without looking up from her phone, thumb scrolling slowly through the information on its screen. “The connections were damaged in whatever happened here. The heat from the blasters must have fried the wiring.”

The Doctor straightened and took three large strides before he was at Zoe's shoulder, unintentionally looming over her before he shifted and reached around her body to stop the screen. The weight of her automatically leaned back into his chest before she remembered that they weren't alone and moved forwards again.

“There's gas in the corridors,” the Doctor said, rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I thought the air tasted weird. Figured it was Rose's perfume.”

“I'm not wearin' that much.” She sniffed herself and looked concerned. “Am I?”

He tapped his nose absently. “Superior senses.”

Rose rolled her eyes, mouth twitching. “Spare me.”

“There's not just gas in the corridors,” Zoe said. “There's gas in very specific locations. It looks as though its been funnelled there on purpose.” She frowned at the screen. “That's odd. There are the people on the inside.”

Jack slipped in some blood but caught himself on the bulkhead. “Inside of what?”

“Inside the gas area,” she said, gesturing with her finger. “It looks like it's a storage room but much, much bigger. I forget the name. What's that place in Star Trek when they park the shuttles?”

“Shuttle bay?” The Doctor suggested.

“Nope.” She looked up at him. “Yes, but that's not the word I'm – _cargo_!” He smiled down at her, fondly amused. “Cargo bay. That's what it's called.”

“How d'you forget the word _cargo_?” Rose asked, helping Jack pick a path through the bodies. “Big ol' brain like yours?”

“I didn't sleep much last night,” she said. “At all, really. I stayed up reading that book on the British Empire. It was really interesting, and stop mouthing the word _nerd_.”

Rose gaped. “You're not even lookin' at me!”

“I know what you're like,” Zoe said, throwing a look at her over her shoulder. Rose pulled a face at her. “My point, before my mind went blank, is that the gas is being funnelled into the areas around the cargo bay, which is strange in itself but maybe not strange when you account for the fact that there are people inside it.”

Jack reached them. “How many?”

She showed them the screen. “Two hundred and twenty-four of them to be exact, and you know I like being exact.”

“Are they stuck?” He asked, chest pressing into her shoulder as he leaned in close to poke at the screen. “This is strange. The doors are working but they're resisting being opened. Programming error?”

“No.” She tilted the screen towards him. “Look, the coding's working perfectly. It's like something is physically blocking the doors from being opened.”

“What about cameras?” Rose suggested, and the three of them looked up at her, identical expressions on their faces that left her feeling a little wrong-footed. “Remember, Like in Van Statten's bunker? He had cameras in the Dalek bunker, 'cause if you keepin' a bunch of expensive stuff in a cargo bay, wouldn't you want to keep it somewhere you could keep an eye on like he did?”

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said with a growing smile, “gold star.”

She beamed.

“Cameras, cameras, cameras,” Zoe sang to herself. “Where are the cameras? Security system?” She checked. “Oddly enough, no. How about ship's maintenance?” Another check. “No again.”

“Try safety protocols,” he suggested, leaning as casually as he was able to when surrounded by dead bodies. Jack's eyes moved over his shoulder and his hand touched Zoe's back, a warning that she missed. “You really have a knack for computers these days.”

A pleased expression swept across her face. “That's my MIT education coming into play right now.”

“Er...guys?” Jack said in a tone of voice that made Rose turn before going still with surprise. She reached out and tapped the Doctor repeatedly on the shoulder whilst Jack kept talking. “Doctor, Zoe. You guys might want to turn around.”

The Doctor turned, and Zoe leaned back to look past him. Her fingers froze on her phone's screen at the sight of a group of sweat-covered, grease-stained, bruised people who were standing at the entrance to a turbolift with weapons raised in their direction. They looked exhausted and worn through, as though they had been awake for hours, Zoe assumed that they were Grifari from their appearance – short with the promised exo-cranial ridges that ran from between them eyes to the back of their head.

“Oh,” the Doctor said, taken aback at the armed welcome. He offered them a friendly grin. “We come in peace?”

“Jesus Christ,” Rose muttered, eyes rolling towards the ceiling, bracing herself to be imprisoned or worse.

“Who are you and how the hell did you get on this ship?” A Grifari with the name Yaren stitched onto their uniform demanded.

“I'm the Doctor,” he said calmly, pointing at each of them in turn. “This is Rose, that's Jack, and this here is Zoe.” His hand rested on the back of her neck. “We received your distress call, so would you mind pointing those guns somewhere else?”

The guns didn't lower.

“How did you get onboard this ship without us knowing?”

“We're sneaky like that,” the Doctor said, unhelpfully, as Zoe discreetly unhooked her phone from the computer system. “Looks like you've had a bit of a situation here. What happened?”

“Everything's under control,” they said. “So, get back in your ship, wherever it is, and leave.”

He stared at them. “For people who initiated an emergency distress call, you're very ungrateful for the help that's arrived.”

Yaren shifted their way between their feet, fingers flexing on the side of their weapon. Jack's body stiffened in anticipation.

“We have everything under control,” they repeated firmly. “Get in your ship and –”

“Enough.” The firm voice of authority stopped Yaren's words in their throat. A mutinous expression appeared before it was swept away as they stepped to one side to let the captain pass. Shorter than the average Grifari, their arm was slathered in cream and held away from their side. “My apologies for my first officer, friends. They're overcautious given everything that's happened.”

The Doctor's eyes flickered over Yaren for a beat longer that was comfortable or polite before he nodded, hands going into his pockets. “No apologies needed. It looks like you've been having a rough time of it here.”

The captain gave a small laugh. “You could say that. I'm Captain Ezra Ston, I'm in charge around here.” A frown creased their forehead slightly, making the exo-cranial ridges dip and twitch. “You don't look like any people I've met before. Where are you from?”

“Oh, a long way away,” he said, vaguely. “We're not part of the Empire. Just passing through, if you will.”

“I see,” they said. “And you are...?”

As he introduced them all over again, he felt Zoe's hand in his pocket, dropping her phone there, and he took her hand on the way out. “What happened here?”

“I wish I knew,” Ston said. “One minute we were going about our business, the next the ship was stormed by these...I don't know what to call them. Rebels? Terrorists? They were poorly armed which is the only reason my people didn't suffer as much as we might have done but I still lost eight members of my crew.”

Jack's eyes moved over the ground. “It seems you killed more of them though.”

“Reluctantly,” they said. “Killing isn't easy but they gave us no choice.”

“Why did they storm the ship?” Rose asked. “What did they want?”

“Food probably,” Ston said. “We're also transporting medical supplies.” They gestured at the bodies on the ground. “These are the Dolmar. They're a group of people illegally occupying a small moon on the Outer Rim. They don't get much in the way of trade, so desperation must have driven them to this.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Zoe asked, and Ston looked at her. “You've got them in your cargo bay, haven't you? Two hundred and twenty-four of them? That's a lot of people to carry to wherever you're going, especially when they haven't been accounted for in supplies.”

“How do you know where they are?”

“I'm good with computers.”

“Clearly,” Ston said, eyes lingering on her. “There's a transport vessel coming to meet us halfway. They'll resupply us and take the prisoners off our hands so we can get back to work. The paperwork for this is going to be a nightmare though.”

“I bet,” the Doctor said. “Since we're here, mind if we help out? As mentioned, Zoe's a dab hand at computers, she can probably have a crack at help fixing some of –” he flicked a dangling wire. “This. And Jack and I are handy at field medicine. Your arm looks like it could do with a proper seeing to.”

Ston looked down at his burned arm. “It's nothing.”

“Your skin's hangin' off you,” Rose noted with the faintest air of nausea about her, eyes fixed on the finely-laced skin. “That's not nothin'.”

Ston opened their mouth to reply when the ship shook violently. The ground rose up beneath her feet and pitched her into the Doctor who caught her.

“Whoa,” the Doctor said, surprised. “What was that?”

“System problems,” they said, a flicker of tension around their eyes. “The Dolmar might not have had weapons but they were able to damage this ship quite significantly before we were able to stop them. It's a slow process of repair work.”

“All the more reason to put us to work,” Jack said. Ston's reluctance stretched out between them. “Go on. Quicker we get to work, quicker you can be on your way. You lot are measured by length of voyage, aren't you? If you don't get to your destination on schedule that's going to eat into your end-of-voyage payment.”

“Really?” Zoe asked. “That's rubbish.”

“We're trying to change that but the union is encountering difficulties. Bureaucracy, you know?” She and Jack nodded. “Very well. If you don't mind helping then we'd appreciate the help. Zoe, is it?”

“It is.”

“I don't suppose you know your way around an engine room, do you?”

“I've been known to build a couple things in the past,” Zoe said. “I recently built a Delta Wave generator that, I don't mind telling you, was very successful.”

“I don't know what a Delta Wave generator is but it sounds like you've got experience,” Ston said. “Yaren'll show you the way.”

“I'll go with her,” Jack said, unwilling to let her go alone. “I really want to see the insides of this beauty.” He patted the warped hull. “Older design, isn't she? You haven't been upgraded to the new model yet?”

“If it flies, it's still in use,” they said. “Cost-cutting measures.”

Jack clicked his tongue in sympathy whilst extending his arm to Zoe. “We'll catch up with you guys later. Stay out of trouble.”

“Back at you,” the Doctor said, eyes watching as they were led away by Yaren whose weapon was holstered at their hip. He looked back to Ston. “Put us to work with the injured. We have some experience with tending to wounds like yours. You must have people with injuries that still need seeing to.”

Ston nodded. “Dr Tirn is overworked at the moment. You'll find them on deck eight but getting there's going to be a problem. The lift running down to it has been knocked off its hinges. We haven't got a repair crew to it yet.”

“That's all right,” he said. “We love a good climb, don't we, Rose?”

Rose smiled and lied, “absolutely.”

“Don't worry about sending anyone with us,” the Doctor said. “You've got your hands full as it is. Med bay is deck eight. Fairly obvious?”

“You won't miss it,” Ston said, “but I'll have someone waiting for you to make sure the way's cleared for you.”

“Very kind of you, ta.” He peered down the turbolift shaft and rooted through his pockets. “Aha! Knew I was right for putting this in here. Zoe laughed, said I was being daft, but who's the daft one now?” He pulled on the head torch and activated it. Rose lifted her eyebrows. “Ta-da!”

“Still think you're the daft one,” she said. “At least you look daft.” He made a small sound of being offended. “Why d'you have that in your pocket?”

“After New Earth and all that climbing and running in dark spaces we did, thought it'd be useful to have a hands-free torch,” the Doctor said, swinging himself onto the ladder. “I'll go first.”

“I'm wearing a dress.”

“Stola,” he corrected. “And so?”

She sighed, pained. “Just don't be lookin' up it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You keep tellin' me you're a normal bloke,” she said. “That's what normal blokes do.”

“Rose Tyler, you need to meet better men,” the Doctor said, beginning the climb down. “Come on then!”

Rose glanced at Ston who was watching them with a strange expression on their face. “I know he seems odd, but he's actually really good at helpin' people.”

“I'll take your word for it,” they said, dryly, and Rose couldn't help but laugh at that. “Be careful on the climb. It's a long fall to the bottom.”

“Thanks for that,” she said, stomach filled with dread. Hitching her stola up her calves, she planted her foot firmly on the ladder and gripped hold of the side, releasing a small scream as she stepped fully onto it. “God, I hate this. I'm spendin' too much time doin' this lately.”

“You okay up there?”

“Don't look up!”

Slowly she began to climb down, his laugh echoing around her, taking care to make sure that she had proper footing before putting all of her weight onto the rung. Genuine Roman leather sandals were not what a person should wear to climb down an alien lift shaft whilst wearing a long dress. Rose regretted letting Zoe persuade her into authentic garb as her trainers would have made for a more comfortable experience and still be concealed by the hem of the stola. Stepping down, she nearly crushed the Doctor's fingers.

“Ow!”

“What're you doin'?” She demanded, wrenching her foot back up. “Why've you stopped? Oh god, are we stuck?”

“No.” The glow of the sonic screwdriver cast a pale blue light on the walls. “Just wanted to have a quick chat without anyone listening in.”

“Our voices are goin' to echo.”

“Hence the screwdriver,” he said. “Just taking care of the echo. One second.” The hum grew louder and louder until it was almost painful before it stopped, the noise muffled as though by a thick blanket. “How you doing?”

“Wishin' we weren't havin' this conversation on a ladder with a long drop.”

“You and Zoe have this odd fear of heights,” the Doctor noted. “Given that you grew up in a flat that's pretty high up for London, it's a little surprising.”

“I'm not afraid of heights,” Rose said, refusing to look down at him. “Zoe's the one afraid of that. I'm afraid of fallin', big difference.”

He grinned. “If you say so.”

She swallowed. “So – er – what did you want to talk about?”

“Just to make sure that we're on the same page,” he said. “You agree that Ston's hiding something?”

“Obviously,” she replied, hooking her elbows around the rungs and swallowing against her dry mouth. “He – she – _they_ were a little too friendly, 'specially since that first officer of his – hers – _theirs_ was the opposite of friendly.” She sighed, annoyed with herself. “Was the captain male or female? I couldn't tell,”

“Who knows with the Grifari? It's not that they don't have gender but they have twelve different genders and complicated methods of determining what's what. Best just to use the pronoun _they_ to avoid any misunderstandings.”

“Sounds confusin'.”

“The Grifari are confusing in literally every way conceivable,” he said. “Their legal system is so convoluted that you have to train for fifty years to even qualify as a trainee lawyer, but that's not the point. The point is that they're hiding something.”

“Like those people in the cargo bay?”

“Exactly like those people in the cargo bay.” When he nodded, the light bounced around the shaft. “When we landed I didn't see another ship in the area, not even the wreckage of one. Unless those people have teleportation technology, which is incredibly unlikely for members of the Empire, then my bet is that they've been on the ship all along.”

Rose's fingers flexed. “Why not just tell us that though?”

“The Grifari don't like outsiders,” he reminded her. “Probably took one look at us and decided to keep us at arms length, which makes it surprising that they're actually letting us loose in the ship like this.”

“I'm not sure about that,” she said, nodding at the cameras along the wall. “Why are there cameras _inside_ a lift shaft?”

“Good question,” he said, squinting in the darkness. “Those aren't regulation cameras either. Look at how they've been soldered on. No, those have been added on the quiet like.”

“So they're watchin' us right now?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the Doctor said. “Even if they are, we'll just look like we've stopped because of your fear of heights – sorry, _falling._ They won't be able to hear us because of the screwdriver.”

“Right.” She swallowed. “So, we're on a ship with racist –”

“Speciest.”

Her eyes rolled. “Speciest aliens who are hidin' somethin'.”

“Just about sums it up,” he said. “But what I want to know more than anything right now is why those people in the cargo bay attacked this ship. Up for a bit of poking around?”

“Doctor,” Rose said, seriously. “Captain Ston said that we should go directly to the medical bay. Are you suggestin' that we abuse his – _their_ good nature an' sneak about their ship?”

There was silence before –

“Yes?”

She grinned. “Just makin' sure. What's your plan?”

“I memorised the layout of the ship when Zoe had the schematics up,” the Doctor said, tapping the side of his head. “Yet another benefit of my superior biology, and outside the doors leading off from a storage room on deck eight is a ventilation shaft that should lead us to just above the cargo bay. It's a bit of a long crawl – and it'll be a tight fit but the Grifari are wide where we're narrow, so it might work – but that's the only place where we can exit and enter without being noticed...or with less of a chance of being noticed, I should say.”

“An' then what?” Rose asked. “We stick our heads through the ceilin' an' check out what's going on in there?”

“More or less” he said, growing a little defensive in the silence that followed his words. “I never said it was _thorough_ plan. Figured we'd just make up what we need to as we go along. It's worked well for us in the past.”

She risked peering down at him, stomach swooping. “How often d'you make things up like that?”

“Oh.” He pulled a face. “Not that often.” Her silence spoke of her disbelief so he hurried on. “Think you can feign a dodgy stomach? We need to be able to slip away from the Grifari on deck eight.”

“You want me to fake an illness in a medical bay?”

The Doctor paused. “Just say you need the toilet. I'll say it's custom to never go alone. Rassilon knows you enjoy company in the bathroom on a night out anyway.”

“That's not for company, you daft sod, that's to make sure I'm safe,” she said. “You know how many women have been attacked goin' to the loos by themselves in Peckham?”

“Seriously, the more I hear about what you and Zoe have to put up with from men, the angrier I get on your behalf.”

“That's sweet,” Rose said, reaching the end of her ability to stay in the shaft. “Now can we please move? My legs are turnin' to jelly.”

“Right-o.” The Doctor started moving again. “Where did we fall on the dodgy stomach idea by the way?”

A sigh was her only response.

Ten minutes later, the Doctor was half-disappointed by how easy it was to slip away from the Grifari on deck eight. It was obvious that Dr Tirn was rushed off their feet, barely acknowledging them when they entered to offer their assistance. After five minutes of Rose half-heartedly poking at technology that she didn't understand and the Doctor ensuring that no one was actually in danger of dying, he gave her a complicated wriggle of his eyebrows and a jerk of his thumb. Her eyes rolled but she collapsed into agonising groans that made Dr Tirn growl in annoyance. The Doctor scooped her up against him, patting her head, and asked a wide-eyed and faintly disgusted Grifari where the nearest fresher was. With a quick flap of their hand in the approximate direction, the Doctor swept Rose down the hallway until they were out of sight.

“Nicely done.”

“I don't know,” she said, theatrics stopping. “Too much?”

“Maybe a little.” Releasing her to quickly pry open the access vent, they stood in the middle of a normally unused hallway home to a number of medical storage rooms. “Did a bit of drama at school, did you?”

“I once played an orphan in Jane Eyre,” Rose said. “Course, I was really more of a stage hand dressed as an orphan. That was back when I thought I wanted to be an actress.”

He looked at her, surprised. “You wanted to act?”

Embarrassed brought colour to her cheeks. “Thought it was an easy way to make money. Since Zo was always goin' to bring home the big bucks bein' a lawyer or whatever, figured I could earn some money actin'.”

“Why didn't you?”

Her left hand drifted to rub at her wrist. “Are we chattin', or are we spyin'?”

“Who says we can't do both?”

He dropped to a knee in front of her and laced his fingers together. Stepping into his palms, he heaved her up into the ventilation shaft that was much narrower than she felt comfortable with, hips rubbing against the sides, head banging against the roof. Shuffling forwards, she created enough space so the Doctor could squeeze in. Abruptly, she was acutely aware that he was going to be crawling behind her, rear end in his face, for however long it took them to get to the cargo bay. her skin burn with embarrassment.

“Whenever you're ready,” the Doctor said to her, forced to leave the vent open as he wasn't able to turn to close it. “It's a good job Zoe left her phone with me. I'll be able to direct us.”

Rose rubbed her lips together and braced herself for an uncomfortable time, and she began to slowly crawl through the vent. It was painfully clear that the vents hadn't been built for fully-grown humans and Time Lords. For the Grifari, it would have been spacious but neither Rose nor the Doctor were shaped as short as they were, something she was coming to resent. Rose was a normal size for a woman from Earth and the walls dragged against her bare arms making them burn; she twisted her shoulders to try and get more comfortable. The Doctor was tall and gangly, and he kept grunting in annoyance every time his elbow struck a wall. Rose had started counting how many times he hit his head on the ceiling; so far, it was seven.

She breathed out, feeling light headed as there was a noticeable rise in heat that made her stola stick to her body, sweat pooling beneath the crease of her breasts. She rubbed her forehead against her arm, lips sticky and dry, and wished that she was elsewhere.

“Is it supposed to be this hot?” She complained to the Doctor some minutes later, a dry itch in her throat that made her long for a drink of water.

“No,” the Doctor said, sweat darkening the roots of his hair, as uncomfortable as she was was but better at dealing with it. “Must be a problem with the environmental controls, the regulators are probably damaged. Breathe through your nose, it'll help.”

“Thanks,” she said, drawing in a deep breath through her nose. It helped, but only a little. “What d'you think Zoe an' Jack are doin'?”

“Hopefully having a poke around the computer system whilst no one's looking,” he said, breathing a little heavier than normal. Her brain fixed on the sounds he was making and wondered if that was what he sounded like in bed. She shook the thought from her head, needing to get a better grip on her crush as, ever since his regeneration, it had been getting out of hand. “I should really give you a quick class on computer systems. It'd be a useful skill to have.”

“I'm not good with computers,” Rose said. “Zoe an' Mickey always do computer stuff for me.”

“No time like the present to learn something new,” he said before pausing. “Well, not the actual present considering we're in an annoyingly small ventilation shaft but you know what I mean.”

They crawled and crawled, occasionally pausing to take a break, catching their breaths, or brace themselves for a downward slide as they descended a deck. They kept crawling until they heard voices through the bulkheads. Rose paused and, short of breath, the Doctor listened carefully as well, knocking his head against the side – _twelve,_ Rose thought – when he cocked his head.

The voices came from beneath them.

Rose edged carefully towards the access panel to peer down into the room below. She turned to lie to one side, scrunched up between the roof and floor, shoulders caving forwards, sending sharp pangs of agony down her spine. The Doctor shimmied in next to her, pushing himself along on his side so that they were lying with their chests pressed against each other, briefly short-circuiting Rose's brain. Fortunately for her, what might normally have been a pleasant experience was turned sticky and unpleasant because of how hot and sweaty they both were. According to the Doctor – and she knew by now to take anything he said about his biology with a pinch of salt – Time Lords tended not to sweat the same amount as humans but the heat and the enclosed space made the Doctor's skin glisten with it.

Below them were hundreds of human-shaped beings, slightly larger than the average human, an extra foot to a foot and a half on their height. All of them were wearing dirtied, bloodied clothing, and the stench that rose up from them made Rose gag – blood, sweat, and unwashed skin. She pressed her nose into the curve of the Doctor's arm to block the smell, eyes watering from it. A few of them were armed with metal pipes and a handful had weapons clearly taken from the Grifari, but they were mainly women and children with a few men, all of them looking exhausted.

“Why are there children?” Rose whispered into his coat. “The captain said that they stormed the ship. Why would anyone storm a ship with children?”

“Good question,” he murmured, eyes flickering, assessing. “But I think it's safe to assume that Captain Ston was lying to us about the attack.”

She shifted to take the pressure off her hip, and his legs shifted to give her space. “If they're not attackers, who are they? Passengers?”

“A ship like this definitely wouldn't be allowed to carry passengers,” he said, mouth thick with sticky saliva. “It wouldn't be the first time a cargo ship tried to make extra money off the books by transporting people though, happens all the time. Could explain why they were reluctant to have us answer the distress call, but why would they send it in the first place if they had it under control?”

Rose stared at his jaw. “Someone panicked?”

“Maybe,” he mused, trying to crane his neck to look at something just out of his eyeline, his neck popping. His fingers pressed into her hip, burning heat spreading out from his touch. “Here, roll onto your back. I want to take a look at –”

A shrill scream pierced through the air, cutting him dead. Rose jerked against him in surprise and kneed him in the thigh. He curled an arm around her and stared down through the grating to find a small child looking up from its mother's arms, eyes fixed on them through the metal slats.

It all happened so quickly that Rose only realised they had been pulled roughly from the vents when she was flat on her back with the breath knocked out of her, blinking away the stars that danced in front of her eyes, scrapes of pain down her back where the metal had dragged against her. The ground was cold against her hot skin, the air stale but cool. She enjoyed a brief moment of feeling that she was no longer sweltering before the Doctor shoved at her body, pushing her across the floor as a metal bar crashed down into the space where her head had been; the Doctor grunted when it impacted against his shoulder instead. He twisted, grabbed hold of the bar and yanked it out of the other man's grip. He shot to his feet and took hold of Jural's wrist, applying just enough pressure to incapacitate but not harm. Rose scrambled up, tripping on her stola before she hurried to the Doctor's side.

“Stop,” the Doctor said in his firm, authoritative tones that made her think of Platform One with Cassandra and the Game Station with the Daleks. “We're not here to hurt you. I promise.”

Jural's mouth stretched into a snarl. “Promises mean nothing here.”

“I suppose you're right,” he said. “It looks like you've reason enough to be mistrustful of people that you find loitering in the vents, but I assure you we're not whatever you think we are. I'm the Doctor, this is my friend Rose.”

Rose gave them a small nod, her hand clenched in the back of the Doctor's long coat.

“You're not part of the crew,” Jural noted, sharply.

Rose looked around the cargo bay as discretely and as non-threateningly as possible to take stock of the situation. Jural looked sick and not in the normal way that a cold or flu might produce but rather in a bone-deep, life-changing way. His dark skin was grey despite the shimmering flecks it cast off under the poor lighting, eyes yellowed, and his arms trembled. He had clearly been a once handsome man but something had wasted him, eating at him, and leaving the man before her in its wake.

She was reminded of Zoe in the aftermath of her torture at the hands of the Tolandrans.

“No, we're not,” the Doctor said. “We've just got here.”

“How?” He demanded. “We're in flight.”

“We have a ship,” he explained. “It's a bit special and kind of complicated to explain but we really don't mean you any harm. If I let you go, can I have your word that you won't attack us again?”

Jural eyed him but he eventually nodded once, short and sharp. The Doctor released his wrist and stepped back, hand finding Rose's.

“What's happenin' here?” She asked, trying her best not to look as though the smell was bothering her. “Why are you here?”

“How are you ignorant of this?” Jural asked, sceptical. He looked to those behind him and gave a bitter, crackling laugh that made her hand flex a little tighter around the Doctor's. “You say you came aboard but without any knowledge of _this_?” He gestured around. “How can you possibly not know?”

“It happens more often than you'd think,” the Doctor said. “We're travellers – explorers, I suppose – and we don't always end up where we want to be but we always end up where we need to be. In this case, we picked up a distress call and answered it.” There was a general murmuring of interest at that. “I guess Captain Ston didn't send it after all. You did?”

“My son did.” A tall, beautiful, blue-black woman stepped out from the crowd, and the Doctor clocked her as the leader. “Did you see him?”

“I'm sorry, we only saw the Grifari,” he said, her mouth tightening. “Why did you send a distress call?”

Her dark eyes met his. “For our freedom.”

“Freedom?” He repeated. “Why would you need –? Oh.”

“Yes.”

Disgust slammed into him. He looked down at Rose, her brown eyes turned up to him. “This is a slave ship.”


	11. Chapter 11

Captain Ston cursed the camera system that ran through the ship. The official upgrades should have been completed ten years ago but the Nebulus kept getting pushed back on the maintenance list and they had given up hope of ever seeing official improvements. Even the cameras that they had purchased for areas that weren't supposed to house them weren't faring well after years of use. The cameras in the lift shaft flickered and fuzzed as the two aliens lingered on the ladder; judging by the way the woman was holding tightly to the rungs, she was afraid to take another step. They turned away, a flick of their injured fingers ordering Huna to keep watch on the aliens, and made their way back to their seat. Their body was aching, throbbing with pain that stabbed at them like a thousand tiny sharp needles, unrelenting in their misery; their arm burning as though it was still on fire.

“They shouldn't be on board,” Yaren growled at the screen. “We should've killed them on sight.”

Ston's nostrils flared. “Not until we can figure out how they got on board without us noticing.”

“Can hardly believe that _thing_ is a ship,” Yaren said, the glower giving way to confusion. The TARDIS was displayed on a separate screen as a small team of two – the largest amount of crew that could be spared from repairs – scanned the outside of the ship after a failed attempt at breeching the doors. “I don't even know what that thing is supposed to be.”

“A police public call box,” Ston read. “Whatever the hell that is.”

“They're not from the Empire, whoever they are,” Yaren said. “No one in the Outer Rim has anything like that.”

“All the more reason not to kill them until we find out who they are, where they came from, and how they got on board.” Their eyes closed as a fresh wave of pain fell over them. “Keep a guard on that ship. I don't want them slipping away.”

Yaren nodded. “Yes, captain.”

Leaving then standing at the screen, Stone sank into the captain's chair. They felt hot and clammy from the pain coursing through them but with everything that was happening, they didn't want to take anything for it in case it dulled their senses. The arrival of the four strangers was troubling more for their manner of arrival than for the fact they were actually there; Ston had already prepared a story for any Grifari vessel that came in response to the distress call – a glitch in the system following a fire in one of the maintenance shafts. They would have been relaxed and casual and a little bit annoyed over the whole thing, leaning into the well-known fact that transport vessels were never given the maintenance they should, but their plan had hinged on speaking to the would-be rescuers through a communication channel, not face-to-face.

With their good hand, they rubbed one eye.

The day had gone from bad to worse to disastrous quicker than they thought possible.

“They're gone!”

Ston went still.

“Captain, I'm sorry, but they're gone.” Nerves made Openi's voice rise and waver, tripping over itself in their fear of their captain's reaction. “The Doctor and the woman. They're not in the medical bay any more. Dr Tirn hasn't seen them since they left to use the bathroom.”

_Of course,_ they thought ruefully. _Oldest trick in the book_.

“Find them,” they ordered. “Find them now.”

“With the cameras and sensors down, we're going to have trouble doing that,” Yaren informed them.

Ston swallowed back their pointed retort, words rolling from them slowly and angrily, good hand curling into a fist on the armrest. “Find a way. Find them before they do something that we'll regret. And get me eyes on the other two.”

* * *

There were times in Zoe's life when she was acutely aware of the weight of eyes on her. As a young Black woman growing up in London, she knew that there were certain spaces where eyes would follow her, teaching her to dress in what she once joked to Mickey was a white uniform – Oxford shirt, one-colour jumper, jeans, and neat shoes – in order to broadcast that she wasn't the stereotype people believed her to be. She had felt it less and less since travelling with the Doctor, aware of it but no longer forced to be conscious of the colour of her skin whenever she went out into the world. Her black skin didn't even register out in space where people were varying hues of the same spectrum, and it depended on the time they visited Earth whether it would be an issue as, generally, anytime before the 15th century, it wasn't a problem

Yet, buried in the damaged computer systems in the Grifari engine room, the feeling of being watched crawled up her spine and pulsed at the base of her skull.

She wasn't able to tell if the Grifari were hiding something or were always obnoxiously cold and distant with outsiders; her jaw set when one of them bump into her, the solid hit of their shoulder against her upper thigh made her grunt. The temptation to grab their shoulder and demand an apology surged through her, but she didn't react. People like the Grifari wanted a reaction. They were no different to Bella Peters at sixth form who used to throw racial slurs at her when no one was around – hissing them at her in bathroom stalls, flinging hatred at her in empty corridors, whispering foulness to her in the library –, mouth twisted into a smug smile, eyes fixed greedily on her face, waiting for her to react so that she could fulfil every single misconception Bella had about Black people.

“Here's hoping the Doctor and Rose are having better luck,” Jack said in her ear, approaching her from as she calmed her annoyance. He had struck out yet again with someone who growled something the TARDIS chose not to translate, sparing Jack's feelings. “I haven't felt this unwelcome since I lived at home.”

Carefully soldering a thin piece of metal to the circuit board – a patch, not a complete fix –, her ears pricked at the unexpected glimpse into Jack's past. “Really?”

“My mum never got over the deaths of my dad and brother,” he said, shifting so that he wasn't in her way. “Sometimes I think it might have been kinder if I was the one who...” she risked a glance up when he trailed off; he shook his head. “Never mind.”

Setting down the soldering iron that was made for smaller hands than hers and wishing she had her glasses so that she could see the details more clearly, she let the conversation die and held the board up for his eyes. “I can't see properly. Is everything where it should be?”

He took it from her, and she let her eyes wander, catching on a shape in the corner that quickly busied itself when her eyes drifted over them.

“You've got it all.” Jack handed it back, concealer beneath his eyes once more, covering up that sleep was still eluding him. She was half-tempted to slip him a mild sedative in his next cup of tea. “Maybe you should get four pairs of glasses, one for each us, just in case they break or we have to split up again.”

“It's not normally a problem,” she said, sliding the board into the console, attaching the thin, coloured wires. “It'd be easier if everything came with pockets though. Seriously, I don't understand clothes that don't have them.” Jack, used to these complaints, smiled. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, pushing her face closer to the console to see properly and hide the movement of her mouth. “Over in the corner near the busted fuel management station.” His eyes discreetly slid over there to see a Grifari shooting them looks. “Think they might be susceptible to your charms.”

“Don't fancy a crack yourself?” He asked. “Whip out the old Zoe Tyler charm?”

She laughed. “What charm's is that then?”

“It's about 90% hair and 10% dorky Star Trek references,” he said. “That's what caught my attention the first time around.”

“Really?” Zoe asked, surprised. “Star Trek references?”

“To be fair, I didn't know you were referencing Star Trek at the time, I just thought you were very wise.” She grinned. “But it was mainly the fact that you obviously knew me. “It's a little intoxicating to meet someone who knows you like you knew me. Besides, you were also pretty easy on the eyes.”

Her eyes creased with laughter, and he looked pleased with himself. “Get on, you daft sod. You're much better at the social side of things than I am.”

“I am,” he agreed, dashing a kiss against her cheek and darting away before she could pinch his side. Her quiet laughter followed him as he made his way over to the Grifari crew member, trying tried to wipe the delight from his face as making Zoe laugh was one of his favourite things. “Hey there, need a hand?”

Colour rose to pale cheeks, purple glands darkening with a throb.

_There we go,_ Jack thought, smoothly leaning against the wall, hooking his foot over his ankle. Folding his arms across his chest to highlighting his muscles, he watched as the Grifari tracked his movements and gentle flexed; it felt cheap, but it was certainly effective.

“Oh, no, well –” they stumbled over their word. “You could hold this?” They thrust a long, thick cable into Jack's hand. “I need to attach it to the main console.”

“I can do that,” he said, turning and bumping his head on the ceiling. “ _Ow._ ” A small giggle slipped past the lips of the Grifari, and he smiled, rubbing the top of his head. “I'm a little tall.”

“You're a giant.”

He laughed. “To you, probably.”

“Are all people from your planet as tall as you?”

“More or less,” Jack said. “The men at least. The women are a little shorter.” He gestured to Zoe who was pretending not to listen. “About Zoe's height over there. She's tall for a woman but I'm still taller than she is. That's normal where I'm from.”

Their eyes slid over to Zoe and then looked back to Jack. “I can't imagine being so tall. Don't you get dizzy?”

His mouth stretched into a grin. “No.”

The blush deepened on their cheeks before they dived beneath the main console. Jack glanced over to Zoe, her eyes on him with a knowing expression on her face; pulling a face at her, he bent at the waist to peer under the console that came up to his thighs.

“Anything I can do under there? Shine a light or something?”

“No, no,” they called back, nervous panic in their voice at the thought of him sliding in there with next to them. “I've got it.”

“You're good at this,” he said, the console flickering with light. “Been an engineer long?”

“Oh, I'm not an engineer,” they said, edging out of from under the console and peeking up at him, nervous; he offered his hand and, another blush later, they were on their feet. “I'm just a mechanic. I fix things, that's all.”

“Mechanic, engineer, same difference in my opinion.” His thumb brushed over their rough skin. “I'm Jack, by the way.”

“Primulan.”

“That's a lovely name,” he said, repeating the syllables slowly. “You've been on the crew long?”

Their throat worked with a swallow. “This is my third tour.”

He winced. “ _Oof_. tours are what – four years a piece? That's a long time to spend out in the black.”

“It's not so bad,” they admitted, shoulders relaxing a little as they grew accustomed to being under Jack's full focus. “The pay's good, and I don't have much family back home, just a nest mate who I talk to once a year.”

“Younger?”

A flicker of surprise passed across their face. “How did you know?”

“I had a younger brother once,” he said, memories of Gray flashing through his mind, and the long-gone pressure of a hand in his made his palm ache. He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “I recognise the tone of an older sibling – sorry, nest mate.”

“Families,” Primulan said, knowingly. “What about you? How did you end up out in the black with your...” the hesitation was common when trying to find the correct word for the rest of the team. “Lovers?”

“I wish,” he said, an image of the four of them dancing through his mind briefly distracted him. “They're my friends. Bit of a long story how we all came together, not that interesting.” Zoe coughed behind him. “Nowhere else I'd rather be though. Travelling with them? Best thing in the world.”

Their facial muscles twitched as envy passed across the rugged plains of their face. “I signed up because I wanted to travel. It's – it's not what I expected.”

Jack leaned his hip against the console, remembering a beat too late that he was too tall for it, and stumbled. Catching himself, he straightened up. “I don't know. You get to see the Empire. That must be fun.”

Deep green eyes turned dull, voice turning flat. “Yeah.”

“Hey,” Jack said, softly. “Is it what happened? Because I understand. It must've been horrible to be in the middle of.”

“I –” their mouth moved, eyes darting around the room, taking in their crew members who were watching them and Jack closely. Nervously, they touched the dirty collar of their work shirt. “I want some kaff. Do you and your friend want some?”

“Kaff?” He repeated. “I don't know what that is but sure. Zoe?”

“I'm always up for trying something new,” she said, no longer hiding the fact that she was eavesdropping. “I'm just running the repair code anyway, so I can take a break. This ship is impressive but the systems are painfully slow.”

“Yeah,” Primulan said, dropping their hand to fiddle with the fraying threads of their jacket. “The OS needs updating but we never actually get round to doing it.”

“We have an expression where I'm from,” Zoe said, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.” She rapped her knuckles against console before stretching her back. “But there's nothing wrong with an upgrade now and then.”

They followed Primulan from the engine room and down the dark, tangled corridors that were so low down on the list of repairs there were still dead bodies clogging up the floor. Zoe tried to keep her eyes off of them though it wasn't her first time seeing a dead body – that honour went to the day she met the Doctor when the prime minister's dead body fell out of a cupboard in the Cabinet Room, which was, in hindsight, the least traumatising thing to happen to her that day – but it never got easier. Her eyes fixed on the back of Jack's head instead, fingers clenching into fists at her side, knuckles aching, before they reached the small rec room that was more or less untouched by the attack that had taken place.

“Nice picture,” she said politely, eyeing a photograph that she would politely describe as abstract.

Primulan looked at her in amusement. “It's a picture of a farak.”

“Oh.” She tilted her head to one side in an attempt to make sense of it. “I don't know what that is.”

“It's an animal,” they said. “Small, deadly, confusing to look at, surprisingly tasty if you cook it with ilko juice.”

Always willing to try anything once, Zoe was still sure that farak wasn't going to be on the menu any time soon. “Why do you have a picture of it in your rec room?”

“The captain likes them,” they explained. “They used to farm them or something back on Nola. Or their family did. I don't really remember.”

Zoe went to put her hands into her pockets only to remember that she was wearing a stola, ending up rubbing her thighs. Her face twitched in annoyance, and Jack looked away with a grin in the shadows of his mouth.

“It's like hanging pictures of spiders on the wall,” she whispered into Jack's ear when Primulan turned to make the kaff. “Except we don't eat spiders.”

He elbowed her in the side. “Ssh.”

“Although, I suppose they do in parts of Asia,” she considered. “But I don't eat spiders.”

“Zoe,” he whispered from the corner of his mouth, “shut up.”

She pulled a face and fell silent. Kaff turned out to be watered down coffee with an odd metallic taste to it; she took a mouthful, optimistic because of the smell, only to have to force it down out of fear of being rude if she spat it back into her mug. Wisely, she refused an offer of some biscuits and sat down at the table, knees around her ears as she tried to make herself comfortable. Jack contorted his body with ease and looked perfectly comfortable in the low chairs, ignoring her as she kneed herself in the nose and spilt kaff onto her stola. Primulan watched her in open amusement.

“It seems it's difficult to be so tall,” they said.

“Only because this ship isn't built for people like me,” Zoe said, pushing her knee to one side, tugging her stola up and managing to fold her legs beneath her, feeling out of breath when she was finished, nose throbbing. “There. I fit.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “In a manner of speaking.”

Primulan laughed, and Zoe grinned, aware she and Jack looked ridiculous with their too-big bodies in too-small spaces, which made her wonder how the Doctor – taller than both of them – was faring. She sat and attempted to ignore her discomfort and the weak, odd taste of the kaff as Jack worked his delicate magic and gently guided the conversation to where he wanted it to go. It was obvious to both of them that Primulan was on the verge of revealing something but every time they edged close to the point they skittered away from it, afraid and nervous.

After knocking over Zoe's kaff – no great loss in her opinion – Jack reached out and took Primulan's trembling hand in his. The shock of his touch sent them into wide-eyed silence.

“What's wrong?” He asked. “Whatever it is, we can help. We're good at helping people.”

“I...” their mouth moved but no sound came out. “It's...I can't...”

Finding the hesitation and almost-confessions irritation, Zoe pressed more pointedly. “Who are the people who attacked? _Why_ did they attack?”

Bright, wild eyes looked back at her.

“I never agreed with it,” they said, words tumbling out of them desperately, spilling out into the air around them. “You have to believe that. I didn't even know it was happening the first trip, which is so stupid because how could I not have known? I just – the cargo bay was _always_ restricted and the captain – they - they _spaced_ people who went there. My first trip they spaced thirteen of the crew, and it's not unusual for the captain to deliver justice on voyages because they're so long but I'd never heard of anyone spacing someone because it's awful, but they did. They did it, and I thought it was because they were trying to steal the cargo. That's punishable by death on Nola, you see, so I thought the captain was just going around the paperwork: everyone knows they hate the paperwork.”

Zoe and Jack looked at each other as Primulan talked, words slipping into each other, their breath short and sharp.

“At least I thought that was the reason at first,” they said, trembling. “But the truth is they spaced the people who were against it, against what they were doing. They were – they were good people who were trying to do the right thing and the captain killed them for it. But I didn't know that. I just figured that we were hauling something dangerous and worth a lot of money. It's not unusual to haul meter rocks that are too radioactive for comfort: it's why we're paid so well.” They drew a hand under the nose, sniffing. “I didn't know. You have to believe me. I didn't know.”

“It's okay,” Jack soothed, thumb brushing over their knuckles. “We believe you. You didn't know what was happening.”

“That's right.” They nodded as though to reassure themselves. “I didn't. I _didn't._ But then – then I did find out...” wide eyes were set in a pale, drawn face that contorted with grief and regret. “I needed the money. That's why I did what I did. I really needed the money, and I didn't want to die. The captain would've spaced me if I disagreed with them, and I didn't want to die, and I needed the money.” Fat tears welled in their eyes, glistening in the artificial light. “I'm so ashamed of it now, but my nest mates...they were sick, and there's no health care for us, not until we're thirty and have paid into the system, so I took the money and tried not to think about it, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Every time I closed my eyes, I thought about what I'd done and I couldn't live with myself.”

Zoe's head moved minutely from side to side. “What did you do?”

“I...” their mouth moved, searching for the words that they were ashamed of. “I...the Dolmar...they attacked us because we – we took them from their home to-to _sell_ them.”

Ice ran down Jack's spine. His hand jerked away from Primulan's, falling to his lap. He looked to Zoe whose face had set itself into stone.

“You did what?”

Her voice was frozen and sharply edge, whipping at Primulan who flinched from it.

“We're only the transport crew,” they said, quickly, desperate to lesson their crime. “It was the pick-up crew that went to their home, burnt their houses to the ground, and -” their eyes bounced back and forth between Zoe and Jack. “They're the ones who put them in chains. We're just taking them to Dresmar – the space station, you know? It's out of the way and deals in black market stuff – and the captain's going to sell them.” Shame settled on their features. “It's – it's what we did with the others.”

A heavy, oppressive silence weighed on the room. The quiet groaning of the ship was all that broke the silence, and Jack stared at Primulan, too taken aback and disgusted to disguise his feelings. He thought he was done being surprised with how awful people were capable of being.

“Jesus – fucking – Christ,” Zoe said. “I don't even...” She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together whilst he dragged a hand over his face, looking old and weary. “Slaves.”

“I'm sorry,” Primulan whispered, throat tightening with remorse. “I really am. I know it's horrible –”

“Horrible?” She interrupted, sharply. “Try disgusting. Morally bankrupt. Ethically repugnant.” Jack reached out and rested his hand on her knee, words dying in her mouth, a glower settling upon her face instead. “What's the betting the Doctor's already figured this out?”

“Fairly high, I'd say,” he said, hand curled into a fist atop her thigh. “ _Fuck_.”

“So, those people in the cargo bay,” she said, jaw aching from the tension building there. “The two hundred and twenty-four life signs I picked up, they're slaves?” Primulan swallowed and nodded. “And your change of heart has come about why? Looking them in the eye as you killed them proved to be a little too much for you?”

Jack breathed in sharply, a warning.

“No,” she said, firmly. “Jack, this is abhorrent. And, yeah, I believe that they didn't know about the first trip but they damn well knew about the second and they still accepted money for it. We're sitting here having shit coffee with a bloody slaver!”

“I know what I did was wrong –” Zoe made a sound of disgusted disbelief in her throat. “I do. And I'm trying to make it right.” They fumbled in their boot for a small device that they set on the table. “This – it's a recorder. I've been recording everything – every conversation about the cargo –”

“The people,” Jack corrected, low and angry.

Colour rose in Primulan's cheeks. “Of course, yes, sorry, the people.” They cleared their throat, fingers scraping at the table. “Every conversation about them, everything the captain's said, all the jokes: I've even downloaded the security camera footage. Not all of it because the systems were damaged in the attack, but enough to be obvious about what's happening here.”

He looked at them. “What are you going to do with it?”

“There's this organisation on Nola,” they said, focusing on him as he seemed to be the friendliest option even though his shut off had been shut off. “They've known about the slave trade for a while. It's impossible not to know if you're paying attention, which – which I wasn't, because sometimes people will turn up seeking asylum but no one's ever been able to figure out how it's done. After that second trip –”

Zoe threw a sharp look at them. “Which you got paid for.”

“Yes,” Primulan said, eyes lowered. “After that trip, I paid for my nest mates' medical bills and felt awful about it. I couldn't stop thinking about those people. I never saw them, I never went near the cargo bay even though I knew; I was afraid of being spaced, but it didn't matter because my imagination was enough. Sometimes I thought that was worse – knowing but not seeing: my mind filled in the blanks. I couldn't take it any more and went to this group. They told me that they needed proof to make arrests, that my word wasn't enough on its own, and asked if I was willing to record conversations and gather information.”

“Presumably for immunity from prosecution as well.” Zoe said.

They sat a little straighter. “I know what I'm guilty of. That's something I have to live with for the rest of my life. But I'm trying to fix my mistake. I'm trying to help people. What else would you have me do?”

Zoe and Jack looked at each other, an entire conversation passing in the heartbeats they held each other's eyes, their friendship making it easy to communicate silently. She inclined her head in agreement and looked away again.

“It strikes me,” Jack said, drawing a hand over his mouth in thought. “That the people in the cargo bay might've been pushed back once but I can't see how they're going to sit quietly and wait to be sold off to the highest bidder. I know I wouldn't, but right now they've got their backs to the wall and they need our help.”

“They were able to send the distress call,” Primulan said. “After we locked them up again, they got someone out to send the distress call from the bridge. Maybe they can all get out that way?”

“Even if that's true, they still need our help,” he said, “and we're going to give it to them. Right, Zo?”

“Absolutely.”

“How though?” Primulan asked, twisting their fingers together. “They only got as far as they did last time because one of the crew helped them open the doors. They took us by surprise. The captain won't let that happen again.”

“I don't really care what the captain wants,” Jack said. “And it seems to me the Dolmar got very close to succeeding with nothing more than metal bars and stolen weapons. They almost made it all the way up to the bridge; they were just one short lift ride away from taking the command centre. With a little bit of help from us, I don't see why they can't succeed the second time.”

“We need to find a way through the gas,” Zoe said, thinking, pulling the memory of the ship's layout into her mind. “It shouldn't be too hard to reroute it to another location...engineering maybe, even the bridge but that might cause us problems later.” She rubbed her nose, thinking. “Is it poisonous?” Primulan stared at her. “The gas, will it kill anyone?”

“No.” They shook their head. “It's just unpleasant. Captain Ston didn't want to kill any more of the Dolmar.”

“Wouldn't want to cut into their profits, I suppose,” she said, scowl pinched between her eyebrows. “I'll reroute the gas to the engine room then, but I need access to a computer terminal with a bit of privacy.” She plucked at her stola, annoyed. “I'm never leaving the TARDIS without pockets again. I really wish I had my phone right now.”

“I don't have mine either,” Jack said, rubbing his forearm. “Or my Vortex Manipulator. I don't even know where that's gone.”

“The Doctor has it,” she said, absently, lost in thought.

“What? Really?”

“He noticed it sparking on Kanag,” she said. “And you know what he's like – he doesn't like to show he obviously cares because he's got a number of issues that come from being a member of an emotionally repressed race with a superiority complex.” She leaned forwards in her chair and brought the subject back to the matter at hand. “We don't need to get in touch with them because they'll already know about this, I'm sure. What we need to do is get into the cargo bay and let the Dolmar know that help's arrived and coordinate with them. Primulan.” They jerked at being addressed. “How do we get there discreetly?”

“I don't think we can do it discreetly,” they replied. “The captain has guards around the gassed zone. They'll know we're up to something right away.”

Zoe looked at Jack. “What do you think? Sneaky sneaky, or like a bull in a china shop?”

“We're in an enclosed space, which makes mounting an attack easier, and their need for secrecy is on our side,” he considered. “Although, I don't like the fact that people have been spaced before, and the fact that this is hugely illegal disadvantages us.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I don't see a way around it though. They're going to learn the truth the second we make a move and they put up a hell of a defence the last time even though they were taken by surprise. We may as well go bull in a china shop because I doubt it'll make a difference in the end.”

“I can probably buy us some time,” she said. “I'm as good at breaking things as I am at fixing them. I need ten minutes though.”

Knocking back her kaff, she disappeared from the rec room after struggling to get out of her seat, managing it only by rolling and landing on her knees. She left Jack alone with Primulan who sat silently, their head bowed over their drink. He looked at them and felt sympathy flicker through him' if Gray was alive and needed help – financial or otherwise – Jack was positive he would do anything to save his brother. Considered the things he would do to bring him back to life, he found that he wasn't in a place to judge Primulan, who was doing their best to make right the wrongs they did. It wasn't as though his past was as clean as he wanted it to be – blood soaked his hands and made him jerk awake in the dead of the night, breath tight and a scream clenched between his teeth.

“She's actually very nice,” Jack said. Primulan looked up, miserable. “Zoe. I know she seems harsh, but she's a very warm, kind person.”

“It's okay,” they said with a faint, sad smile. “You don't need to make excuses for her. She's every right to speak to me the way she did. What I did...” a heavy sigh made their glands flutter. “Do you think it's possible to do something so completely horrible but still be a good person?”

Jack thought about letting go of Gray's hand. He thought about the words his mother had screamed at him over the years and how they sunk into his mind and twisted him around until he didn't know who he was any more except for a failure and the wrong son; he thought about the things he had done for the Time Agency, reassuring himself that it was for the greater good even as his hands trembled and stomach churned; and he thought about the two years missing in his mind, the fear that he had done something so unforgivable that he had ripped it from his memory in a desperate attempt to forget.

“I think...” he began, slowly, weighing his words. “That no one is wholly good or wholly bad. I think everyone's a mixture of both. I've done things that I'm ashamed of, and I've done things that I'm proud of. I think it's how we decide to live each moment that decides who we are. Do we decide to live in order to make things better, or do we decide to live in order to be selfish and cruel? Sometimes we choose wrongly for the right reasons, sometimes we choose rightly for the wrong reasons, and sometimes, when we're lucky, we get it right for the right reasons.” He reached out and covered their hand with his. “But I know that I believe one thing, something that the Doctor's taught me, and that's that no one is unforgivable. No one's beyond redemption. You made a mistake – a horrible one – but you're working to fix it. That means something.”

“I want to make this right.” Tears slid down their cheeks. “I do.”

“Then, right now, that's all that matters.”

Primulan gave him a small, tremulous smile that was wiped from her face the moment Zoe stepped back through the door.

“All right,” she said. “We've got our distraction, let's go.”

“What did you do?” Jack asked.

“Set a couple of decks on fire,” she said, a grin twitching on her cheeks. “That'll keep them busy enough that they won't notice us slipping through the gas.”

“Pyromaniac.”

“You love me anyway.”

“I do, I really do.”

By running a huge electrical charge through the weakest of control systems, fires erupted on three separate decks, forcing the crew to evacuate and divert personnel to dealing with the flames because if there was one thing a ship in space never wanted, it was fire. The three of them made their way swiftly through the ship with makeshift masks tied around their noses and mouths, and Primulan led the way. Jack was forced – only once – to incapacitate and tie up an unexpected crewmember with a strip of his toga that left the bottom half of his legs exposed. He and Zoe dragged them into a side room whilst Primulan pried open a wall panel and stepped aside so Zoe could access the ventilation system, the gas making the inside of her nostrils burn.

“Deep breaths everyone,” she instructed. “I'm venting the gas out, which means we're losing oxygen. It'll be replaced in thirty seconds so no one's going to die but it's going to be uncomfortable.”

Oxygen rushed past them, twirling Zoe's stola around her legs, gas and air sucked up and into the vents, leaving them in an empty corridor with ears that throbbed from the pressure of holding their breaths. Light flickered in the corners of Zoe's vision as they waited for breathable air to fill the corridor, her lungs burning and her chest tight. Unable to hold it for the full thirty seconds, panic spread through her when she found herself suffocating. Wrenching her cloth mask from her face, she tried to drag in air that wasn't there yet. Jack stepped in front of her and took her hands in his, face red from his own difficulties, and held eye contact with her until she was able to drag in thin lungfuls of air that kept her alive long enough to get a proper breath.

“You're okay, you're okay,” he reassured her once the air had returned, his voice a rasp, body shaking lightly.

“Bad idea,” she gasped, fingers clutching at him. “That was a very bad idea.”

“It worked great,” he said, coughing. “Prim – you don't mind if I call you Prim, do you?” Their head shook. “Where to next?”

“Down the end of the corridor,” Primulan said. “But the captain had the doors welded shut.”

“There's always a welding kit by bulkhead doors in the event of an emergency, or at least there should be,” Jack said, striding forwards. Zoe hitched her stola up to hurry after him. “It'll have been removed from inside the cargo bay but I'm betting there's one still outside it.”

As Jack found the welding kit, Zoe pressed her ear up against the bulkhead door. She knocked on it, wondering if the noise would travel, but there was no response. She stood back and watched as Jack ran the welding torch down the length of the scarred metal. She and Primulan grabbed hold of a side of the door each and, as the metal started melting away, they pulled with all their strength. The metal stretched like melted cheese, Zoe's arms aching as she pulled; the door slowly gave way inch by inch, until it was wide enough for a person to fit through. Jack flashed her two thumbs up before he was yanked through the gap without warning, bare skin brushing against the molten metal, red welts immediately appearing.

“Hey,” Zoe yelled, dashing through the gap after him, feeling the heat of the parted doors against her back. “Let him go!”

“Stop,” a familiar voice called out. She spun on her heels to see the Doctor pushing his way through the crowd of foul-smelling Dolmarans. “They're friends of mine, stop!” He looked awful – damp and blotchy – but he flashed her a smile. “Hello, nice of you to join us.”

“Not surprised you're in the middle of this,” she said, relieved to see him, her eyes finding Rose in the crowd. “This is a slave ship.”

“Yep, we found that horrible little titbit out already,” he said, hand brushing down the expanse of her back as Jack was released. “Captain, you've got a couple of burns there.”

He checked them with a small wince. “I've had worse.”

The Doctor dug out a crinkled tube of burn cream and passed it to Rose who immediately squeezed some onto her fingers.

“That is not your friend,” Timar said, reaching out and dragging Primulan forwards who yelped, feet scrambling against the ground as they were lifted from it. “This is a Grifari monster.”

“Put – them – down,” Zoe ordered, voice echoing around the room, taking herself by surprise by the force of her tone. “Their name is Primulan, and they're here to help.” There was a sweeping wave of noise. “Can you afford to turn your backs on someone who is offering to help you take this ship? Is your pride worth it?”

“Thraine,” the Doctor said to a tall blue-black woman. The sight of her made Zoe's heart skip a beat as attraction fluttered in her chest; _oh,_ she thought, hand rising to smooth back her stray hairs, self-conscious. “Don't be like the Grifari. Be better than them. Killing Primulan won't bring your people back from the dead.”

“I want to help,” Primulan said, hands clinging onto Timar's arm as they remained suspended above the ground. “Please. We're not all like Captain Ston. They – they've spaced the people that disagree with them. It's obedience or death, but I'm here now. Doesn't that mean something?”

Hebe's eyes lingered on Primulan. “Brother, put it down.”

Timar dropped them. Primulan scattered across the ground, legs fumbling to get beneath them.

“I'm going to ask you a question, and if you lie to me, I will kill you.” Hebe said once they were back on their feet. “There was a boy who went to the bridge to send a distress call. What happened to him?”

Primulan glanced towards Jack, filled with nervous terror. “The captain – the captain shot him. They killed him. I'm sorry.”

Hebe's body turned to ice.

“Sister,” Timar breathed, reaching for her, but she held up a hand, forestalling his movement.

“The Grifari have pillaged my home, enslaved my people, and now _murdered_ my son,” she said, slowly, _dangerously_. “They will pay for this with their lives.”

The Doctor eyed her sympathetically, understanding her anger but driven to caution her through his own experience. “Revenge won't bring them back.”

“Perhaps not, but that is a risk I'm willing to take.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “You say you're here to help. Are you now placing limitations on that help?”

“We won't help you kill or harm,” he said. “We'll help you take control of this ship and you can see the Grifari bought to justice.”

“Primulan can help there,” Jack said as Rose finished tending to his burns. “They've been recording incriminating conversations taking place all over the ship, and they have the security footage of the cargo bay from before the cameras were destroyed. That's a lot of evidence right there.”

Primulan removed the small device and held it out to Hebe as an olive branch. “Here. Take it.”

Hebe took it, careful not to allow her skin to touch theirs. Her eyes flicked to the Doctor. “You said that you had a plan.”

“I have the makings of one, yes,” the Doctor said. “Now that my friends are here we'll stand a better chance of succeeding.”

“I fail to see how four people can help us when the efforts of all my people have failed.”

“You shouldn't underestimate us,” Rose said. “We're pretty good at doin' the impossible. You just need to trust us.”

Hebe raised an eyebrow. “Trust is not something I have in abundance at the moment.”

“Then we'll have to work to earn it,” Zoe said. “But we're wasting time. The Grifari are distracted at the moment and the corridors outside the cargo bay are free of gas for now, but I don't imagine they'll stay that way for long. Whatever plan we have, we should start doing it soon.”

The Doctor nodded. “All right, everyone listen closely, this is what we're going to do.”

* * *

_ 89 minutes later _

Hebe's knees ached from her crouch, thigh muscles burning, and the blood in her veins deafening her against the noise of victory in the background. The ship was theirs. The Grifari were being marched in small groups down to the cargo bay where they could sit and wait and feel the injustice of having their freedom taking from them; yet, none of that mattered to her. All that mattered was the peaceful expression on her son's face where he lay dead in a corner of the bridge, his small body shoved into a locker to keep him out of the way as the Grifari made their repairs. Already stiffening with death, getting him out had been the work of four, a sharp snap breaking his leg as they tried to unfold him. Twisted into an awkward foetal position, Hebe was reminded of the first grainy images she had seen of him when he was still safe and protected in her womb.

_He's still a child,_ she thought, anguish passing through her on another crashing wave as her hand tenderly ran over the crown of his head.

Tender, gentle hands rested on her shoulders. She recognised the touch of dry skin and rough calluses as that of Timar; he knelt so that he was behind her, hands sliding over her shoulders and down to her arms. She wanted to lean into him as she had done when her partner died. She wanted him to help shield her from the grief, but she didn't think it was possible to hide from something so painful as the death of a child. Her heart had been ripped out of her chest and left on the floor, a gaping hole inside her where her love for Pecath lived was sore and oozed agony. The certainty that she was never going to recover from her son's death was as strong as the self-hatred, grief, and regret. It was _her_ decision to send him to the bridge, hers alone, and she had to live with that.

“Let Isa take him,” Timar murmured, softly, breath sharp and stale. She turned her head away from him. “Sister, there's nothing more you can do for him now.”

“I should have found another way,” Hebe said, voice cracking and wavering, her first sign of weakness since the Grifari had arrived on her home. “I sacrificed him as though he was nothing.”

“No.” His fingers tightened on her. “That's not what happened.”

“You told me it was dangerous,” she hissed, pulling her arms free and nearly toppling onto her son's corpse. Her eyes flashed at him. “I didn't listen.”

“Hebe,” he said, softly, reaching for her. His fingers curled around her rounded knee. “It's not your fault. The only one to blame is the one who pulled the trigger, and we have that bastard over there.” He pointed to where Ston was being guarded by four separate Dolmarans. “Please, let Isa take him so we can begin the burial rites.

“Burial rites...” she murmured, trailing off. “We can't bury him. He can't be placed next to his father, our parents.”

He pressed his face into her hair. “The ritual's important.”

Isa hovered uncertainly around the edges, a bruise swallowing one side of her face, her fingers twisting the torn hem of her shirt. “I'll be gentle with him, Thraine, I promise.”

Hebe drew in a breath that shuddered through her and dropped the rest of the way to her knees. The jolt of it ran through her and made her teeth ache. Twelve years. That was all the time she had had with him. Twelve short years when he should have been the one putting her in the ground. She wanted to lie down next to him and let herself waste away until she turned to dust next to him. Her body swayed as temptation ran down her spine when the slender form of the Doctor crouched on the other side of Pecath's body.

“I'm so sorry,” he said, voice ageless and filled with his own grief and regret. “Thraine, I am so, so sorry.”

“There's no word,” she told him, not looking up. “There's no word – no _name_ – for people who lose their children. We have orphans and widows but nothing that names a person who's lost their child. Why don't we have a word?”

The lines on his face softened. “Because there's no word big enough for all the pain.”

Her mouth stretched as tears burned at her eyes. The scream that wanted to tear itself lose lodge in her throat. “My child...”

“I know.” Long-fingered hands reached out to cup hers. “Thraine – _Hebe_ – I know. I lost my children too – all of them – in a horrible, pointless, stupid war. I know what you're feeling right now.” Distantly, some part of her mind registered that he was cool to the touch. “The pain isn't ever going to leave you, nor is the sense of failure, but you are going to learn to live with it, to make room for it inside of you.”

It sounded _awful_.

To never be free from the pain but to occasionally forget seemed the worst torment she could suffer.

The Doctor carefully slid his hands from hers and down to her elbows that jutted into the soft flesh of his palm. Slowly, he lifted her onto her feet. Her knees cracked and thighs sighed with relief; his arm went around her, guiding her smoothly and gently away from Pecath. Behind her, out of her sight, Timar bowed his head over his dead nephew and let silent tears leave tracks down his dirty cheeks before moving to one side to allow Isa to do her work. Quietly, out of respect for their Thraine, others stepped forward to help, and Pecath was carried swiftly and tenderly from the bridge to have his body prepared for a traditional Dolmaran funeral.

_What comes from the earth must return to the earth,_ Timar remembered his grandfather saying when Hebe had asked why they were burying Grandmother instead of recycling her body as was the new custom ordered by the Central Government.

“The ship needs more repairs,” Jack said, pulling Timar from his mourning. His eyes traced the stranger whose face was covered with soot from being too close to a panel when it exploded. “But she's space-worthy. You can get to where you need to be if you take it nice and slow.”

The Doctor placed Hebe into the captain's chair. Her fingers stretched on the material of the armrests before she shifted, letting her body settle into the seat.

“Thank you,” Hebe said, words made rough by grief. There was a heavy ball in the pit of her stomach, the weight of which intensified when she turned her attention to Captain Ston. They looked furious, glands throbbing, and their eyes were alight with fury. “And so here we are, captain. Tell me, how did trading in flesh work out for you in the end?”

Nostrils flared in response. “This isn't the end.”

“Not for us,” she said, “but it is for you. Jural, take this piece of filth down to the cargo bay, _alive_.” Jural twitched forwards. “Seal them in once you're done. Let them experience what it means to be imprisoned.”

Hebe turned her eyes away from the monster that killed her son and looked at the bland wall in front of her. Grifari ships were not known for having many viewports and she found herself wishing for something to look out of, anything to help chase away the tight band of claustrophobia that wrapped itself around her chest and pressed against her lungs. She needed to get off the ship and breathe fresh air, screaming her grief into open skies above her; she wanted to feel soil beneath her feet instead of the hard, unforgiving deck of a space ship; and, she needed to find a more comfortable seat. The captain's chair was taller than most, giving an unearned respectability to the one that sat there, but it was still too small for her body.

She looked away from the disappointing bulkhead, eyes snagging on Primulan who was doing their best to remain unnoticed and out of the way next to an empty station. They had been helpful in taking the ship – a nervous, twitching helpfulness that irritated more than soothed – yet Hebe didn't like them. No mater their good intentions, they still participated in slavery before finding their conscience and knew what was happening whilst others protested and died. Primulan should have died rather than dip greedy, desperate fingers into the wealth of the slave trade.

“Take that as well,” Hebe said, gesturing at Primulan who flinched in surprise. Jural paused, one hand firmly on Ston, and he reached out and grabbed hold of Primulan who trembled, afraid. “Just get it out of my sight.”

The Doctor straightened, eyes sharp. “They helped us.”

“It's okay,” Primulan said, nervously, fingers gripping at the sides of their clothes. “I understand.”

Jack shifted. “Prim...”

“Really,” they said, flashing a brave smile. “It's fine. I'll go.”

His mouth pursed but he nodded and watched them go, a look of faint sketched on his face. The Doctor turned to Hebe, a strange, uncomfortably familiar feeling unfurling in his chest. The memory of his own rage – the rawness and the desire to harm – in the aftermath of Susan's death still made his jaw ache even years later. He remembered throwing himself into the war, desperate to do something to make the agonising wound of his granddaughter's death easier to bear; he remembered the damage he wrought in the name of vengeance.

“ _Dalek, Time Lord, who can tell the difference any more?_ ”

Cass's voice a faint, echoing reminder of his sins.

“What are you going to do to them?” The Doctor asked. He missed the casual tone he was going for, sounding sharper and more urgent than he planned, Zoe straightening up swiftly and looking around at him, a frown smeared across her face, wary and alert. “It's a long journey to Nola.”

Hebe looked up at him, and his hearts pounded in his chest. His mouth turned dry and panic suffused him.

He recognised that look.

“Thank you for your help,” Hebe said with a cool calmness that made the panic inside of him thicken; he didn't know the details of what was going to happen, but he knew the outcome because the outcome was always the same. “But we have it under control now.”

“Thraine –”

“My people can handle it,” she interrupted, words cracking through his and silencing him. He was so unaccustomed to being silenced that his mouth snapped shut. “We're not simple people, Doctor. We're engineers and architects and pilots and inventors. We've all served upon Grifari ships. We can fix this without any more of your help.”

Rose lifted herself to her feet, uncomfortable with the shift in atmosphere between the Doctor and Hebe.

“I don't doubt that,” he said, “but I do want to know what you're going to do with the Grifari.”

Her tongue darted out, touching the dry skin of her lips before she spoke. “Justice.”

Blood rushed through his ears, familiar with the type of justice she wanted to dole out. Those responsible for Susan's death had been nearly wiped out by his hand, the Graxnix sending envoys _begging_ him to stop, but he didn't, not until Romana entered the field of battle herself and dragged him back to Gallifrey. The argument that followed was worse than any other in his life. Foul words of treason and hatred spewed from his lips as he tore apart the woman he loved, his dearest friend, and no matter how much she forgive him for that day, their relationship was never the same after that.

_Revenge, my dear Doctor, hurts you more than it'll ever hurt them._

“Justice, the type you're talking about, won't bring your son back,” he said. “It won't change what's happened here.”

“I don't need you to tell me that,” she said, eyes flashing. “I gave you my word that no blood would be shed and no blood was despite the provocation. Do you doubt me now?”

“Your son was murdered by the captain,” he said, carefully, away that he was walking on cracked ice. “And I think a long journey with his killer in your hold will make it very difficult to keep your word.”

Hebe's fingers lightly touched her lips, eyes hooded. “They won't be in my hold.”

A beat of silence passed as he tried to parse the meaning. “What does that mean?”

Slowly, she unfurled her body from the captain's chair and stood, stepping gracefully off the dais. Her shoulder brushed against the Doctor's arm, her warmth filling the air around him, as she quietly crossed the bridge. Jack stepped out of her way, watching her with curious, concerned eyes, and Rose chewed on a hangnail that made her thumb ache, uncertain; Zoe shifted to one side, her eyes dancing back and forth between the Doctor and Hebe, a micro-soldering iron held loosely in the curves of her oil-stained fingers.

Hebe stood at the console and pressed a finger against a small button. “Jural?”

She reached out and gently pulled a loose piece of thin wiring from the mess of Zoe's braid, letting it drop to the floor between them.

“ _They're all in the cargo bay, Thraine_ ,” Jural replied. “ _Everything's sealed._ ”

“Are our people outside the bay?”

“ _Yeah,_ ” he said. “ _No one wanted to be in there with them._ ”

“For the best,” Hebe said. “Thank you, Jural. For your work and for trusting me.”

Her finger pressed the button again, severing the connection. Her eyes lingered on Zoe and a soft smile played at her lips as she reached out and touched her fingertips to Zoe's freckles on her nose and cheeks. Zoe remained perfectly still as she did so, eyes watching her curiously. She didn't feel afraid of her, just confused as something was building in the air around them, something the Doctor had already figured out, but she was unable to put her finger on it.

“Every summer my son exploded with freckles,” Hebe said, her thumb brushing over the small dark patches on Zoe's skin. “It would start slow and small as the sun grew more powerful until one day he would wake up and his skin would be covered with them.” She shook her head with a small laugh. “He hated them because he was the only one to get them so badly. The other children would make fun of him as children do, but I always thought they were so beautiful.”

“I used to hate them too,” Zoe confessed, oddly soothed by the track of Hebe's thumb across her skin. “But my mum used to tell me that they were stars bursting to life under my skin just for me and it made me special.” Her mouth twitched. “She knew how much I loved anything to do with space and could get creative with it.”

“Your mother sounds like a lovely woman.”

“She is.”

“The things we do to protect our children, even from the smallest of hurts,” Hebe sighed. “Do you have children, Zoe?”

“No.”

“If a day comes when you do, I hope you never know the pain of outliving them,” she said, letting her hand fall from Zoe's cheek, knuckles brushing across her collarbone before it fell to her side. “There's really nothing quite like it.”

“I'm sorry,” Zoe said, sincerely. “I really am.”

“Thank you,” she said with a small, solemn incline of her head. “It's strange, isn't it? The things you find yourself capable of.”

“I...”

She moved her hands to the console and ignored the short, sharp bark of her name from the Doctor's mouth as she opened the cargo bay doors. It was a hollow victory to know that the air was draining from the hold and the force of its expulsion dragged medical supplies and food out into the vastness of space along with the fifty-five Grifari that had tried to enslave her people. Hebe was shoved to one side, Zoe's shoulder slamming into her as she gripped at the console and stared in horror at the readings.

“What did you do?” Zoe demanded. “Thraine, what did you do?”

“Justice.”

And, outside the hull of the G.S.S.S Nebulus, the frozen, rigid corpses of the Grifari floated away into the black expanse of space.


	12. Chapter 12

Zoe's body began to resist the marathon she was putting it through. Over a year since her last marathon, and despite having kept up with with her running in the interim – an hour on the treadmill whenever she had the time –, she was struggling. At her side, on a matching treadmill, Jack's skin was flushed red, the colour spreading across his forehead and cheeks, making him look less polished than he normally did; shiny with perspiration, he had long since discarded his shirt, which she thought looked suspiciously like one of Mickey's. The two of them ran in together in comfortable silence, their heavy breathing and feet hitting the track the only thing to break it.

Back in the days after their reunion and whilst they were relaxing in Jamaica, Jack floated the idea for the two of them to exercise together after watching her contort into shapes during her morning hourly yoga practice. Part of it was a way for them to spend time together, just the two of them – Rose preferred swimming as a form of exercise and neither of them had ever seen the Doctor in the gym – and another part was to make sure that she was actually getting some exercise during her studies. With everything now behind her, Zoe enjoyed the afternoons she spent in the gym with him, relishing the one-on-one time even if they didn't typically push themselves so hard. Normally they chatted as they exercised – boxing or weight lifting, the occasional sprint – but for the last few days their time was spent in a silence that was only broken by stray snippets of conversation as the atmosphere in the TARDIS shivered with the Doctor's anger and distress. It seeped out from wherever he had hidden himself and infected all the communal areas, leaving his friends feeling out of sorts as well.

His anger with Hebe had been vast, sweeping around them in a heated wave that made the Thraine take a single cautious step back, and Zoe hadn't been able to predict what he was going to do. His face hadn't been one she recognised, the lines carved from granite and his eyes scooped from the heart of the sun. For all the stories he had told her of what he had done and the people he had stopped, she was forced to realise that she had never truly seen the Oncoming Storm before. It was unnerving and unpleasant to bear witness to his anger and understand that she was powerless to do anything to abate it. Hebe bore it well, better than Zoe felt she would have done, but there was no denying that everyone was grateful when they parted ways.

The Doctor had swept them up and forced them into the TARDIS, hands flipping levers and angrily ranting before he stopped himself abruptly, his voice cutting off as though someone had hit mute. Glaring at the console, he turned on his heel and stormed off into the depths to deal with his anger in private. Zoe hated the relief she had felt to see his back. His anger was so different to Jackie's, which she was long accustomed to, and Reinette's, which had been quiet and icy and etched with disappointment. It felt odd having to learn to navigate the Doctor's anger as she had once had to learn Reinette's.

It was different now that they were more than friends; before, she would have simply left him to his own devices, confident in his ability as a Time Lord who was nine-hundred years older than she was to handle himself. Now though, she knew better, and it bothered Zoe that he didn't show himself to her. It bothered her that despite him clearly sleeping in their bed and using their bathroom, he was never there when she woke up. The more he kept himself from her, the more irritated she grew with him.

A sudden explosion of noise jolted her from her thoughts. Jack threw his hands up into the air as his treadmill slowed.

“Did it,” he exclaimed, breathless, eyes bright with delight. “I won!”

“Were we competing?” She managed to ask, finding it difficult to push the words out as her lungs burned. “I forgot that bit.”

He laughed, mopping at his head, chest heaving. “You'll catch me one day.”

She decided to end it there, her body having suffered enough punishment for one day, and her fingers moved across the controls of the treadmill, slowing to a jog and then a walk. The relief at no longer keeping her punishing pace made her sigh, head dropping.

“Maybe when I've not had a large breakfast,” she said, reaching for her own towel and pressing the soft cloth against her forehead and dry mouth. “That was a bad tactical choice. Delicious, but bad.”

Jack braced his hands on the arm grips as he walked and caught his breath. “We should do a proper marathon one day. Make a day of it. Rose and the Doctor can shout their support from the sidelines or, actually, knowing them, they'd get distracted by an alien invasion or something and we'd have to go rescue them.”

Zoe grinned. “That also sounds like fun.”

“Here.” He snatched up her water bottle and tossed it to her. “Hydrate.”

She caught the bottle with one hand and cracked the lid, still walking on the treadmill. “I do kind of want to do the London marathon. I've never actually run in the city before.”

“With that air pollution?” He asked, eyebrows raised as he stretched an arm across his chest. “We'd be dead before we get to the end, or at the very least asthmatic.”

“I lived in Peckham for seventeen years and managed not to develop asthma,” she reminded him. “It won't kill you.” Scepticism tilted his eyebrows, and she corrected herself. “It won't kill you immediately. It's not like we don't have access to the best medical care in the universe.”

“As long as we don't have to go back to New Earth,” Jack said. “I draw the line at cat nuns and human experimentation.”

Amusement sank into the delicate, faint lines around her eyes. “Good to have principles.”

“That it is,” he agreed, watching as she stretched her arms above her head, enjoying the play of her muscles beneath her skin. He might be half in love with Mickey but he was still able to appreciate the beauty when he saw it. “I'm going to soak in the relaxation pool. You coming?”

“I think I'll take a shower first,” she said. “My hair is unpleasantly damp.”

His eyes roved over the curls that were twisted onto the back of her head in a messy bun. “That sounds gross.”

“It feels gross.” Her fingers touched the nape of her neck, mouth twisting. “I'll catch up with you.”

He gave her a small salute and jumped off his treadmill, grabbing his T-shirt as he went to keep mopping his sweat up. Zoe drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with air; her entire body thrummed with energy and she hurt, but it was a good hurt even if she doubted she would be thankful in the morning.

Tipping back half the bottle of water into her mouth, she carefully stepped off her treadmill, having learnt her lesson from the first time she ran a long distance on the machine; unaccustomed to the heavy, jelly-like feeling of her legs afterwards, she tumbled off, bruising her knee and jarring her elbow. Desiring to avoid the medical bay for as long as she could, lingering negative feelings from the medication the Corsair had made her drink to combat her radiation poisoning, she moved with care out of the gym.

Not for the first time she felt gratitude for having a gym onboard as she was a naturally lazy person, preferring books and bed to running and the outdoors, but it was important to her to keep her body healthy considering how active her life had a tendency to get. She had stumbled across it one night, mouth aching from the large quantity of pickled onion Monster Munch she had consumed and eyes stinging from hours of studying, and maintained that the TARDIS only showed it to her as she was worried about Zoe not getting enough exercise. Admittedly, having it right next to her old bedroom at times – sometimes it disappeared only to reappear in all sorts of places – did make her more likely to exercise than not.

She stopped by the kitchen to refill her water bottle, absently wondering where Rose was. Her sister tended to disappear when she and Jack headed to the gym, whether out of fear of being asked to join them or simply desirous of time alone, she didn't know. Rose needed less time alone than Zoe did, preferring to be surrounded by people, but there were times when she disappeared and Zoe knew that Jimmy Stone was to blame. Rose's relationship with him had ended horribly, a black eye and debt her only gifts from Jimmy, and Zoe had found herself wondering over the years whether Rose was telling the entire truth about that relationship. The idea that she could raise the topic with her sister filled her with dread as it was just something the family didn't talk about, just as they didn't talk about Zoe getting her stomach pumped and the week Jackie had spent in hospital after one of her boyfriends took offence to having chicken for dinner instead of the pre-arranged pasta.

It was strange how she was fast approaching her thirtieth birthday and yet, sometimes, she felt as though she was an awkward teenage girl listening to her sister's sobs behind closed doors and ignoring the way her mother winced when she sat down. Some things, she considered, ran too deep to be ripped out and shown the light of day; she had to trust that if Rose wanted to talk to her, then Rose would find a way. There was a frown on her face as she bumped open the door to her bedroom, bottle at her lips, only to pause at the sight of the Doctor sitting on the end of the bed, sleeves rolled up his arms, jacket and tie absent. He looked up at her entrance and took in her sweaty, flushed form as she lowered her bottle.

“Gym?”

“No,” she lied. “Sex with Jack.”

One corner of his mouth lifted minutely. “How was it?”

“About what you'd expect,” she said. “Energetic, bendy, devilishly creative.”

His mouth twitched, eyes fond even though he looked exhausted and dishevelled in a way that made her want to brush his hair and tuck him into bed. “I imagine. Need a shower?”

“Not right this second,” she said, tossing her towel onto the corner chair, setting her water down. “Not if you want to talk.”

His eyes shifted away from her. “It can wait.”

Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips, feeling vulnerable. “I'd rather it didn't. I -” she cleared her throat. “I've missed you.”

The Doctor's face twitched before it dropped into lines of misery. “I'm sorry.”

“I know,” Zoe said, hesitating before she moved and sat next to him. She dried her sweat-damp hand on the cover of their blankets before taking his. The touch of his palm against hers soothed some of the ragged edges of her irritation away. “You've been processing.”

“More beating myself up than processing,” he sighed, leaning into her; she shifted so that he had space to rest his head on her shoulder. “I should have stopped her.”

Her thumb swept over the back of his hand. “I don't think she wanted to be stopped. I don't think she would've let you.”

“That's never stopped me in the past.”

“Doctor.” His name left her lips on a heavy sigh. Her cheek rested atop his head, and she closed her eyes, breathing him in. “You can't stop every bad thing that ever happens in this universe. It's not possible and it's madness to try.”

His hand tightened in hers. “I saw the look in her eyes. I knew she was going to do something horrible. I recognised it from before.”

Zoe hated that he felt guilty over the Grifari. She was disgusted by the manner of their deaths, yet she also understood Hebe's position – her people had been stolen from their home, murdered, enslaved, and then her son was executed. It was her quiet belief that people like the Grifari didn't deserve to live but their summary execution had been unpleasant and unnecessary, and the fact that Primulan had died as well sat uneasy with her. She knew that the Doctor believed differently though. She knew that he needed to believe differently for fear of tumbling down the dark hole that the Time War had ripped open in him. Over the time of them knowing each other, he had told her bits and pieces about the War, about some of the things he had done during it, including the worst day of his life when he destroyed Gallifrey.

The memory of him slowly breaking apart in front of her was seared into her mind. He had been so desperate for someone to latch onto, to cling to as something to keep him afloat, and she had been happy to be that for him, but she was still acutely aware that there were many things he hadn't told her; things that she doubted he would ever tell her for shame or the inability to articulate his experiences into words. He had fought in a war – a soldier no matter how much he wanted to pretend otherwise – and he struggled every day with the fallout from it.

His PTSD lived beneath the surface of his skin, flaring up when no one expected it, and it pained her that she wasn't able to help him as he had once helped her – as he still helped her.

Zoe stroked his hair, pressing her fingertips against his scalp and going against the grain of his hair the way he liked. “Are you upset that you didn't stop her, or are you upset that you didn't stop yourself?”

His breath was sharp and tremulous. When he spoke, his voice was wet.

“Zoe, I...” nausea churned in her stomach at how broken and fragile he sounded. “There was – when Susan died...Romana had to stop me.” She closed her eyes, wondering how bad it had to be that Romana, President of Gallifrey, had to intervene. “I wanted to kill them all. I tried to. She stopped me, but it was never the same between us after that. _Never_.”

She turned and pressed her mouth to the top of his head, holding him to her lips as she thought, trying to find the right words that would bring him comfort and chase the misery from his bones.

“I know what sort of man you are,” she said, carding her fingers through the back of his hair, lifting it from his scalp to send tiny shivers of electricity through him. “You are a good man, a kind man, and a man that I love deeply.” She drew her hand around and found his chin, tilting it up, three days of beard growth darkening his jaw. He looked ancient, and she felt woefully inadequate for what he needed. “But you're also a man with an ego the size of a black hole.”

His brow furrowed, and his lips pursed at the unexpected insult. “Black holes don't have one consistent size.”

“What's the size of the biggest black hole in the universe then?”

“The diameter's about 78 billion miles.”

“There you go then,” she said, smoothing her thumb over his lips to work the soft pout out. “That's the size of your ego.”

“Zo –” he huffed against her thumb.

“People make decisions - sometimes awful, sometimes not - and you're not responsible for them,” she told him. “You're not God. You're just a man –” his eyebrows rebelled at that. “ _Time Lord_ , sorry.” A small smile started to grow in the corners of his mouth. “And you do the best you can, even if it doesn't always work out the way you want. Please don't take Hebe's poor decision onto your shoulders as well. There's only so much weight even you can take before something shatters, and I love you too much to watch that happen.”

He pressed his head into her hand, and she drew his forehead to her chest. His body shuddered under her touch as she felt him put himself back together, piece by agonising piece. Her fingers worked through his hair and over his shoulders before he cleared his throat and straightened up. He still looked miserable but there was more life to him, more of the man that she saw every day.

His eyes were dark as they met hers. “Thank you.”

“Just don't disappear on me again,” she requested, softly, sweeping her thumb across his cheek. “I really have missed you the last few days.”

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, breath warm against her skin. “I didn't want you to see me like that.”

“I always want to see you,” she said “And I always want to help.”

His throat moved with a swallow. “I know.”

“Do you?” Zoe whispered, forehead creased into a small frown. “It's been a long time since you've been in a relationship, longer than me for sure.”

“I suppose,” he murmured a faint agreement, fingers resting on the curve where her neck met her shoulder. “Although, for full disclosure, I've never been very good at letting people in deeply. Only a handful...all of whom are now dead, except you, of course.”

“It's okay,” she told him. “You've been patient with me; it's not hard to be patient for you.”

“Zoe Tyler.” Her name fell like a prayer from his mouth. “What did I do to deserve you?”

She closed the distance between them and pressed her mouth to his. He had spoilt her over the last two months with his daily attentions – often hourly if he could – and three days without his kisses was three days too long. She curled herself into him, his hands on her thighs as she settled herself in his lap, knees on either side of him, and she kissed him so that he didn't forget he was loved. Beneath her fingertips, she felt the tension in his shoulders drain away as they kissed in that slow, languid way that she adored. The rub of his beard against her skin was odd, not something she entirely hated but still odd; she pressed her thumbs to the thin skin around his eyes when she pulled back to look at his darkened, kiss-flushed expression.

“You need to shave,” She said before the silence stretched too long. His mouth twisted into a wry smile, a hand leaving her thigh to rub at his jaw. “It's an interesting look on you.”

“Can I pull it off?”

“Of course you can,” she said, “but I'm not sure I like the beard burn.”

He laughed then, a bright, surprised thing. When they kissed for a second time, there was more heat and energy in his attentions.

“As much as I love what this outfit does for you,” the Doctor said, his hands skimming over her body that was clad in various pieces of spandex. “It doesn't make for easy removal.”

She looked down at him, drawing her finger down the line of his nose. “And why do you want to remove my clothes? Feel free to be as detailed as you like in response.”

He nudged her hand with his nose and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “To show you how much I've missed you. Watching you sleep isn't enough, and, to be honest, I felt a little creepy the last time.”

She coughed to cover her amusement, but her smile was luminous as she lifted her hands from him and criss-crossed them to remove her sports bra, tossing it carelessly behind her once she was free. His mouth brushed over her collarbone, lips dragging against her skin.

“I love you,” he breathed into her skin, tip of his tongue touching a stray freckle on her shoulder, a small tang of saltiness setting his senses ablaze. “The last few days, I've felt adrift, _alone._ ” Her body swelled with love and hurt for him. “I should've come to you straight away.”

She dragged her fingers through his hair. “You never have to be alone, not whilst I'm here. Remember, you promised that you'd never leave me alone again, that goes both ways, you know?”

“I do,” he said, fingers delicate on her skin. “Or at least I'm beginning to see that. Be patient with me?”

“Always.”

His mouth found hers again as his hands swept down the length of her bare back, and Zoe let herself fall into his love, all thoughts of meeting Jack chased from her mind.

* * *

Rose woke with a start.

Her breath caught in her chest and sweat beaded across her skin, disorientation gripping her as she struggled to remember where she was. Kicking away her blankets, she fell out of bed and crawled across the floor, fingers sinking into the soft gentleness of her rug until her hands found the bare, cold floor. She pressed herself against it, laying her body flat against the ground, heart hammering in her chest as remembered fear surged through her.

_I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe,_ she repeated on a loop in her mind as the ghostly pressure of hands around her wrists faded.

Once her chest stopped heaving and her breathing was back under control, she rolled onto her back. Sensing that her panic was at an end, the TARDIS gently lifted the darkness in the room, soft light spilling over her; Rose rubbed at her face and felt exhausted. It wasn't often she had nightmares any more but they were still frequent enough that she knew she wasn't going to get back to sleep. Drawing her wrists to her chest, she rubbed at them and stared up at her ceiling, wondering if there was ever going to come a time when she no longer thought on the troubles of her past.

_Unlikely,_ she thought when she considered the Doctor who seemed to be plagued by the memories of things gone wrong. Jack and Zoe were also prone to bouts of melancholy – Jack for the circumstances of his family's death and Zoe for the death of her wife. Rose thought the four of them made a strange group with their various regrets and traumas.

Swallowing hard, she got to her feet and dragged her dressing gown on. Her alarm clock said that it was four in the morning (London time), and she threw her hair up into a ponytail as she left in search for a cup of tea with a dash of whiskey to help settle her nerves. She passed Jack's bedroom, the door cracked open, and heard the murmured tones of Mickey spilling out. The urge to pause and eavesdrop trickled through her, wondering what on earth Mickey and Jack had to talk about so early in the morning, but she was still shaking. Mickey and Jack had taken to each other like ducks to water, surprising her by how quickly they made found space for each other, and she wasn't jealous so much as off-balance.

Mickey had always been hers; it felt strange to have to share him now.

“Oh, dear,” the Doctor said when she entered the kitchen. “You look awful.”

Rose squinted at him, the light just a little too bright. “Anyone ever told you you're shit at talkin' to women?”

“Sorry, that was rude,” he apologised. “What I meant to say was is that it's very early in the morning and are you okay?”

A huff of laughter slipped out. Despite his different _everything_ , he was still useless at thinking before he spoke. The continuity of that aspect of his personality was comforting.

“Just a bad dream,” she said, rubbing her eye. “What are you doin'?”

He held up dough-covered hands. “Making cinnamon rolls.”

“Oh.” Not what she expected. “Why?”

“Thought we could have them for breakfast,” the Doctor said as though he hadn't been missing for the last three days. “I'd make you a cup of tea but Jack doesn't like it when I get things dirty.”

“I think he just doesn't like it when you smear weird goop on things,” she said, filling the kettle with water before flicking it on. “Because that purple stuff was weird an' it made my tongue ache.”

He peered at her. “And you tell me off about licking things.”

“I didn't lick it,” she protested. “All I did was touch it with my elbow an' then my tongue's achin'.”

“Humans.”

“Time Lords,” she mocked. He flicked dough at her; she laughed as she ducked. “Nice to see you out an' about again. Where've you been hidin'?”

“I haven't been hiding,” the Doctor said. “I've just been...” she watched his mind cycle through possible excuses before his shoulders slumped. “Fine. I might've been hiding. Just a little though.”

Her eyes swept over him, looking for signs of fatigue and guilt. He was dressed in his pyjamas, a sight that never failed to make her stomach clench with desire as he looked good in his navy blue bottoms and grey T-shirt; his hair was damp from a shower, and there was a small knick on his jaw where he cut himself shaving. He looked tired but there was a lightness to him that hadn't been there the last time she saw him.

“Reckon you had reason enough,” Rose said, fetching his cup – a ridiculous thing with bananas all over it – and hers. “You feelin' better now?”

He nodded, eyes on the dough. “Yeah, I am. Zoe, she talked some sense into me.”

“That's our Zo,” she said, wondering if the Doctor would comment if she added that splash of whiskey to her tea. Deciding not to risk it, she set his next to him and tucked herself into a chair at the table. “Why cinnamon rolls?”

“Because they're tasty?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, why not somethin' with bananas? It's a bit of a break in tradition for you.”

“Oh.” He flashed her a grin. “Zoe might've threatened to feed me a pear if I put bananas in one more thing this week. I'm on a banana time out right now.”

Rose felt a smile stretch across her face. “An' you're tryin' to get into her good books by makin' her cinnamon rolls because you know she loves them.”

Colour swept across the Doctor's cheeks. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sure,” she said, grinning behind her mug. “There's no point in denyin' it, Doctor. The secret's out.”

His eyes turned to her, panic dancing in them. “What?”

“Zoe's your favourite,” Rose said, wondering what strange button she had accidentally tapped with that statement. “She has been ever since she tried to toss you off the roof.”

“One –” he held up a dough-covered finger. “She never actually tried to kill me that day. And two –” three fingers popped up before he lowered the extra one. “I don't have favourites. I care for you all equally.” She sipped her tea in a deliberately obnoxious manner. His mouth thinned. “Rose.”

She blinked up at him. “Yes, Doctor?”

The disapproving facade cracked and gave way to crinkles of laughter. “Rose Tyler, you're trouble.”

“Takes trouble to know trouble.”

“I suppose it does,” he said with a soft smile just for her that made her insides melt. He turned the dough out onto the floured surface and began to draw it together beneath the heels of his palms. “You want to talk about what's got you up so early?”

_No,_ her mind screamed at her, her hands tightening on her mug, mirth and attraction slipping from her body. His eyes tracked the changes and a small frown creased his forehead. His hands paused in the dough.

“Rose?”

“I'm fine,” she said, voice breaking. She cleared her throat. “I'm fine.”

“You really don't sound it,” the Doctor said, concern seeping out of his words as he pulled his hands away from the dough and shoved them into a sink of tepid water, scrubbing them clean. “And you also don't look it. It looks like you've been spooked.”

Hot tears pressed against the back of her throat and her nose, burning her eyes. Horror filled her at the thought of crying in front of him. There was no shame in her tears, she knew that, but he would want to know why she cried and she didn't have the words to tell him.

“Really, I'm fine,” Rose said, but, even to her ears, she sounded false. Her legs dropped from her chair, standing abruptly. “I'm just goin' to go back to bed an' –”

The Doctor's clean hands plucked her tea from her hands. The dull sound it made when it was set on the table caught her attention before he swept her up into his arms. She hated him in that moment but loved him at the same time. Pressing her forehead into his chest, her fingers slowly curling into the material of his shirt between them, she struggled to keep her tears inside her. It hurt. Her head felt tight with pressure, skin hot, and she felt like a child all over again as his hand cupped the back of her head, the other stroking a slow, firm path down her back to anchor her.

“Whatever it is, it's okay,” the Doctor murmured into her hair. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want, but you don't have to be scared alone.”

“I...” the words lodged in her throat. “It...it hurts.”

“I'm sure it does,” he said, gently, cradling her against him. “You're safe here. Nothing's going to hurt you here.”

Her fingers tightened in his shirt, and the tears spilt over. It started slow and silent: short, desperate breaths as she tried to fight them off, before she let herself fall and her body heaved with sobs. His shirt turned dark and wet beneath her head but he didn't move. He held her to him and let her cry it out. She wasn't sure how long she cried for – minutes or hours, it all felt the same to her; yet, when she lifted her head from his chest and looked tentatively up into his kind, concerned face, she felt better.

“Sorry,” she whispered, drawing her sleeve across her face.

He took her face in his hands, long fingers tapering off into her hairline, and pressed his lips to her forehead.

“You don't need to apologise,” he said. His thumbs rubbed gently beneath her swollen eyes. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

The truth lodged in her throat, shameful and filled with pain. She shook her head, looking anywhere but his eyes.

“Okay,” he accepted, sliding an arm around her shoulders and tugging her back into him. She felt the warmth of his breath in her hair, the press of his lips to her scalp. “We've all got things that give us restless nights.”

“Yeah.” She sighed against his chest, his double heartbeat soothing under her ear. “I know.”

“You want your sister?”

Rose swallowed. “No. Zoe –” _doesn't know,_ she thought. “She gets grumpy when she doesn't get a lot of sleep, and I don't want to deal with a grumpy Zoe again.”

The Doctor laughed and let her change the subject, turning his back so she had some privacy to put herself back together. By the time the cinnamon rolls were out of the oven and cooling, the Doctor and Rose were sat together at the table attempting to piece together a jigsaw puzzle that fell out of the cupboard when he was looking for the cinnamon. He wasn't sure all the pieces were there but that didn't matter as Rose had a leg tucked beneath her, a fresh cup of tea, and was laughing as they tried to guess what the picture was going to be. That was how Jack found them when he strolled into the kitchen, a pleased smile on his face, as their breakfast cooled.

“Hello, stranger,” Jack said in greeting, stooping to kiss the top of Rose's head, hands on her shoulders as he looked at the Doctor. “Good to see your face again.”

“Morning, Jack,” the Doctor said. “What are you doing up this early?”

“Thought I'd get an early start to the day.”

“He was talkin' to Mickey,” Rose said with a sly grin. Jack stared at her, surprised. “You left your door open an' I was passin'. Couldn't help but hear his voice.”

“Oh.” A blush climbed into his cheeks that delighted the Doctor. “Well...” he cleared his throat. “He says hi.”

“Does he now?” The Doctor asked, leaning back in his seat, stretching his legs out beneath the table. His foot tapped against Rose's and she pressed her lips together to stop from smiling widely. “And how is Mickity-Mick?”

Jack eyed him cautiously. “Good.”

“Just good?” Rose asked, innocently.

“It hasn't even been a week,” he said, busying himself with the coffee machine. “Not much has happened for him.”

“One wonders, then, at the need to call him every night,” the Doctor said, watching the colour suffuse the back of Jack's neck. “And early in the morning. And also texting him during the day.”

“Don't forget the selfies,” Rose said ,helpfully.

He clicked his fingers. “And the selfies.”

Jack, face hot and skin itching with embarrassment at the realisation his friends weren't as oblivious to his feelings as he thought, rounded on them. “You two have a point you want to make?”

The Doctor and Rose glanced at each other before smiling at Jack.

“No point,” the Doctor said, “but if you fancy a trip back to the estate, you'll have to ask because I'm happy never going there again.”

She poked him with her toe. “Liar. We all know you like Mum.”

“ _Like_ ,” he repeated, face scrunched. “That's a really strong word.”

Rose opened her mouth to tease him further when –

“Christ on a cracker, what are you lot doing up this early?” Zoe demanded, heading straight for Jack and taking his freshly-made coffee from his hands. Knowing better than to issue even the smallest sound of protest, he turned back to the coffee machine. “It's just after five. We should all be sleeping.”

“Humans,” the Doctor complained, pulling a chair out for her. “You lot, you'll sleep your lives away given half the chance. All that stuff to see out in the universe and you want to sleep and snore and drool.”

“But consider this,” she said before taking a long drink of coffee, forcing them to wait. “You're an arse.”

Jack barked with laughter, and the tension that had filled the TARDIS since their departure from the Grifari ship shattered and disappeared, melting away like snowflakes on glass. The Doctor stood from his seat to finish the cinnamon rolls which they picked apart and consumed as all four of them attempted to finish the jigsaw puzzle that was missing the pieces he feared. Not that it mattered as Zoe set up her phone to send music playing through the kitchen, laughing as Jack twisted her about the floor, deftly ensuring that she never bumped into a table or chairs.

“How are you waltzing to Black Sabbath?” The Doctor asked, laughing as he dragged his finger through the leftover icing, popping it into his mouth.

“Darling,” Jack drawled, “I can waltz to anything.”

As if to prove his point, the song ended and switched over to Ian Dury's _Wake Up and Make Love with Me_. Jack repositioned his hands on Zoe's body and – somehow - led her in a smooth waltz to a song that did not lend itself to the style. Zoe caught the Doctor's on a spin, and he grinned at her. She looked happy and free in Jack's arms, reminding him that he hadn't taken her dancing in a long time; perhaps she might enjoy time, just the two of them, where she could dress up and do what she called _proper dancing_ , which he understood was anything that Reinette had taught her.

Rose watched her sister and friend, amusement dancing across her face even as her nose wrinkled. “What even is that?”

“The Fianet Waltz if I'm not mistaken.” Jack's footwork was complicated, as it should be for a dance that required eight feet, but Zoe was deft enough to keep her toes out of the way. “An interesting choice.”

“No.” Rose rolled her eyes. “The music.”

“Oh! Ian Dury,” he said. “Popular in the 70s and 80s.”

“And in my time,” Jack said as he and Zoe swung past them. “There was a resurgence in early Earth music around the time I was five: Ian Dury, Lil Nas X, BTS – all the classics.”

“I don't recognise a single name he just said,” Rose said.

“Not that the resurgence lasted long,” he continued as they came around the other side of the table. “Not a lot of the music survived so there was like half a song for each artist. People tried to fill in the gaps but it never really took off. Still, I remember building model rocket ships to Ian Dury.”

“Weird the things that survive the passage of time,” Zoe mused before yelping as Jack dropped her back in his arms. “Jack!”

“Yes, mi amor?”

She laughed and slapped his shoulder. “Let me up!”

Lifting her up and pulling her close, his hands fell to her waist. “Tell me you love me. Make me the happiest man alive.”

Her hands framed his face and slowly squashed it between her palms, puckering his face like a fish. “I love you, Jack, now and always.”

His tongue slipped out to try and lick her wrist. She wrenched it back, out of reach, before he twisted her in his arms so that her back was to his chest. The Doctor watched the two of them and wished that he had known such days of happiness were ahead of him when he woke up after ending the Time War. He wouldn't have believed it though. It would have felt like a cruel dream to have that dangled in front of him – friends, a lover, happiness – but he was beginning to feel like he might deserve those things again.

“Don't suppose we could go and see him live, could we?” Jack asked, spitting out a mouthful of Zoe's hair. “We haven't been to a concert in ages.”

“Reckon we could do that,” the Doctor said, though he would have agreed to anything to keep the smiles on their faces. He leaned forwards and stuck his hand in the front of Zoe's dressing gown, garnering raised eyebrows from Rose and Jack that soon lowered when he removed her phone. “Let's have a little look-see.” His fingers dashed across the touchscreen. “Here we go, Ian Dury in concert, Sheffield, November 21st, 1979. We can be there in about thirty minutes.”

“I need to change then,” Rose said. “An' shower, an' do my make-up. Can we make it an hour?”

“Make it ninety minutes,” Jack said, kissing Zoe's temple before releasing her. “I'm nowhere near concert ready.”

He sighed, resigned to a long wait.. “Get on then. I'll land us early so you can beauty shop yourselves.”

“Thank you,” Jack called over his shoulder before turning his attention to Rose on the way out. “What's appropriate for the 1970s?”

“Denim, I think,” Rose said. “Maybe tie-dye.”

“Don't wear tie-dye,” The Doctor shouted after them. Zoe raised her eyebrows. “I just really don't like it. It's ugly.” She opened her mouth. “I know, I know, _celery_.” She grinned. “Good morning, by the way.”

Zoe leaned in and kissed him. The tip of his tongue tasted the sharp bitterness of coffee before she pulled back. “Good morning to you too. Did you sleep well?”

“Better than the last few days,” he said. “I didn't wake you, did I?”

“It wouldn't have mattered if you did,” she said, reaching out and attempting to smooth his hair down. She ended up running her fingers through it. He leaned into her touch. “Ian Dury, huh?”

“It's catchy music,” he replied, her thumb rubbing against his scalp. “Besides, Jo was also a fan. She pulled me along to pub concert of Kilburn and the High Roads when they were still gigging. I've been a Dury fan ever since.”

“You're just full of surprises.” The Doctor's eyes softened before his gaze focused more intently when she slipped a finger beneath the neckline of his T-shirt, giving it a gentle tug. “You going to dress up? Get the flares and polo shirts out?”

“I do actually have some flares.”

Her face dropped in worried disappointment. “Oh, no.”

He caught her hand and kissed the back of it. “Fancy saving some time and sharing a shower?”

She laughed and pulled her hand away. “Never has time ever been saved by sharing a shower.” She rose onto her toes and kissed the tip of his nose. “You're one big distraction.”

“Not the first time I've been called that.”

“I bet it isn't,” she agreed, stepping aways to pour herself a fresh cup of coffee. “But don't be long in landing us. I might need help getting dressed.”

The Doctor was still smiling when he entered the console room to input their coordinates.

* * *

The TARDIS was the repository of the most comprehensive collection of music in the known universe, and it was the work of moments for the Doctor to find one of the band's more popular albums, putting it on whilst he waited for Rose and Jack to get ready. Zoe was sat in the jump seat, feet propped up on the console, frowning at her phone, mumbling to herself. Having recently introduced her to a crossword app that often took her days at a time to complete just one clue as it was so difficult, and then only with help, the Doctor watched her with fondness that stretched inside his chest. Her penchant for talking to herself was almost all but gone, a hangover from the years spent alone; but, he found her vague, barely comprehensible mumbling adorable and significantly less startling than her speaking at full volume, chatting to herself about anything and everything.

“You're going to get wrinkles,” the Doctor said, dancing past her, sinking into the beat of Ian Dury, gesturing. “Right there on your forehead. Be a shame to happen so young.”

She slipped her phone away. “Would you still find me attractive with wrinkles?”

“The more wrinkles the better, I say,” he said, quickly, sidestepping the hole he had accidentally started to dig for himself. “Bring on the wrinkles.”

“Weirdo.”

He winked at her just as Rose bounced into the console room.

“What d'you think of this?” She spread her arms wide to show off her outfit of denim mini-dungarees that she had thrown over a pink T-shirt. “'Bout right?”

“In the late 1970s.” The Doctor moved and knocked Zoe's feet off the console with a sweep of his hand. She aimed a kick at his behind, but he darted out of the way with practised ease.“You'd be better off in a bin bag.”

“You look lovely, Rosie,” Jack said, emerging from behind her dressed carefully in torn jeans and a faded T-shirt beneath a leather jacket. “Very hip.”

“Yeah, we don't really say hip,” Rose said, checking her reflection in the computer console before the Doctor bumped her out of the way. “Cool is better.”

“We do where we're going,” the Doctor said. “And you do: you look hip, cool – psychedelic, baby.”

“And you can trust him on that, he would know,” Zoe said. The conversational tone of her voice made the Doctor pop his head around the Time Rotor, suspicious and wary. She flashed him a toothy grin. “Don't look at me like that. You know full well what you used to wear was... _abstract_.”

“All the height of fashion, thank you very much.” He sniffed, smoothing a hand down the front of his brown suit.

Her face turned innocent, an expression he did not trust at all, and he waited for the hammer to drop.

“On which planet?”

_There it was_.

In response to her teasing, the Doctor threw a lever and the TARDIS stopped with a suddenness that threw them all off their feet. Zoe yelped, flung from the jump seat before gravity demanded its payment: she cried out in surprise when she landed on the hard grating with a groan. Her world spun and the blood pounded through her ears, tightening its embrace on her head, before releasing her. She heard Rose and the Doctor laughing, as though nothing was funnier, egged on by Jack cursing them from where he too had landed on the floor.

“We're here,” the Doctor declared, happily, waving away the smoke from the console. “Come on, you lot. Enough lollygagging.”

“Lunatic,” Rose shot back through her laughter, forgiving him when he pulled her to her feet.

She staggered into him, hands on his slim shoulders. Turning her eyes up to meet his, her face flushed at the smile directed at her; not for the first time she felt overwhelmed by his presence. The hot blush that swept across her pale skin felt painfully obvious, and she was both relieved and disappointed when he released her. Glancing around self-consciously, she breathed out, pleased that neither Jack nor Zoe had seen her flushed performance.

“Come on, you two,” he called over his shoulder to Jack and Zoe who were picking themselves up off the floor with a grumble, throwing the door wide open. “1979! Hell of a year: China invades Vietnam; the Muppet Movie; Margaret Thatcher, _bleh_ ; Skylab falls to Earth, with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb.” He waggled his thumb at them, stepping out into the wind that blew across an open plain with yellowing grass under a stretch of cloudy blue sky. “And I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I'm very attached to –” a rifle cocked, and he turned around. “My thumb.”

Royal guardsman stood in front of them, rifles levelled at their bodies, having come to investigate the noises the TARDIS made during the materialisation process. There were a number of them but only one was mounted. He was sat atop a fine black stallion, its coat gleaming in the faint light of the dying autumn. They were standing high above sea level, and the wind was brisk and cold. Discreetly, so as not to draw any excess attention to her, Zoe reached behind her for her coat that hung on the hook behind the door, tugging it free, before she shut the door behind her with enough firmness that she heard the click.

“Not Sheffield then,” Jack said, hands slowly rising.

“Or 1979,” Zoe added.

“1879,” the Doctor said with a nod, then a shrug. “Same difference.”

She hoped he felt the heat of her glare against the side of his head as he still wasn't yet immune to her displeasure.

“You will explain your presence,” the Scottish officer, Captain Malcolm Reynolds, commanded from atop his house. “And the nakedness of this girl.”

Rose shifted a little at the nod in her direction. Zoe coughed to cover a laugh.

“Are we in Scotland?” The Doctor asked, surprised.

A perfect Scottish accent rolled out of his mouth that made heat pulse through Zoe, and she closed her eyes against the arousal that pricked at her. She wondered if there was a kilt in the TARDIS he wouldn't mind donning for her pleasure.

Reynolds frowned at him. “How can you be ignorant of that?”

“Oh, I'm – I'm dazed and confused,” he rallied, quickly, jerking his head at Rose. “I've been chasing this – this wee naked child over hill and over dale. Isn't that right, ya timorous beastie?”

Rose's eyes went wide, and he gave her a discreet nod.

“Och, aye,” she agreed, valiantly, Scottish accent turning comical and slightly insulting in her mouth. “I've been oot an' aboot.”

The Doctor closed one eye, pained. “No, don't do that.”

“Hoots, mon!”

“We're going to get shot,” Jack muttered, and Zoe nodded her agreement, eyeing the rifles in front of her with the usual trepidation she felt when finding herself at gun point.

“Will you identify yourself, sir?” Reynolds asked, politely, but there was no doubt it was as much a command as before.

“I'm sorry...captain, is it?” Zoe apologised before the Doctor inserted his foot further into his mouth. Reynolds looked across at her and nodded his permission for her to speak. “We didn't mean to alarm you. We're from the University of Cambridge. We're academics researching meteorological phenomena in the area.”

“That's right,” Jack said. “This is Professor Tyler, I'm Captain Jack Harkness, her military escort here, and that's Rose Tyler, the professor's sister.”

“And I'm Dr James McCrimmon,” the Doctor said. “From the township of Balamory, the local expert, if you will. The – er – the professor and I are working on a paper together. I have our credentials, if I may?”

Reynolds nodded. The Doctor removed the psychic paper from his pocket and handed it up and over to the captain who looked at it with an unreadable expression set on his square face.

“As you can see,” he said, “a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. I trained under Dr Alexander Buchan himself.”

The Doctor glanced across to Zoe as Captain Reynolds took his time examining the false credentials. The psychic paper wasn't foolproof; if someone was sufficiently smart enough then the paper just looked blank. It hadn't yet happened to Zoe but the Doctor said that Cleopatra, Winston Churchill, and Sacagawea were a few notable Earth exceptions to the rule so far.

“Let them approach.”

A crystal clear voice emerged from the dark, elaborate carriage behind the soldiers. Jack leaned to one side in an attempt to see more clearly only to be sharply gestured back into position.

“I don't think that's wise, ma'am,” Reynolds replied, eyeing the four people before him with polite suspicion, even as he handed back the psychic paper.

“Let them approach.”

It was only his extensive training that prevented the captain from audibly sighing. Reluctantly, he lowered his weapon and glared down at them, delivering a warning before they were allowed to move.

“You will approach the carriage,” he told them, firmly, “and show all due deference.”

Zoe and Jack exchanged curious looks as they fell into step behind the Doctor and Rose on the approach to the carriage. It was large enough, Zoe supposed, but she was used to carriages from the court of Louis XV and she believed those to be larger and more beautiful: the French had an eye for beauty and ostentation whereas the British did not, or at least not to the same degree. The door was opened, and her eyebrows shot up on her forehead as she took in a woman that she had only seen in various history textbooks and online articles.

“Guys,” the Doctor said with a small smile, “might I introduce her Majesty, Queen Victoria, Empress of India and Defender of the Faith.”

“Rose Tyler, ma'am,” Rose said, curtseying clumsily even as Jack performed a neat bow and Zoe flawlessly curtseyed through the use of muscle memory. “An' my apologies for being so naked.”

“I've had five daughters, it's nothing to me,” the queen said, eyes flicking over them. “But you, Doctor, show me these credentials.” He passed the paper across to her. They watched and waited see what it would reveal to her. “Well, why didn't you say so immediately? It states clearly here that you have been appointed by the Lord Provost as my Protector.”

“Does it?” He asked, surprised, and Jack was jabbed him in the back. “Yes, it does. Good, good.” He cleared his throat. “Then, let me ask – why is Your Majesty travelling by road when there's a train all the way to Aberdeen?”

“A tree on the line.”

“An accident?”

“I am the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” she said in the same manner of voice that Zoe used to state that coffee was the far superior beverage and that tea was simply dirty leaf water. “Everything around me tends to be planned.”

Jack shifted forwards, drawing her eye. “An assassination attempt.”

The queen's eyes lingered on him for a moment, finding him as pleasing as most people did. His mouth started to climb into an interested smile but Zoe, without having to look at him, squeezed his thigh warningly; his face quickly rearranged itself to one better suited at the bedside of an ill friend.

“What? Seriously?” Rose replied. “There's people out to kill you?”

“Power tends to attract those of a somewhat crazed disposition,” Zoe said. “A servant in Versailles tried to kill Louis XV in January of '57: stabbed with a penknife. He showed me the scar once.”

“I beg your pardon?” Queen Victoria eyed her as though she was something very strange. “Louis XV of France? My dear woman, you can't possibly have known him.”

“You'll have to forgive my friend,” the Doctor said, dropping an arm around Zoe's shoulders and pulling her into him, making Rose step back to avoid being crushed between them. “Brilliant professor, quite the genius really; amazing imagination but a bit too much of the old wine, if you catch my drift.” Zoe made a small sound of offence and squirmed. “Bit difficult to tell the difference between dreams and reality of late. We're thinking about staging an intervention.”

“Indeed,” Victoria replied disdainfully as Zoe muttered her grievances into the Doctor's chest, words muffled.

Fortunately for all of them, the gentle clip-clop of a horse's hooves against the ground drew their attention as Reynolds returned from conferring with a scout who had run on ahead to get a lay of the land.

“Your Majesty, Sir Robert MacLeish lives but ten miles hence,” he said, posture perfectly straight in his saddle. “We've sent word ahead. He'll shelter us for tonight, then we can reach Balmoral tomorrow.”

“This Doctor and his companions –” Zoe's jaw tightened at the noun, but she was unable to protest considering how the Doctor had her neatly trapped against his chest. “They will come with us.”

“Yes, ma'am.” If he was displeased then he didn't show it. “We'd better get moving, it's almost nightfall.”

“Indeed,” Victoria agreed, eyes still on the Doctor who seemed perfectly content under her gaze even as Zoe tried to work herself free. “And there are stories of wolves in these parts. Fanciful tales intended to scare the children but good for the blood, I think.” Her mouth shadowed the hint of a smile. “Drive on!”

The door to the carriage shut, and the driver shook the reins before cracking them as though they were a whip, the carriage jerking on. The Doctor finally loosened his grip on Zoe, and she pulled herself free, looking dishevelled, and dug her fingers into his side. He pulled away from her, hand clamped over the sore spot, a look of hurt on his face that quickly transformed into amusement when he saw the look of annoyance on hers.

“I'm an alcoholic now?”

“I've seen you put away a bottle of wine by yourself,” he said, innocently. “More when you really get going.”

“Queen Victoria thinks I'm an alcoholic,” she complained. “Thanks so much for that.”

He laughed. “I wouldn't have had to say anything if _you_ hadn't started going on about Louis as though you know him.”

“I do know him!”

“Yeah, but this is a hundred years later, Zo,” he said. “Honestly, normally you're the one reminding me of these things.” He paused, delight filling his features. “Does this mean I'm maturing?”

“Unlikely,” Jack snorted as the four of them fell back from the carriage that was jostling away in order to walk in line with the soldiers behind it. “I think it just means Zoe forgot herself for a moment.” He grinned at her. “Don't worry, professor, as your personal guard I'll make sure no one carts you away to hospital.”

“Thank you, captain.” She moved from the Doctor's side to his, threading her arm through his, shooting the Doctor a pointed look. “Nice to know someone has my back.”

He rolled his eyes before looking down at the feel of Rose's arm linking with his. The wind was blowing her hair in every direction, and she kept having to push it out of her face.

  
“It's funny though,” Rose said, chilled from the wind but excited about where they were and who they were with. “You say assassination an' you just think of Kennedy an' stuff, not her.”

“1879?” The Doctor said, hands in his pockets. “She's had, oh, six attempts on her life? No rest for the wicked and the powerful.” He let a bounce roll through him, grinning at his friends. “And I'll tell you something else – we just met Queen Victoria!”

She laughed. “I know!”

“She's exactly what she looks like in the pictures,” Jack said, happily.

“I'm surprised those lasted to your time,” Zoe said. “Then again, Ian Dury.”

“No, I mean yes, but no,” he said. “In my time, we have holographic pictures of all key historical figures in a museum. A historical preservation society got hold of time travel devices and sent people back in time to take photos of those people and then erase their memories of ever having been there. Queen Victoria's was taken at the beginning of her reign and then again towards the end.”

Curiosity and delight licked the inside of her chest. “That is so cool. Only Earth history?”

“Earth and its colonies.”

She turned to look back at the Doctor. “I want to visit that museum as long as we can guarantee Jack won't be arrested, kidnapped, and/or executed.”

“One, Jack gets into trouble on every planet and in every time, and we always get him back okay,” the Doctor said, Jack whooping a laugh. “And two, we have a time machine. We can go back and visit these people ourselves.”

“It's not the same.”

“You know,” he said, conversationally, “just when I think I understand you, you go and say something like that.”

“Oh, like you don't like museums anyway,” she scoffed. “When we went around the British Museum at Christmas, you were keeping score of what you'd done and where you'd been.”

“She's got a point,” Jack said. “There was the Rosetta Stone and how you helped inscribe it way back when.”

“An' the marble things,” Rose said. “You said you saved them from bein' ground to dust by Sontruns.”

“Sont _ar_ ans,” the Doctor corrected. “And that's only two things. It's hardly keeping score.”

“The Standard of Ur: you saved the artist; the Enlightenment Gallery: you stopped George III from giving all the books away in a fit of madness,” Zoe listed. “Shall I go on?”

Fighting the urge to smile, he replied, “I think you've made your point. And fine, if you really want to, we can go to Jack's museum as long as he's okay with it.”

Jack gave a nod of agreement, tightening his jacket around him.

“I want her to say we are not amused,” Rose said, suddenly. “The Queen. I want her to say, _we are not amused._ _”_ She squeezed the Doctor's arm. “I bet you five quid I can make her say it.”

“Well, if I gambled on that, it'd be an abuse of my privileges of traveller in time.”

She pursed her lips and considered that before - “ten quid?”

“Done.”


	13. Chapter 13

Following the queen's carriage along a barely-there road in the thick, blustery Scottish wind, Zoe was glad for her coat. Huddled inside it, fingers turning stiff and frozen around the collar, she blew out a gust of air that turned white in front of her eyes as the slow procession dipped down a hill, slick mud making the path treacherous. On a hidden hole in the ground, the Doctor unbalanced, knee wobbling, arms pin wheeling as his feet went from under him. Taken aback by the sudden flailing of alien limbs, Rose ducked only to slip on a patch of slick mud, hands grabbing at the Doctor's trousers that made him topple backwards, hands reaching for Zoe who, taking in the local floral and fauna, failed to notice her friends falling like dominoes, was nearly pulled face first into the mud by the Doctor's attempt at keeping his balance. It was only down to Jack's finely-tuned reflexes that kept them all upright and out of the mud with their dignity more or less intact, even if Captain Reynolds looked upon them with a lip curled in disdain.

Falling back into line with smothered laughter, eyes bright with shared amusement, a house grew large before them.

On their final approach – a fan of architecture from her days spent living in a palace – Zoe took in the building. It was a large house with dark stone that was built up out of the earth and rimmed by a huge stone wall whose purpose appeared to be keeping people out, though she silently questioned the need for such a thing as there were a dearth of people in the middle of nowhere and anyone approaching would be seen miles in advance. As they entered the courtyard, mud churned beneath the wheels of the queen's carriage, and a stray flapping hen squawked as it dashed in its odd, wobbling run out of the way. Zoe cast her eyes around and saw that a number of staff quickly disappeared from view as their attempt to prepare the house for the unexpected royal visit came to an end.

Abruptly, she was reminded of the time when Maximilian III Joseph, prince-elector of Bavaria, stopped by Versailles unexpectedly. It was the only time Zoe had seen Louis lose his calm , receiving only half a day's notice of the man's arrival. She had been unceremoniously shuttled off into her and Reinette's apartment with the understanding that she was to do nothing and say nothing that might offend the prince-elector, which she thought was a little insulting at the time but, in hindsight, had probably been wise. As it was, Maximilian – and not Max or Maxi-boy as she light-heartedly referred to him as to Reinette who was torn between laughter and shock at her disrespect – only stayed two nights but it was a lot of work for the palace staff to pull off at the last minute. Given that the owners of the house they were approaching had less than two hours notice, she was impressed that things seemed to be in order.

“Would you get a look at that.” The Doctor whistled, face turned up in naked astonishment. “There's something you don't see every day.”

Having been focused on the inner workings of the house, eyes trailing after servants with fondness in her chest for days gone by, Zoe followed the Doctor's gaze and felt her mouth slip open in surprise. On top of the house, emerging from a metal-structured glass dome, was a huge golden telescope that stretched out up into the sky.

“That's amazing,” she said, taking an eager step forwards. “Particularly in this century. What do you think the magnification is?”

He glanced down at her, thrilled that she appreciated it as well. “Depends on how many prisms were used.”

“I wouldn't mind getting my hands on her scopes,” Jack said, managing to turn a harmless sentence dirty. Rose, less enamoured with technology as the rest of them, wrinkled her nose at the innuendo, hands tucked into her armpits. “Much nicer than a winter garden. I see a strange amount of winter gardens in places like these. It's like either have a sun room or have a green house, don't have both.”

“I think I've got a winter garden somewhere,” the Doctor said. Zoe briefly leaned her cheek against his arm to warm her face. “Lost track of it a couple of centuries ago, but I was growing some very nice plums. Well, I say _plums_.”

Used to his nonsensical ramblings, she tuned him out and squelched the mud beneath her feet, a small grin of enjoyment slipping onto her face. It was worth the annoyance that would come later at having to clean them before entering the TARDIS, but, having grown up in London, squelching in mud was a pleasure discovered in France. Feeling it shift and burp beneath her feet, she remembered wet winter days of exploring the grounds of Versailles with a bemused and infatuated Reinette trailing after her, imploring her to _try_ and keep herself clean, like a mother hurrying after a mischievous child.

Lifting her knees and using the Doctor for balance, she threw herself into it, satisfaction filling her as the mud carved over the top of her shoes. A choked snort of laughter that made her look up; Jack was watching her, smiling. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “You're just adorable.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and shoved her hands into her pockets to get feeling back to her fingers. Feeling light-hearted and eager for whatever adventure the TARDIS had in mind for them, she leaned against the Doctor who brought an arm around her shoulders whilst Rose did the same with Jack. Zoe watched as the queen's soldiers flowed easily into formation around the carriage and the servants spilled from the house to line up in order to welcome the queen who alighted from her carriage in slow movements. The bustle of her dress making it difficult to move at speed, her slowness aided master of the house, Sir Robert MacLeish, as hurried out of his house, flustered. A mildly handsome man with dark, greying hair and a noble bearing, he was pale as though on the med from a long illness.

Dipping into a bow in front of his queen, he pressed his against his diaphragm to hide the tremors that ran through him. “Your majesty.”

“Sir Robert,” Victoria greeted, entirely unconcerned that she might be putting him out a significant amount by her unexpected arrival. _Aristocrats,_ Zoe thought fondly, fingers touching her wedding band. “My apologies for the emergency. How is Lady Isobel?”

“Indisposed, I'm afraid.” Sir Robert straightened up. His eyes darted from her face to those of his servants who stood stiff and silent on either side of the steps before snapping his attention back to her. His tongue twitched out against his bottom lip before disappearing. “She's gone to Edinburgh for the season, and she's taken the cook with her...the kitchens are barely stocked. I wouldn't blame your majesty if you wanted to ride on.”

“Oh, not at all,” she dismissed, enjoying the opportunity to stretch her legs after so long inside her carriage. “I've had quite enough carriage exercise. And this is charming, if rustic.” Zoe fought the smile that wanted to pull at her lips at the polite way to say _small_ and _unkempt_. “It's my first visit to this house, though my late husband spoke of it often – the Torchwood Estate.”

Torchwood.

It was as though a bomb went off inside of her as she stiffened and pulled away from the Doctor so suddenly that he stumbled. _A coincidence_ , she thought, dragging her eyes around the courtyard before settling on the words engraved into stone above the door, stomach dropping.

**Torchwood House**

“I'm sorry.” The interruption was sharp and rude, Jack's eyes jumping to her in warning, but she stepped forward, striding towards the queen and Sir Robert before the shifting of the royal guards reminded her that one did not approach the Queen of Great Britain like that. “What did you just say? Did you say Torchwood?”

Victoria's face took on the pinched, sour expression of the disapproving and made no move to answer what she viewed was an impertinent question. Irritation began to swell inside Zoe, and she was seconds away from demanding an answer when Sir Robert answered for the queen.

“Yes,” he said, and the feeling that had been building in her chest broke free and solidified into a heavy iron ball sank with slow dread into her stomach. “It's been this house's name since it's founding in the 16th century. Is it important?”

“I – maybe,” she said, staring at him and then Victoria. She suddenly remembered herself and pulled back with a small bow, tripping over herself when her toe caught on the back of her heel. “My apologies. I didn't mean to interrupt. It's – er – it's a touch of the wine like the Doctor said. Really should cut back.”

“Yes, you should,” Victoria said, disdainfully before looking over Zoe's shoulder. “Now, shall we go inside? And, please, Sir Robert, excuse the naked girl.”

Rose blushed and apologised, tugging on the bottom of her denim skirt to cover her thighs as best she could.

“She's a feral child,” the Doctor said, maintaining his Scottish accent though his eyes were on Zoe who was looking around with increasing agitation. He walked forward and placed a hand on her shoulder, thumb pressing into a pressure point on the back of her neck, calm radiating outwards. “I bought her for sixpence in old London Town. It's was her or the Elephant Man, so...”

He shrugged.

“Thinks he's funny, but I'm so not amused,” Rose said, looking to the queen. “What do you think, ma'am?”

“It hardly matters,” Victoria said to Rose's disappointment. “Shall we proceed?”

They watched her enter the house with Sir Robert, and the servants jumped into action to escort the queen's property into the house with Reynolds overseeing everything as soon as her dark form was out of sight. The Doctor stepped behind Zoe and brought his other hand to rest on her waist, a firm, steadying presence. The cool warmth of him seeped into her, but she didn't turn to look at him, too busy frowning at the house, desperately wanting to believe it was a coincidence. After Christmas, she hadn't given much thought to Torchwood, too busy and too happy to be concerned with something that was over with, but hearing the word again brought back her feelings of uncertainty and fear over the organisation that had built an alien weapon to destroy the Sycorax.

“It's more than that,” she murmured, thinking out loud. “They already had it. They were just assembling it.”

Perhaps it was a coincidence, the universe was large enough and strange enough for coincidences to happen, but the TARDIS generally brought them to places they needed to go when she went off course, and Zoe suspected that they were needed at the Torchwood Estate.

“Hey.” The Doctor's breath was warm against the chill of her skin, and she started, remembering that she wasn't alone. “You're talking to yourself, and you only do that when you're thinking something through. What's wrong?” She opened her mouth to lie and say nothing, but he beat her to it. “And don't say nothing, because it's obviously something. You recognised the name Torchwood, why's it important?”

Turning so that she was standing nearly on top of him, she tilted her face up. “Have you ever heard the name before?”

“Torchwood, can't say I have,” he said. “Why?”

“I've heard it before, at Christmas,” she said. “And I didn't like what I -”

“C'mon, you two,” Rose called from the front step. “The queen's waitin'.”

Jack glanced into the house. “Not so much waiting as leaving us in the dust.”

“Later,” she promised, meeting his eyes.

He nodded and tookher hand, attention briefly stolen by a small locked box that was lifted from the carriage. They made their way across the mud and joined Rose and Jack in entering the house.

“What's got you two looking so serious?” Jack asked before taking in the tense lines of Zoe's face and his expression fell. “Oh, no. What's is it?”

“Not here,” she said. “But keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“You mean like how the servants all look alike,” he said, drawing their attention to the liveried servants. The Doctor made a small sound in his throat when he saw that Jack made an excellent point: they were all tall, pale, and bald. “I'm not as familiar with Scotland as I am with England but I don't think they're meant to look like that.”

Rose discreetly examined the one closest to them. “Coincidence?”

“You know what the Doctor says,” he frowned. “Never ignore a coincidence.”

“Unless you're busy,” the Doctor added. “This is leaving a strange taste in my mouth, like when I eat pears. I don't like it.” Aware that they were losing track of Victoria and Sir Robert, he ushered them inside. “Did you notice our host?”

“Nervous as an Octarian lemur in a bath,” Jack said, and when Zoe and Rose looked at him oddly he quickly explained. “They really don't like taking baths.”

Rose looked amused. “Actually got that, thanks.”

“Something's clearly afoot,” Zoe said, quietly. “Just...” she sighed. “Everyone be on their guard. There are some things I need to tell you but we don't have time now. The TARDIS clearly brought us here for a reason, and I'm willing to bet the coffee machine that it's not a good one.”

The inside of the house was much darker than she liked in her interior decorating. She preferred open spaces with lots of natural light streaming it through the windows; she liked light-coloured furniture as well: soft cotton covers with bright cushions that helped to brighten a room. Her one complaint about the TARDIS was the lack of natural light within her magnificent walls but since they tended to stop off at a planet every other day, it didn't matter so much. Torchwood House, though, was all polished dark wood with rich tapestries and ornate rugs; the furniture heavily coloured and solidly designed. Use was made of the natural stonework, lovely but dark, only serving to add to an overall feeling of gloom and coldness that seeped into every room of the house despite fires burning constantly to chase away the winter chill.

“Well, despite Zoe injecting a sense of gloom into proceedings, this is fun,” the Doctor said. “Queen Victoria.”

“You know, we spend less time than I would have thought with royalty,” Jack said, shoulder brushing against Rose's in the narrow space of the corridor. “Based on your stories and all.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

They all spoke at once. “Cleopatra.”

“She's just a mate,” he protested before flapping a hand in Zoe's direction. “And she's mates with royalty as well.”

“It's true,” she nodded, making an effort to shake the cold feeling from her shoulders. “Louis XV and I are like this –” she crossed her fingers in front of them. “Although, I don't reckon good Queen Vic wants to be our mate. Talk about stiff upper lip.”

“Eh,” the Doctor dismissed with a shrug. “She never really recovered from losing Albert.”

A sentiment that both Zoe and the Doctor were able to appreciate as they were led through the creaking corridors and up a flight of narrow stairs and then down on through the hall. The house was more labyrinthian than it appeared from the outside, and Zoe thought it would be lovely for children to play in but there didn't seem to be any signs that children lived in the house at all. They reached their destination, which, she was pleased to discover, was the observatory; Queen Victoria and Sir Robert were already present finishing their conversation regarding their shared acquaintances.

The room itself was much nicer than the rest of the house as it was all natural stone with no wood panelling or floors, giving off a more relaxed feel. It reminded her of the Doctor's storage room on the TARDIS with all the same sorts of strange trinkets within: there were discarded sketches piled up beneath a half-finished lunascope and a golden solar system that lay on its side gathering dust, along with a faded chalk drawing on the wall of the phases of the moon. It was like entering a scientist's abandoned work room but the main feature of the room was the large golden telescope that was visible from outside.

“Oh, that's so cool,” she breathed, her eyes feasting on the telescope from the doorway, forgetting her worries. “It's like a work of art.”

“This is, I assume, the famous Endeavour?” Victoria asked, eyeing the telescope with a curiosity that looked honest.

Zoe knew that Albert had been the innovator of the two, pushing Britain further and deeper into the Industrial Age with his patronage of various charities and development projects; she hadn't considered that Victoria might also be interested in such things. Then again, she thought about her and the Doctor and how they each took an interest in each other's hobbies even if they didn't fully share in them.

“All my father's work,” Sir Robert explained. “Built by hand in his final years.”

“By hand?” She interrupted again. “Sorry, ma'am, Sir Robert, but – by hand? That's incredible.”

His mouth flickered into something of a smile at her enthusiasm, making him look more handsome and younger than before. She couldn't help but smile back.

“It became something of an obsession,” he said, relaxing into their company. “He spent his money on this rather than caring for the house or himself.”

“I wish I'd met him,” Doctor said. “I like the sound of him. That thing's beautiful.” He gestured at the telescope. “May I?”

“Help yourself,” he said, and all four of them moved forwards at once, excited like children let loose in a toy shop with their parents' money burning a whole in their pockets.

“What did he model it on?” Jack asked, a gleam in his eye that he normally only got in junk yards or when he saw a particularly good-looking ship that he wanted to sink his hands into.

“I know nothing about it,” Sir Robert confessed with the tiniest of shrugs. “To be honest, most of us thought him a little, shall we say, _eccentric_. I wish now I'd spent more time with him and listened to his stories.”

“Hindsight's a bitter thing,” Zoe said, hand smoothing down the shaft of the creation with awe. “But you're here now.”

Sir Robert inclined his head gratefully to her.

“It's a bit rubbish,” the Doctor said, abruptly, and her head snapped around, mouth falling open at his rudeness. “How many prisms has it got? Way too many. The magnification's gone right over –”

“Doctor,” she snapped.

He looked up, startled. She shook her head sternly at him, eyes flashing with warning, and he looked around, wide eyed, realising his faux pas.

“Ah, sorry, that was rude,” he apologised, rubbing the back of his neck. “But it's pretty. It's very pretty.”

“Please excuse my friend,” Zoe apologised, properly. “He's ferociously intelligent but he often forgets that not everyone's at the same level.” The Doctor looked down at his feet, chastened. “Your father's work is incredible. Not only did he create something functional but the aesthetics are amazing. You should be proud, Sir Robert; this is brilliant.”

“Thank you, Miss...?”

“Tyler, Zoe Tyler,” she said, debating for a moment before deciding to lean into their cover story. “And it's professor, actually.”

Jack snorted softly from behind the telescope.

“Quite right, Professor Tyler,” Victoria said. “And the imagination of it should also be applauded.”  
  


“Mmm, thought you might disapprove, your majesty,” Rose said, rolling on the balls of her feet, her interest in the telescope lost. “Stargazin'. Isn't that a bit fanciful? You could easily not be amused, or somethin', no?”

“This device surveys the infinite work of God,” the queen said, clearly not impressed with Rose even as the Doctor rubbed his eye to hide his amusement. “What could be finer? Sir Robert's father was an example to us all – a polymath steeped in astronomy and sciences, yet equally well versed in folklore and fairy tales.”

“Stars and magic,” the Doctor said, meeting Zoe's eyes. How often had she claimed something was magic to prolong the excitement and delight of an experience? “I like him more and more.”

“My late husband enjoyed his company,” Victoria said, turning to speak directly to Jack who blinked in surprise at being under her regard. “Prince Albert himself was acquainted with many rural superstitions, coming as he did from Saxe-Coburg.” Jack didn't know what to say as he wasn't sure what Saxe-Coburg was, so he just nodded; fortunately, Victoria looked back to Sir Robert. “When Albert was told about your local wolf, Sir Robert, he was transported.”

“A wolf?” Jack asked.

“It's just a story,” Sir Robert said with a shake of his head, his nerves making a reappearance in the shake of his hand.

“I love stories,” Zoe told him. “I'd love to hear it.”

Sir Robert hesitated, eyes darting briefly to the side of the room before he began. “It's said that –”

“Excuse me, sir.” A tall, bald servant stepped out of the shadows, interrupting. Zoe wasn't quick enough to hide her surprise, not as well trained as Victoria whose eyes gave a brief twitch: servants _didn't_ interrupt those that they served, or at least they hadn't in Versailles. “Perhaps her majesty's party could repair to their rooms? It's almost dark.”

“Of course.” He swallowed and nodded, looking paler than he had before. “Yes, of course.”

“And then supper,” Victoria said. “And could we find some clothes for the naked child? I'm tired of looking upon her nakedness. Sir Robert, your wife must have left some clothes: see to it.” She cast her eyes over all of them. “We shall dine at seven and talk some more of this wolf. After all, there is a full moon tonight.”

The queen left the room, and Sir Robert nodded to them before following his queen's exit. A servant waited by the door to show Rose to the Lady Isobel's room but Zoe caught Rose's hand before she was able to leave with him. She stared the servant down, raising an eyebrow imperiously, and he stepped out of the room to give them some privacy. She didn't doubt for a second that he would press his ear up against the door to listen in, so she searched through the Doctor's pockets, then her own, and finally Jack's before she found two small square devices that she tossed into the air, creating a sound bubble around them.

“Bit much, isn't it?” Rose asked, reaching out to touch the bubble but Zoe slapped her hand down. “Ow!”

She ignored her and turned to glare at the Doctor instead.

“It's a bit rubbish, isn't it?” She repeated back to him with a poor imitation of his Scottish accent. “What on earth possessed you to say that?”

“I know, I know,” he said, embarrassed. “It won't happen again.”

“It better not,” she warned him. “Because I don't fancy being locked away just because you've insulted a queen.”

“I would never –!”

Her look of disbelief stopped the words in his throat before he lied to her.

“Just try and behave yourself, would you?” Zoe said, voice sharper than usual. “I've already told you that something is wrong with this place. The last thing we need is you acting like _you_.”

The Doctor put his hands into his pockets, hurt by her words. Rose and Jack exchanged a look behind her back.

“What is it then?” He asked, slightly sullen. “Something's got your back up good and proper. You going to tell us, or are you just going to snap at us?”

Her nostrils flared with annoyance, and she thought snapping at them might make her feel better before the urge drained from her. It wasn't their fault she was on edge.

“It's this house,” she said, frustrated. “The name of it. I've heard it before but a hundred years from now. There's an organisation called Torchwood in the 21st century. I don't like what they do, and I don't like the fact that we're here in a house with the exact same name with Queen Victoria.” Her expression turned pained. “Are you sure you've never heard the name Torchwood before?”

The Doctor nodded, but Jack cleared his throat lightly to get their attention, his hand rising into the air.

“I have.”

She stared at him. “You what?”

“I've heard of Torchwood, of course I have,” he said. “It's the premier research institute in my time. It funds a lot of scientific projects into the more abstract areas of science. It also funds archaeological projects, medical research, social welfare projects. It's sort of an umbrella organisation for thousands of smaller organisations. The Time Agency actually received its initial start-up funding from the Institute back when governments were still fighting over whether or not it was a good idea.”

The Doctor rubbed his jaw. “Now that you mention it, the name Torchwood does sound familiar. I must have heard it when I was bumping around your time.” He smiled at Zoe. “There we go. It's a research institute. Nothing nefarious about that. Quite positive I'd say. And Queen Vic is known for being a bit ahead of her time with certain things – Albert's influence, I'm sure – so maybe she founded it in his honour.”

Zoe shook her head. “No. What Jack's describing isn't the Torchwood I know. Well, I say _I know_. Harriet was very, very circumspect about the whole thing. It's what got me suspicious of it in the first place, or more suspicious, really.”

“Why don't you start from the beginnin'?” Rose suggested. “You're in the middle of it an' makin' no sense. Tell us what you know.”

The Doctor pointed at her. “She's got a point. Gold star, Rose Tyler.”

She beamed.

“All right,” Zoe sighed, rolling shoulders that were tight with tension. “It's Christmas Day, the Sycorax are on their way, the Doctor and I are at UNIT headquarters.” They nodded, taking themselves to the scene she drew. “He was outside talking to Alistair, so I came in and took a seat with a cup of coffee. I wanted to tuck myself out of the way because I was tired and was enjoying not having to be in charge. Above my head on the walkway, Harriet was talking to that assistant of hers, Alex.”

“Nice guy,” Jack said. “Lovely ass.”

The Doctor pulled a face whilst Rose rolled her eyes.

“They were talking about preparing a weapon to take down the Sycorax,” Zoe said, and the Doctor focused intently on her, body still. “A weapon that could be put together in a couple of hours that Harriet believed would be enough to take down the ship.”

Jack frowned. “What kind of weapon?”

“I don't know,” she said. “She didn't tell me. She didn't even tell me about Torchwood. I only know about it because I overheard them. I asked but –” her laugh was bitter and brittle. “She said it was classified.”

“Harriet Jones told _you_ that something was classified?” The Doctor asked, hands deep in his pockets. “That doesn't bode well.”

“The only thing she really told me was that Torchwood was founded to protect Britain and its interests,” she said. “And whilst UNIT operates on an international scale, Torchwood is solely a national organisation.”

Rose stared at her. “That...feels wrong., but I don't know why.”

“Yeah,” Zoe agreed. “We never put the conversation to bed, not really. I was – I suppose I was disappointed in her. We had an argument of sorts, but she didn't use the weapon in the end.” She rested her hand on the Doctor's arm. “After you regenerated, she said that it wouldn't be right to disrespect his sacrifice by using it. It was a close call though, too close.”

“She was going to use a weapon?” He asked, frown shadowing his eyes. “Our Harriet? We're talking about the woman we were trapped in Downing Street with? Slitheen? End of the world? Worried about her mother?”

“Do we know any other Harriets?” She held up a hand to forestall a list of names sure to fall from his mouth. “Yes, our Harriet. Harriet Jones. Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We're talking about the same Harriet.”

“And she wanted to use a weapon?” He repeated, struggling with that fact. “What would it have done?”

“Blown up the Sycorax ship, I assume,” Zoe said. “Like I said, she was light on the details.”

“And the reason you didn't tell me this earlier?”

“Regeneration, Christmas, exams, graduation, forgot about it.” She listed off on her fingers. “Honestly, I just shoved it to one side. She came around to our way of thinking by the end, and I was just so glad everything was over that I didn't see the point in ruining our time together by talking about weapons and secret organisations. Although, I did mean to ask Alistair about it when we went for lunch but we all got talking and I had a bit too much wine, so I forgot about it again.”

“Is this the argument you told me about?” He asked. “After New Earth? You said that you and Harriet had argued about what to do if I wasn't there to help. Is this what you were talking about?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” He didn't look pleased. “So, the TARDIS has brought us to what appears to be the founding of the Torchwood Institute, which could be a good thing if we follow Jack's experiences, or it could be bad if we go with Zoe's.”

“Could be both,” Rose suggested. “There's like five thousand years between our times. Could be bad now but good later?”

“Optimism,” the Doctor said. “I like it.”

“So what do we do?” Zoe asked. “If whatever happens here is going to found Torchwood, are we part of events? Do we need to leave?”

He shook his head slowly, reaching out with his Time Senses to feel the timelines.

“No,” he decided. “If the TARDIS bought us here then we're supposed to be here. We need to go about our business as though it's a normal day. That means no worrying about interfering with the future or past. It just means doing what we normally do. In this case, investigating; keeping our eyes open and our ears to the ground. Rose, you should go put on some clothes, you tart.” Rose barked a laugh, surprised. “Jack, go with her. One thing we shouldn't do is split up.”

“Copy that,” he said with a small salute. He offered his arm to Rose. “Shall we, my lady?”

“Why thank you, captain.”

“Stay safe,” the Doctor urged, bending to pick up the sound compressors, tossing them back to Jack. He waited until they were gone before he turned to Zoe. “You really need to start telling me these things when they happen.”

Her eyebrows raised at his tone. “I'm telling you now.”

“Just as we're about to step into a situation that, knowing us, is going to turn dangerous,” he said. “It's no good to me now.”

“It would have been no good to you then, either,” she replied, tightly. “You were bouncing all over the place from your regeneration. It'd have gone in one ear and out the other.”

Angry colour climbed into his cheeks, and exasperated annoyance flickered to life within him. She was the most frustrating person at times, but as he looked upon her face, he was unable to stay angry at her for long. “I wish you would have told me. I don't like being blindsided with things like this.”

“Doctor –”

“Zoe, please.” He cut her off impatiently. “I can't keep you safe if I don't have all the information.”

“Keep me safe?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed before quickly lowering his voice. “The last time you didn't tell me something, you ended up stuck in France for six years. I suppose I should be grateful you told me _now_ before – oh, I don't know – you end up leading a tribe of bloody Scots.”

“They're not tribes, they're clans,” she shot back at him. “And you know well and good that clan culture was all but wiped out at the Battle of Culloden a hundred years ago!”

“Don't correct my history!”

“I will when it's wrong!”

“Dammit, Zoe!” He strode away from her to cool his temper, hearing her exhale behind him. When he turned to look at her, she was leaning against the telescope rubbing at her eyes, looking _tired_. “I need to keep you safe. If I can't keep you safe, what is the point of me?”

She met his eyes. “I've never asked that of you.”

“You shouldn't have to ask.” Closing the distance between them, he snatched up her hands, pressing them against his chest over his hearts. “Zoe, you're the most important thing in my life. You're my – you're _you_. You know how I feel about you. How can I not want to do everything I can to keep you from getting hurt? Is it any less than you'd do for me?”

Her expression softened. “No.”

His anger and irritation drained from him. “I love you, and it's obvious that whatever Torchwood is, it frightens you.”

“Not frightens,” she corrected. “It...I don't know what it is, but Harriet is working with it to build weapons. And if a woman like Harriet Jones has bent her principles to allow them to do _that_ then I worry about what else the organisation is capable of. How deep into the British government does it go? How have you never heard of it? You spent most of the 70s in Britain but didn't hear a thing about it. I find it hard to believe that _two_ alien-focused organisations don't bump up against each other all the time, so why don't you know?” She let her fear tip free. “Doctor, why are they hiding from you?”

All excellent questions that he intended to think upon at leisure when they returned to the TARDIS, but for now he took one of his hands and stroked his thumb over the soft skin beneath her ear, trying his best to soothe the worries that clung to her.

“We'll find out. We always do,” he said with a gentle tenderness that had her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. “Have I ever told you that you worry too much?”

“Maybe once or twice,” she admitted. “Just...promise me you'll be careful today. No antagonising the queen or Sir Robert or the weird bald servants.”

“Cross my hearts,” he promised before tugging her to him. “Come here.” He folded her into his arms, holding her against his chest. Her arms wrapped around him in turn, and he kissed the top of her head. “Torchwood. You know, I swear I've heard that name before but I can't quite remember where.”

“51st century?”

“Maybe, like I said, I've spent enough time in Jack's time that maybe I picked it up there.” Although, he wasn't sure, he was reluctant to make Zoe worry any more than she already was. “It'll come to me.”

She rubbed her forehead against his chest before pulling out of his embrace. “Whatever Torchwood is and whatever danger it poses, there is definitely something happening in this house. What do you think that story of a wolf is about?”

“No idea,” he said, pleased that she was returning to normal. “But it sounded like folklore and science coming together like the good queen said. I love it when the two coincide.”

Her mouth twitched. “You would.”

“As though you don't.”

She didn't deign to respond to that. “Did you see that servant though, how he interrupted Sir Robert?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Servants don't do that,” she explained. “They're meant to be incognito and part of the furniture. The very idea that one of them would interrupt their employer, let alone in front of Queen Victoria is unthinkable.”

Amusement crinkled his eyes. “Sometimes I forget you lived with royalty.”

“It does rub off on a person,” she said. “But another bet I'm willing to take is that that servant isn't a servant. Have you noticed the lack of women around here?”

“Not uncommon when the lady of the house is away, surely?”

“Including leaving no cook behind?” She raised her eyebrows, questioning. “As I've said, something's not right here. This is not how a house is supposed to be run in the absence of its mistress, particularly when the master of the house is still in residence.”

“As much as I would love to debate the differences between the 18th century French court and 19th century Scotland, you do make an excellent point,” the Doctor said. “I say we should all be on our most charming and best behaviour tonight. Between the four of us, one of us should be able to get the story out of Sir Robert.”

“As long as you don't insult his father's work again,” she said.

“A slip of the tongue!”

“Of course.” Her fingers curled into his jacket, stopping him from moving away from her. “One sec.” His expression melted into delight when she rose up and kissed him, his arms going around her waist as her hands framed his face. “I love you.”

His grin was wide and thrilled. “Yeah, you do.”

* * *

As a clock chimed seven, they were led into the dining room. Zoe was well aware that she and the Doctor were severely underdressed for dinner with the queen, but she was somewhat immune to dinner with royalty after years of having meals with Louis and Marie. Noticing that Rose and Jack weren't there, a spark of concern burning through her, she raised her eyebrows at the Doctor who nodded his head subtly and inquired of their whereabouts from the head servant.

“Your companions beg an apology, Doctor,” Angelo said with a small bow and arolling accent. “The young lady's clothing has somewhat delayed her.”

“Oh, that's all right,” he said, his Scottish accent making a welcomed return. Zoe tapped her ring against her wine glass until she caught the Doctor's eye and stilled the nervous tic, picking it up to drink instead. “Save her a wee bit of ham.”

“The feral child could probably eat it raw,” Victoria said.

Zoe choked on her wine,

“Very wise, ma'am,” Reynolds said immediately with a brisk laugh. “Very witty.”

“Slightly witty, perhaps,” the queen conceded. “I know you rarely get the chance to dine with me, captain, but don't get too excited. I shall contain my wit in case I do you further injury.”

Reynolds turned pink at the public chastisement and looked down at his plate, mortified. “Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am.”

“Besides, we're all waiting on Sir Robert,” the Doctor said, cheerfully, as their simple dinner of ham and potatoes was served. “Come, sir, you promised us a tale of nightmares.”

“Indeed,” Victoria agreed, delicately cutting into her meat. “Since my husband's death, I find myself with more of a taste for supernatural fiction.”

His eyes tracked across her face. “You must miss him.”

“Very much,” she said, sounding more human than she had so far. Her knife and fork hovered over her plate before a soft sigh fell from her mouth. “Oh, completely. And that's the charm of a ghost story, isn't it? Not the scares and chills, that's just for the children, but the hope of some contact with the great beyond. We all want some message from that place. It's the Creator's greatest mystery that we're allowed no such consolation. The dead stay silent, and we must wait.”

Zoe thought of Reinette and the grief that came with knowing she would never be able to speak to her again, or even hear her breath.

“I think the silence is the worst,” she said, candlelight dancing in her eyes. “You don't expect it, it's not something you think about until it happens, but there's an echoing silence in the space where they used to be. Sometimes I think I might go mad with how loud that silence is.” Her eyes flicked to the Doctor. “No matter how happy I am now.”

He glanced down at his plate, the shadows hiding his small smile.

“I agree,” Victoria said. “Have you been widowed long, my dear?”

“Six years,” she answered, cutting into her potatoes to give her hands something to do. “Though it oftens feels like yesterday.”

Victoria inclined her head at her in sympathy before she turned to Sir Robert.

“Come, begin your tale, Sir Robert,” she instructed, lifting the heavy curtain of grief that had fallen over them. “There's a chill in the air. The wind is howling through the eaves. Tell us of monsters.”

Aware that it would be impossible to refuse the queen, Sir Robert began his tale. His rich, deep voice, which lilted with his beautiful Scottish accent, filled the room; Zoe was immediately entranced.

“The story goes back three hundred years,” he explained. “It's said that every full moon a howling rings through the valley, and the next morning livestock is found ripped apart and devoured.”

“Tales like this just disguise the work of thieves,” Captain Reynolds dismissed, seemingly recovered from Victoria's sharp tongue. “Steal a sheep and blame a wolf, simple as that.”

“But sometimes a child goes missing,” their host countered. It was clear that despite passing it off as a story, he believed the truth of it. “Once in a generation, a boy will vanish from his homestead.”

“Are there any descriptions of this creature?” Zoe asked, loathe as she was to interrupt a good story.

“Oh, yes,” Sir Robert said with a nod. “Drawings and woodcarvings. And it's not merely a wolf, it's more than that. This is a man who becomes an animal.”

The Doctor leaned forwards, eyes shining with excitement. “A werewolf?”

Looking over at him, Zoe's breath caught in her throat. Silhouetted by the silver light of the full moon, he cut a handsome figure, and her worlds shifted, laying on top of each other, disorienting her for a moment: she was seventeen and worried about her A-levels; she was twenty-four and in love; she twenty-nine and graduating university. Her life swirled around her, the anchor of which sat opposite her bathed in silver light, enraptured by a tale of werewolves. The love for him that resided within her throbbed powerfully as she looked at his face that, after so many years, still found joy and excitement in a simple story about wolves and men.

_I love you,_ she thought at him, wishing he could hear her.

“My father didn't treat it as a story,” Sir Robert explained, drawing her back to the conversation at hand. “He said it was fact. He even claimed to have communed with the beast, to have learned its purpose. I should have listened. His work was hindered. He made enemies. There's a monastery in the Glen of Saint Catherine...the Brethren opposed my father's investigations.”

Against the sideboard, looking out at the moon, Angelo began to softly chant, _lupus deus est_ , _lupus dues est,_ but it was so soft that no one heard him, caught as they were by the story being woven through the candlelight around them.

“Perhaps they thought his work ungodly,” Victoria suggested.

“That's what I thought, but now I wonder,” he said, looking at the polished table underneath his pale hands that were speckled with dark hair. “What if they had a different reason for wanting the story kept quiet? What if they turned from God and worshipped the wolf instead?”

“And what if they were with us right now?”

Zoe tore her eyes from Sir Robert and looked to the the Doctor who had spoken. She followed his eyes to Angelo and fear shot through her at the sight of his mouth moving, the sound of his voice growing louder and louder until he drowned the sound of everything else in the room out. She pushed away from the table, chair scraping against the floor, her cutlery clattering against the china plate as she got to her feet.

“Where's Rose?” She demanded. “Where's Jack?”

“What is the meaning of this?” Victoria demanded, rising. “What's happening?”

Pulling his weapon free, Reynolds jumped in front of the queen and used his broad body to shield hers. “Explain yourself, Sir Robert!”

He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles white, and the lines on his face deepened with his regret. “I'm sorry, your majesty, but they've got my wife.”

“Where?” Zoe slapped her hand down onto the table, forcing his attention onto her, glass. “Tell me where!”

He hesitated, eyes flickering to the still-chanting Angelo. “The basement.”

Zoe barely heard the Doctor yell after her to be careful as she sprinted from the room. She ran through the hallways that were bathed in the light of the full moon, coat flapping behind her and muddied boots echoing thunderously each time they hit the floor that whined under the abuse. Fortunately – or unfortunately depending on where one was in the house – she was able to follow the sounds of screams to locate the basement with ease, taking only one wrong turn into a water closet that left her swearing before finding her way.

Bracing herself, she slammed into the heavy wooden door shoulder first and burst inside in an explosion of noise and broken locks. Any dignity such an entrance might have afforded her was immediately lost when she fell down the steps that closed the gap between door and floor, hitting the ground shoulder first, temple knocking against the straw-covered concrete. Lights danced in front of her eyes when she sat up and came face to face with a young man in a large iron cage.

The shock of her arrival froze the scene as she and the man stared at each other.

Metal chains rattled, and Rose called out, voice warbling with adrenaline. “He's a werewolf!”

Zoe's breath hitched in her throat, eyes wide.

Jack swore. “Zoe, _phone_!”

Fumbling with her pockets, she threw it to him.

She couldn't take her eyes off the man in the cage. He wasn't human; or, at least, he wasn't entirely human. Like the servants in the house above, he was pale and bore a shaved head but he was sat crosslegged in robes with rotten, yellowed teeth. It was his eyes that made her pause, the realisation that she was facing something feral and dangerous made her skin prick. They were unnatural and sent fear shooting down her spine when they fixed on her, jaundiced and knowing. A sharp grin cut across his face, saliva crusting the edges of his mouth.

“You're like me.”

His voice felt like sandpaper over a chalk board, setting her teeth on edge. She shifted until she was on her feet, wobbly from her fall, and knelt in front of his cage, safe in the knowledge that Rose and Jack would free the hostages. She leaned in, nose wrinkling at the potent stench of stale sweat and old urine that rolled off him, but she couldn't bring herself to move away even as her heart thudded heavily in her chest.

“What?”

“Mongrel,” he rasped.

“It's called being biracial, mate,” Zoe said, the barb of century-specific racism missing her by a wide mile. “Know you don't see much of it up here, but try not to let it startle you.”

Saliva speckled her face with his next spat insult. “Cross-breed.”

His body convulsed, shoulders heaving over on himself, tendons in his neck standing out. He bared his teeth at her, filthy fingers grasping at the bars to spit one last insult at her.

“Hybrid.”

The skin on his body started to stretch and pulse, and Zoe fell back from the cage, scooting back on her hands and feet, keeping her eyes fixed on the werewolf. Riveted, she watched as his flesh tore open and his blood spilled out of him. The heat of it rolled outwards and swept over her like a warm summer breeze as it spread out across the floor to pool around the toes of her boots. The dark red of his muscles looked alive and in pain as they writhed around his bones before firecrackers were set off, startling her with their noise. It took a moment to realise that it wasn't actually firecrackers going off but rather white bone breaking into sharp, jagged fragments that sliced through his muscles and flesh before they reformed themselves; the sharp tang of blood was heavy in the air, and thick, rough hair pushed out of the skin, covering him from head to toe. Eventually, his size became too much and the cage broke opened around him.

“Oh my god,” Zoe breathed, as the sight of the heaving, ferocious creature panting above her sent shockwaves through her. “You're _actually_ a werewolf.”

“Come on,” Rose screamed at her from the doorway, the rest of the prisoners escaping to freedom down the hall. “Zoe!”

Jack vaulted back down the wooden steps and bent to grab her by the elbow, pulling her roughly to her feet and dragging her away. She stumbled after him, boots slipping against the blood-slicked floor, distracted by the creature, but he pushed her up the stairs and into the hall. Coming back to herself, she grasped hold of the door and slammed it shut, holding it in place as Jack shoved a small chest of drawers in front of it, sending the vase of flowers balanced on top shattering into pieces on the ground. It wouldn't do much except buy them a few extra seconds but they might need those seconds. With that done, she and Jack turned and sprinted up the hall towards Rose who turned a corner and slammed straight into the Doctor.

He caught her before she bounced off him.

“Where the hell have you been?” She demanded.

“What's –?” He began to ask but Jack grabbed him and Rose, physically turning them around and giving them a push.

“Werewolf,” he exclaimed. “Run!”

“Seriously?” They all flinched at the sound of a howl from behind them, and the Doctor nodded. “Right. Run, run, run, _run_!”


	14. Chapter 14

As the last one through the door into the stonewalled armoury, Zoe spun on her heels and slammed it shut with enough force that it rattled its hinges, dust clouding the air and making her sneeze. She drew the heavy wooden arm across the width of it before turning to face the room. Activity thrummed as men and women alike armed themselves with the rifles and pistols that lined the walls, some of them ripping apart rusted table and chair legs in order to face the beast armed. Her eyes swept the crowd and saw that Jack was checking the security of the room, hands running over the walls, peering through the window onto the outside. He stepped past Sir Robert who had his wife in his arms, back was tight with tension as he clung to her, face pressed deep into her dishevelled blonde hair; her arms wrapped tightly around him in return, slender knuckles white from their grip on the back of his jacket.

The queen was missing.

She checked the crowd again but was sure of it.

Victoria was nowhere to be found.

There was only a second to register concern about Victoria dying years before she was meant to when the Doctor swept her into his relieved embrace, her feet leaving the ground from the strength of it. Face mashed up into the crook of his shoulder, she hugged him back, heart thundering in her chest from the adrenaline of the last handful of minutes. It was only when she was in his arms that she realised she was shaking all over, a fine tremor running through every inch of her body; she shifted, turning deeper into his arms until relaxation calmed the adrenaline and settled her nerves.

“What happened?” The Doctor asked, pulling back as he kept hold of her. “Are you okay?”

His hands moved up to her face, cupping her cheeks as his thumbs wiped the blood splatter away. Removing one hand from her, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wet it with the flat of his tongue, rubbing her face clean with it. She twisted away, cleaning her face with the edge of her sleeve instead.

“I'm fine,” she said, chest heaving as she caught her breath. “I've never seen _anything_ like that before. His entire body just contorted and changed. It was absolutely nothing like regeneration. This was... _God,_ it was so violent.”

He dropped his hand from her face when Jack came to join them, Rose's hand tucked in his. “What exactly happened?”

“It was...” Jack found himself uncharacteristically lost for words. “His body ripped apart and then remade itself from the ruins. Zoe's right, it was nothing like regeneration. This was – this was earthier. More – I don't know – more –”

“Magical,” Rose said. “But not Harry Potter magic. This was like old magic you read about in fantasy books where everythin' has a price. As soon as the moonlight touched him, he started to change.”

The Doctor lifted his arm and tucked the nearest person – _Rose_ – under it. “What, the moonlight touched this creature and then it began a transformation?”

“Not immediately,” Jack said. “It was waiting for the moon to be in the right spot in the sky. It's why it was in the cage in that particular spot.”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “It could be any form of light-modulated species triggered by specific wavelengths; I mean, the myth of the werewolf has to come from somewhere. Maybe there's an entire species living on this planet masquerading as humans but you lot have just turned them into fairy tales. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.”

“What?” Zoe asked, surprised. “Really?”

“Fairies, vampires, mermaids,” he rattled off. “Although, the myth of mermaids actually come from the Sea Devils; they weren't exactly masquerading as humans though, more another species that developed on this planet and didn't like sharing with you apes.” He looked to Rose and Jack. “Did it say what it wanted?”

Rose's fingers played with the button on his jacket, sliding it in and out of its buttonhole. “The queen, the Crown, the throne – you name it, it wants it.”

“Got to love a creature that aims high,” Zoe said with a sigh. “They never just want a McDonalds, do they?”

“Having eaten a McDonalds, I can safely say _no one_ wants one,” Jack said before a loud crash outside the armoury drew their attention.

Everyone froze, the room plunged into a terrified silence as they listened.

Another crash had the female servants screaming before Sir Robert shushed them harshly, arm extended as he drew his wife closer to him. It wasn't directly outside the room but the logical assumption was that the werewolf was prowling the hallways looking for them. Jack held up a steady hand to stop anyone making a sound as he moved on silent feet to the door, carefully lifting the wooden bar. Two servants hurried forward to take it from him, leaning it with the softest sounds against the wall, and Jack drew the door open just far enough to slip his body out into the hallway.

There was sharp, winter's chill in the air and his breath formed a cloud of white mist when he exhaled. Condensation clung to the window panes, and the curtains shivered in the breeze that rolled through from the open windows and doors. Silvery moonlight pooled on the floor of the hallway, the faded rug looking new and expensive under the flattering light, and Jack stepped into it. He watched and waited, shadows flickering at the end of the hall of a huge, hunched creature that was sniffing the air and pushing aside cloth hangings and sturdy oak furniture. There wasn't the methodicalness that he expected from it; instead of thinking and analysing its prey, it was sniffing the air and scratching at the ground as though relying on instinct.

_Has anything of the man survived?_ Jack thought, edging closer to catch sight of its reflection.

The werewolf paused and lifted its large, hairy snout up into the air. He watched as the nostrils expanded with a deep sniff before it whipped around. Their eyes met in the window, reflections distorted, but there was a deep, primal rage and hunger reflected back that made him step back even as he examined the creature in fascination. Stood on its hind legs, it was too big for the hallway and the top half of its body was slumped over as its chest rose rapidly with heaving pants, skin stretched over a large ribcage. Hot, dripping saliva steamed in the cold air, sliding down the sharp, yellowed teeth that jutted out of its raw mouth, rancid breath tainting the air.

It stepped forward.

The weight of its single step made the floorboard creak. A growl fell from its mouth and one of its forelegs lashed out at Jack's reflection, the window shattering in its pane, howl wrenching through the air.

Jack threw himself back into the armoury and thrust the wooden bar across the door again, stumbling back when the werewolf threw itself at the door that groaned and splintered under the assault. He fell back into Zoe, who caught him and kept him upright, before he grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him, dragging her in a way he had never done before. He positioned them both so that they were behind the line of armed servants who fell into a ragged formation.

The Doctor looked over to Jack. “What did you see?”

“Animal instinct,” he said, shaking his head. “I don't think the man's in there, not any more. It's following predator behaviour.”

“Is that good or bad?” Rose asked, worriedly.

“Don't know yet.”

The creature threw itself at the door again. There was no other way in or out of the room, and the door eventually buckled, cracking apart the hinges and scattering splinters and chunks of wood across the ground. It pounded into the room on all fours, mouth stretched over its teeth in a horrible grin, rearing back to release a thunderous howl that shook their bones. Faced with the nightmarish vision, an old, silver-haired servant cried out the order to fire, sending Zoe recoiling back, hands slapping over her ears as a volley of loud, continuous gunfire filled the room with smoke and the sharp scent of burning gunpowder.

The deafening din felt as though it lasted an age, ending suddenly with a ringing silence, Through the haze of the hot burning smoke that drifted around them, they saw that the werewolf was no longer there. Eyes scanned the ground beneath the fog, but there was no body – injured or otherwise – to show that the assault had been successful. Smeared against the doorframe, streaks of blood stood out, bright and red, against the dark wood as small puddles of blood glistened on the floor like jewels; there wasn't enough blood to indicate that serious damage had been done and everyone moved cautiously.

The Doctor glanced over his friends, reassuring himself that they were okay, before he moved forward. “All right, we need to retreat upstairs _now_ _._ Come with me, quickly _._ ”

The head steward pushed his sweat-damp hair from his brow and cast disdainful eyes over the Doctor. “I'll not retreat. The battle's done. There's no creature on God's Earth that could survive such an assault.”

“That creature isn't from God's Earth,” Jack said. “The normal rules don't apply here.”

“Please listen to the Doctor,” Rose pleaded. “Come upstairs.”

“And I'm telling you, all of you, that I will sleep well tonight with that thing's hide upon my wall,” he snapped, tugging his jacket down and turning to leave the room.

The Doctor reached out to grab him. “Don't be a fool!”

“Unhand me, sir!”

He strode out from beneath the Doctor's fingertips and stood in the doorway, looking out into the hall. The moonlight framed him, capturing him in a single moment in time like a photograph, and Zoe's heart tattooed a bruise on the inside of her chest. Her fingers curled tighter around Jack's as he turned back, an air of satisfaction wrapped around him like a cloak.

“It must have crawled away to die,” he said.

Long, sharp claws sank into the steward's torso and squeezed the victory from his face. His smile crumbled, whiteness stealing the colour from his face as blood drained out of his chest around the claws, blood and saliva bubbling in the corners of his gasping mouth. He coughed, _once._ A river of blood spilled over his neck and chest, eyes rolling, before his feet left the ground, body curving as he was pulled up into the air. The weight of his body on the claws made flesh and muscle tear, viscera spilling out of him, and a scream trailed off into a pained, whimpering gurgles. Blood sprayed outwards and fell upon the floor like rain before he disappeared from sight into the wet, snarling sounds of flesh and muscle being ripped open and feasted upon.

Zoe looked up into the ceiling.

Dizziness crashed over her, vision blurring, at the sight of the messy and greedy feast taking place. Shadowed in the darkness, the werewolf crouched over its meal, muzzle stained red, pieces of flesh and sinew hanging from its teeth, as it glistened in the faint moonlight.

“There's nothing we can do,” the Doctor said, regretfully. He took hold of Rose's hand and stretched back for Jack, wishing he had just one extra hand for Zoe. “Everyone, move!”

Distracted from its meal by the sound of fresher meat escaping, the werewolf set aside its kill and followed its bloodlust and urge to hunt by dropping to the floor and sweeping blood-stained claws into those that were unlucky enough to cross its path. The Doctor shoved Rose ahead of him and ducked under the kicking legs of a female servant, blood trailing down her calf and off the tip of her boot, glancing back to make sure that Jack and Zoe were safe. Both of them emerged from the room, skin flecked with blood again, but there was nothing for it except to run. Everyone scattered, too terrified to think straight, but Sir Robert kept his wits about him, sprinting through the house in search of the queen.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

Desperation made him slam through doors, voice cracking as he searched for the queen, and the Doctor wished he would shut up about it. The creature was behind them, tearing into those that had tried to hide close to the armoury rather than following them upstairs, and it wouldn't be long before it caught up to them. They rushed through the dining room where their meal remained, half-eaten and as they had left it barely half an hour earlier, candles still slowly dripping wax as their flames flickered in the disturbance.

“Your Majesty!” Sir Robert yelled. He spun at the base of a flight of stairs and gripped his hair, manic. “Where is she? If she's been killed because of my folly, then –”

“Sir Robert?”

Sir Robert turned like a puppet whose master had plucked his strings and relief slammed into him as Queen Victoria appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked none the worse for wear, though her features were pale and her hair was beginning to escape her tight bun; she gathered her skirts in her hands and forwent modesty in her rapid descent. Sir Robert didn't appear to know what to do with himself so he genuflected in her general vicinity.

“Good, you're alive,” Zoe said, hand pressed her hand against a side where a stitch was forming. If she had known there would be running that evening, she wouldn't have eaten half of her dinner. “I was worried for a second.”

Victoria looked around, startled by the screams that echoed around the house. “What on earth is happening?”

“Werewolf,” she said, fingers massaging the sharp pain in her side, Jack slipping away to check the room they were in whilst Rose caught her breath to one side. “And I know that sounds impossible but I saw it with my own eyes. It was amazing but also extremely terrifying and now it's chasing us.”

The Doctor turned to her. “You're rambling.”

“Right, yes, I am,” she agreed. “Because I don't know if you've been paying attention but there's a werewolf, and I'm afraid, and this house is called Torchwood, and I think it's also a racist werewolf, which doesn't really bode well for the only person of colour here, does it?”

“Racist werewolf?”

“It called me a mongrel,” Zoe complained. “It was actually a little offensive. Have the Scots never seen a Black person before?”

“Is – is this really the most important thing right now?” He asked, bewildered.

“Well, maybe not to you, but as a Black woman I'm a little concerned that the werewolf trying to eat us all may be a little bit racist,” she shot back, eyes darting around before abruptly changing track. “Where's that bald asshole gone? The one with the creepy eyes and inappropriately-timed Latin?”

“Captain Reynolds disposed of him,” Victoria said.

“And where is Captain Reynolds?” The Doctor asked.

“We got separated.”

“The front door's no good, it's been boarded shut,” Jack told them, reappearing from his investigations. “We're going to have to go out a window.”

“There are worse exits,” the Doctor said, turning a critical eye onto the queen's outfit. “But we might need to lose a few of your layers, ma'am.”

“Quite right,” Victoria agreed, looking to Zoe. “If you will assist me?”

She straightened up. “Course.”

Years of helping Reinette undress after various royal occasions had made her hands deft and fast. She dropped to her knees in front of Victoria and set about dealing with the complicated bustle of the skirt, muscle memory meaning she easily pulled off the top layer without tearing anything, tossing the material carelessly to one side.

“Excuse my manners, ma'am,” Sir Robert apologised, eyes politely turned the other way. “But I shall go first, the better to assist Her Majesty's egress.”

“A noble sentiment,” Victoria agreed. “My Sir Walter Raleigh.”

“Yeah, any chance you could hurry up?” The Doctor asked, his Scottish accent long since gone, and Victoria stiffened in disapproval a little at being spoken to so brusquely.

“It's not as easy as it looks,” Zoe called back, eventually stripping the last layer off with a firm tug of her hand and twist of her wrist. “ _There._ That's going to have to do. One way or another, we'll get you through that –”

Bullets strafed the side of the building, breaking the glass. Victoria screamed, startled, and Zoe grabbed her around sturdy thighs and dragged her to the ground, covering her head with her body as the others dropped down low so that they weren't visible in the windows.

The Doctor breathed out, annoyed. “I reckon the monkey boys want us to stay inside.”

“Do they know who I am?” Victoria demanded, voice muffled by Zoe.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we're pretty sure you're the target.”

“It's why they want you,” Rose told her, back pressed against the wall, Jack bracing himself on her knee to peer out of the window only to pull back sharply at another round of bullets. “The wolf's lined you up for – well – a bitin'.”

Victoria pushed Zoe off her and looked up, cheeks red from being manhandled. “Stop this talk. There can't be an actual wolf.”

“Victoria,” Zoe said, the edges of her patience growing fine and frayed with use, dropping all forms of propriety. “The world is so much madder than you can possibly imagine, so it's really going to make this whole situation go much easier if you can suspend your disbelief and thoughts of what is and isn't real just long enough for us to get you out of here alive, okay?”

A sharp howl overlapped the last of her words, helpfully supporting her point, before the door started to crack and splinter inwards under the sharp claws of the werewolf that had finally caught up to them. Grabbing Victoria, she dragged her back to the wall, helping her to her feet.

“What do we do?” Jack asked, hands flexing as though ready and willing to take on the creature bare handed.

“We run,” Doctor said.

Rose stared at him incredulously. “Is that it?”

“You got any silver bullets?”

“Not on me, no.”

“There we are then, we run,” he said, turning to Victoria. “Your Majesty, as a doctor, I recommend a vigorous jog. Good for the health. Now come on!”

Victoria remained frozen, unable to move, fear sticking her feet to the ground. A warm hand slipped into hers and she looked to the side.

“Stick with me,” Zoe said. “We'll get through this together because, funnily enough, this is actually not my first time saving royalty from things that go bump in the night.” She flashed her a grin. “When we survive this, remind me to tell you about the time I saved Louis XV and Madam de Pompadour from clockwork androids.”

“You speak such nonsense,” she breathed.

Zoe laughed. “I suppose I do, now run!”

She hesitated but gripped Zoe's hand tighter and ran.

Following the flapping edges of the Doctor's coat, they made their way up the winding staircase as the werewolf smashed its way through the door. It paused, sniffing the lingering fear and adrenaline in the room, before it bounded after them, long limbs closing the distance far quicker than Zoe liked. She threw a look over her shoulder and immediately wished that she hadn't. Victoria stumbled and tripped, not a runner. Already out of breath, she was beginning to lag and Zoe wasn't strong enough to carry her and run at the same time. Arm straining with the weight of dragging her along behind her, she hoped they reached their destination soon.

Up and up they ran until the Doctor led them onto the third floor. Jack was waiting at the top for her and Victoria, his hands going to the queen's other side, helping to rush her along. Unwilling to look over her shoulder and come face to face with the werewolf again, Zoe pushed on but she was certain she felt its hot breath against the back of her neck. She had known that Torchwood House was going to be trouble. The name should have had her turning back for the TARDIS immediately, with or without the others, because no good could possibly come from anything bearing that name. It was her own fault. She was too curious by half, and death by werewolf was such an inelegant way to die.

_Let me die fighting the Daleks,_ she thought, desperately. _Or, better yet, an old woman in my bed with the Doctor at my side. Not like this. Not after everything._

A hot flash of pain lashed across her back.

She cried out as she was knocked off her feet, the others crying out but all she was aware of was the wet pain on her back and familiar hands grabbing hers. Rose had hold of her and was dragging her across the floor, face creased with fear and worry, the Doctor's legs in the corner of her vision. A laugh bubbled from her throat at the realisation the werewolf had struck her; she was still laughing when a side door burst open without any warning, Captain Reynolds steaming through with his gun raised. Jack pulled the queen down in a controlled fall and, as soon as she was out of the way, Reynolds fired his weapon, and the werewolf fell back with a sharp yelp of pain.

_Good,_ Zoe thought, viciously.

“I'll take this position and hold it. You keep moving, for God's sake,” Reynolds ordered, sweat beading on his temples. “Your Majesty, I went to look for the property and it was taken. The chest was empty.”

“I have it,” she assured him through panting breaths, her cheeks flushed. “It's safe.”

“Then remove yourself, ma'am,” he said before looking to the Doctor who was on his knees bent over Zoe, hands hovering useless above her bloodied back. “Doctor, you stand as Her Majesty's Protector. And you, Sir Robert – you are a traitor to the crown.”

“Rassilon, Zoe,” the Doctor breathed, scooping her up into his arms. She cried out at the pain of it. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“Bullets can't stop it,” Jack told him, eyes on Zoe and Victoria and trying to keep an eye out for the werewolf as well. “I'm not sure what can.”

“God,” Zoe gasped, vision blurring. “This hurts.”

“They'll buy you time,” Reynolds said, urgently. “Now run!”

“I know, I know,” the Doctor apologised. “You're fine though. I promise, you're fine.”

“Thank you, captain,” Jack said. “Thank you.”

“I do my duty,” he said, raising his revolver. “For my country, and for my queen.”

“Victoria, move,” Jack ordered. “Doc, you got Zoe? Good. Then run, quickly. Rose, get into the library!”

Pain whited out Zoe's vision as the Doctor ran with her in his arms, the jolting nature of it sending sharp bursts of pain through her, until they flew into the library as the werewolf pounced on Reynolds. His screams filled the air as he was ripped apart.

“The door,” Sir Robert yelled.

He and Rose leapt into action to quickly barricade it, Reynolds' dying screams replaced by the dull, wet sound of his body being feasted on. Heavy wooden chairs, sofas, and a desk were pushed against the large oak doors; Jack, who freed his grip from Victoria, pulled a curtain rail free and slid the metal rod lengthways across the door to buy them a few more seconds against the onslaught.

“Jesus,” Zoe gasped against the pain when the Doctor set her down, dragging in short, sharp breaths to try and ease herself through it.

“Wait. Stop.” The Doctor pulled back from her, sharp eyes scanning the room. “Everyone be quiet. Shut up.”

Everyone fell silent at his request. Zoe pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle her own rasping sounds of pain. Understanding what he was getting at, Jack climbed onto one of the sofas pressed against the door and stood with his ear pressed against the flat surface, listening. There was nothing except perfect, terrified silence before a howl broke it. Snuffling sounds crept in under the door, and they all held their breath, waiting for the doors to shatter as the others had done.

To their surprise, there was only the slow _thump-thump_ of the werewolf moving away.

“It's stopped,” the Doctor whispered, crouched at Zoe's side. “It's gone.” He raised a finger. “Listen.”

They all listened to the sound of footsteps and growls as it padded around the perimeter of the room, looking for a way in.

Rose turned to Sir Robert, cheeks and neck flushed. “Is this the only door?”

“Yes,” he said before stilling, panic whipping through him. “No! Over here!”

He, Rose, and Jack sprang into action and dragged more furniture from the centre of the room and created a barricade in front of the opposite door – tables, chairs, and a suit of armour that leaned across it, its lance threaded between the door handles. Balanced precariously on an ottoman atop a writing desk, Rose shushed them. Once again, everyone froze and their eyes moved around the room in time with the creaking of the wooden floorboards outside the library. Its heavy breathing and the snuffling sounds it made slipped through the gap between the door and the floor, a dark shadow flickering over it.

“I don't understand,” she whispered. “What's stoppin' it?”

“It must be something inside this room,” Jack said, looking around with sharp, searching eyes. “Something specific to _this_ room.” He looked at Zoe who was grey and ashen, and his stomach twisted at the sight of her. “Zoe, shit, are you okay?”

“I really don't feel so good,” she said, slumping forwards and vomiting on the Doctor's shoes, groaning. “Why's it always me? Tolandra, Mondas, Skaro...I'm always the one getting injured. It's not fair.”

“Help me,” the Doctor said, shaking the sick off his shoes and working Zoe out of her coat. “Rose, hold her upright. Jack, you got the first aid kit?”

“Always.”

“Is she going to live?” Victoria asked, hovering some distance away.

“Of course she is,” he said, worry making him sharp. “Just a scratch. Right, Zo? It's just a scratch.”

She groaned. “You're the doctor, Doctor.”

Jack set his field first aid kit down by the Doctor's side and helped peel Zoe's out of her coat and wet T-shirt. Rose drew in a horrified breath at the sight of the four long wounds embedded in Zoe's back, blood coating her skin. She pressed her lips to her sister's head and kissed her, murmuring soft reassurances even as her heart thundered in her chest. For one brief, thrilling moment, everything had been glorious and exciting – werewolves and Queen Victoria; it was like ghosts with Charles Dickens all over again – but all excitement was lost at Zoe being injured. Now, everything was more terrifying and much colder than before.

“Doctor?” Rose asked, quietly. “Is she really going to be okay?”

He examined the wounds, fingertips light against her back, tossing her ruined bra over his shoulder. There was a lot of blood but the wounds weren't serious; his shoulders released some of the tension that had slammed into him when she screamed.

“She really is,” he said, brushing his fingers down the side of her injuries, comforting. “These are surface wounds. They look worse than they are. A little deep, for sure, but nothing the TARDIS can't fix. It looks like you just got clipped.”

Zoe sniffed. “Then why did I throw up?”

“Adrenaline, most likely,” the Doctor said, feeling her hand sluggishly search his pockets for the chewable toothpaste and a pack of tissues. “I'm going to clean the wounds and then see what the sonic can do.”

“No.” Her hair shook. “There's a werewolf outside. We need to figure out what's keeping it out.”

“I'll clean her wounds,” Jack said, taking the saline and antiseptic from the Doctor. “You do the thinking.”

The Doctor brushed his hand over the top of her head. “Zoe?”

“Go.” She looked up at him, pale and clammy. “I'll be right as rain in a few minutes. You can fuss over me later.”

“Promise?” The wink she gave him made him smile, and as much as he wanted to stay at her side, there were things to be done. He looked to Rose. “You with me?”

She reluctantly released her sister. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He squeezed her hand and turned on his heel. “Right then, Your Majesty, Sir Robert, how are we doing?”

Sir Robert slumped in a seat with his head in his hands, defeat rolling off him; Victoria was silently watching Jack clean Zoe's wounds, a grim expression on her face.

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” Sir Robert said, regretfully, lifting his head. “It's all my fault. I should have sent you away. I wanted to but they had my wife. They said – they said they would turn her into one of those things if I didn't do what they said. Please – _please_ , Your Majesty, forgive me.”

“I do not know what is taking place this night,” she said, hands clasped in front of her. “Captain Reynolds is dead, and Professor Tyler has been injured. So, spare me your recriminations, Sir Robert, and your feelings of guilt, and tell me, someone please, what exactly is that creature?”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “You'd call it a werewolf, but technically it's a more of a lupine wavelength haemovariform.”

Victoria stared at him, anger building in her eyes. “And should I trust you, sir? You who change your voice so easily? What happened to your accent?”

He blinked. “Oh, right, sorry, that's –”

“I'll not have it,” she decreed, voice warbling as her words came out shrill and tainted with fear. “No, sir. Not you, not that thing, none of it. This is not my world.”

Zoe spat her mouthful of toothpaste onto the rug, already ruined from her blood and vomit, and wiped her arm across her mouth. “I told you, you need to suspend what you think is real and right because what we're facing tonight isn't part of your world. Not the world you know at least. You need to trust that we know what we're doing. You just need to trust us, Victoria.”

She drew herself to her full height, which was just less than five feet and not all that impressive. “You will _not_ refer to me in such a familiar manner. I am Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India.”

“And I'm Zoe Tyler of the Powell Estate in Peckham by way of fucking Versailles,” she said, shortly, Jack's soft snort of laughter warming her skin. “Titles mean nothing tonight. They're not going to protect you from that creature. You know what is going to protect you?” She pointed at the Doctor. “Him. Us. This may not be your world, _Victoria_ , but it's ours. Now, will you please be quiet so the Doctor can work?”

“How dare –?”

“I'm not above knocking you out for a bit of peace and quiet,” she snapped, patience gone, smooth tones dipping into her native London accent that had been sanded away by years in France. “Let him work.”

Victoria's mouth moved, eyes sharpening into flint, but she sat herself primly down on a chair and might have huffed had it not been beneath her dignity.

“Right then,” the Doctor said into the tense silence. “Getting to work.”

He used Zoe's phone – his screwdriver needed for repairing as much damage on her back as possible – and set about scanning the room. It was difficult to focus, his mind constantly drifting back to Zoe and her injuries; he wanted to get her back to the TARDIS and tucked away safely as soon as possible but there was no way to do that without dealing with the werewolf first. When it was all over, he was going to take her dancing. He would send Rose and Jack off somewhere to keep them busy and entertained and then he would take Zoe dancing, possibly for dinner as well. It could be the date they kept meaning to have but never seemed to find the time for.

Her phone beeped in his hands, the scan completed.

“This is strange,” he said, eyes scanning the analysis. “I'm picking up a lot of lectins and viscotoxins. I'm not sure why but it's stronger in the doorways.” He climbed onto one of the sofas against the door. “I wonder...” he examined the carvings. “Mistletoe.”

“The Christmas thing that Bev got me under?” Jack asked, curiously, pressing a long bandage over one of the cuts. “What about it?”

“Bev got you under the mistletoe? My condolences.”

“I really didn't mind.”

“Please don't make me be sick,” Rose requested with a grimace. “Mistletoe, Doctor?”

“Mistletoe,” he said before leaning forwards and licking the woodwork: Zoe, Rose, and Jack all made sounds of protests. “Viscum album, the oil of the mistletoe. It's been worked into the wood like a varnish.”

“Did you really need to lick it?” Rose asked, exasperated. “We've got Zoe's phone.”

He ignored her and turned to Sir Robert instead, the pieces slotting together in his mind to form something wonderful.

“How clever was your dad? I love him,” he enthused, jumping off the sofa. “Powerful stuff, mistletoe; bursting with lectins and viscotoxins.”

Zoe squinted at him. “What, the wolf's allergic to it?”

“Well, it thinks it is,” he said. “Think about it: you need a way to control a very dangerous creature that, when transforms, loses all sense of reasoning and relies on its predator instincts. The monks need a way to control the wolf, so maybe they trained it to react against certain things.”

“Okay,” Jack said, tending to the last cut. “But how would Sir Robert's dad know that?”

“Excellent question,” the Doctor said, spinning to Sir Robert. “How did dear old dad know that?”

“I don't know.”

“Your father was brilliant,” he said, thinking out loud. “A scientist, a mathematician, a specialist in folklore and magic and astronomy. He must have discovered some information in all of his wide reading that told him what he needed to know to keep the wolf at bay.”

Sir Robert looked tired and worn down. “Be that as it may, Doctor, the creature won't give up, and we still don't possess an actual weapon.”

“Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he?”

Rose slapped his arm with the back of her hand. “Doctor.”

“No, I meant that one.” He plucked a book from the shelf and threw it at Sir Robert who fumbled the catch, sending it bouncing off the sofa. “You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself.”

“Does anyone have a spare T-shirt?” Jack asked. “As gorgeous as she is, Zoe can't walk around topless and my jacket doesn't close.”

The Doctor immediately shrugged out of his coat. “Here.”

“I'll get blood on it,” she protested.

“I can clean it.” He tenderly draped it around her shoulders, helping her work her arms in before he buttoned it up, knuckles brushing against her bare skin as his voice lowered, eyes searching hers. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” she said, mouth tacky. “Fine though. Jack gave me some localised anaesthetic. I'm not really feeling my back at the moment.”

He brushed her hair from her forehead. “As soon as we get back to the TARDIS, I'll fix you up good and proper. Draw you a nice bath as well with those weird salt things you like. What are they called?”

Her eyes creased with amusement. “Bath salts.”

“Exactly, those things.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Zoe said once she was more or less covered, and he smiled at her, pulling off the plastic gloves. The Doctor's coat didn't button up to the top and if she moved too quickly then she was going to flash the room, but it was the best she could do for now. “Now, I believe you mentioned my favourite thing in the world: research. Mind if I...?”

The Doctor swept his arm before them. “Be my guest.”

“Right, we need to narrow it down, like the Slitheen,” Zoe said, shaking off her injury as best she could – _when in pain, distract the brain,_ she thought. “There are too many books here otherwise – and I can't believe I just complained about having too many books.” She shook her head. “As the Doctor and Victoria have both mentioned, Sir Robert's father had his fingers in many pies but we want to look for books on magic, the supernatural, and the occult. Also, local history books that look as though they've been well used – the spines may be damaged and the pages worn. That's what we need.”

The Doctor slipped past her, voice dropping to a murmur. “You're really sexy when you've got your research on.”

Her mouth twitched. “Focus.”

“I am.” His eyes dropped to the gape in his coat. “On the important things.”

She stifled a laugh, cheeks turning pink. “You're such a _man_ , sometimes.”

He pinched her hip and darted away before she was able to retaliate, getting to work with the rest of them. Victoria remained seated and only rose to her feet when Zoe levelled her with an icy glare that she had learnt from Reinette, holding her gaze until she broke. Satisfied that everyone was working, she made her way to the bookshelves. Under normal circumstances, she would have loved the opportunity to explore Sir Robert's library but she felt hot and cold at the same time, her mouth dry, and as though she was on the cool edge of falling asleep. She kept herself upright by holding onto the shelves as tightly as she could, scanning the titles and pulling the ones that she thought might be useful only to discard them when they weren't.

“What about this?” Jack asked minutes later, holding up a book. “It's a book on mistletoe.”

“Check the index.” She straightened up a little further and wiped her arm across her cold forehead. “Uses of, and anything to do with werewolves, wolves, and/or moonlight.”

Rose looked at the book in her hand with interest. “I've got one here on actual magic.”

“Ooo, explosives,” the Doctor said, distracted by a book he snatched off his shelf. “Ace would've liked this.”

Victoria approached Zoe from the side holding an old, tattered book in her hands. “Perhaps this? _Wolf's Bane_ , it appears to be handwritten.”

Zoe set the book in her hand to one side and took it from Victoria. Aching from trying to stand upright, she set it down on the desk in the untouched corner of the room and took a seat, breathing out at the relief that spread through her. Wetting her lips, she opened up the book and scanned the pages quickly through a squint, four years of intensive university education paying for itself in that moment.

“Oh.”

Her soft _oh_ caught everyone's attention, and they congregated behind her.

“Can someone get my glasses?” She asked. “I can't read this properly.” Rose darted away and returned with her glasses case. “Better, thank you.” She doubled checked the information and looked up at Sir Robert. “Your dad was something special, Sir Robert. He collected the history of the werewolf in this book. According to him, something fell to Earth over three hundred years ago.”

Jack leaned over Zoe's shoulder. “A spaceship?”

“Let me...” she cleared her throat and began reading from the book. “I _n the year of our Lord 1540, under the reign of King James V, an almighty fire did burn in the pit._ ” She tapped her finger against the page. “There's a note here from Sir Robert's father that says the pit is the Glen of Saint Catherine just by the monastery.”

“Sounds like a shooting star,” the Doctor said, own glasses on his nose. “Or at least something easily mistaken for one.”

“But that's over three hundred years ago,” Rose pointed out. “What's it been waitin' for all this time?”

“Maybe just a single cell survived,” Jack suggested. “Sometimes all it takes is a single cell to survive anything, as long as it can adapt to its new environment. Over three hundred years would mean that it probably survived through humans, moving from host to host to host, like a parasite.”

“But why does it want the throne?” She asked, confused. “That's what it wants. It said so – the Empire of the Wolf.”

“Imagine it,” the Doctor said. “The Victorian Age accelerated: starships and missiles fuelled by coal and driven by steam, leaving history devastated in its wake. Imagine what that would do if humans got out to the stars two hundred years earlier than expected; the damage it would do to not only Earth but every planet in the sky.”

“God...” Jack said, horrified. “Everything would change. So much of what's in my time is because of what happened here, in this time, under this queen. The technology we use has its roots in these years and this century.”

“Sir Robert,” Victoria said, suddenly, pale beneath the silvery light of the moon. “If I am to die here –”

His expression twisted, guilt pressing up beneath his skin. “Don't say that, Your Majesty.”

“I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me,” she said with simple decisiveness. “But that's no matter. I ask only that you find some place of safekeeping for something far older and more precious than myself.”

The Doctor rubbed his forehead. “This is hardly the time to be worrying about your valuables.”

“Thank you for your opinion,” Victoria said, sharply. “But there is nothing more valuable than this.”

From the folds of her petticoats, they stared in amazement as Victoria removed the finest white-carat diamond the size of a fist. Zoe wasn't much of one for jewellery, or shiny objects in general, but she was flooded with warmth and desire at the sight of it, her mouth dropping open.

“Is that the Koh-I-Noor?” Rose breathed.

“The greatest diamond in the world,” the Doctor said, lightly slapping Jack's hand down before he was able to touch it. “And the most expensive...and controversial.”

“Given to me as the spoils of war,” Victoria informed them. “Perhaps its legend is now coming true. It is said that whoever owns it must surely die.”

“Well, that's true of anything if you own it long enough,” he said, holding out his hands only for Victoria to draw the diamond closer to her. He met her eyes. “May I?”

She hesitated before transferring the diamond into his careful hands. Open admiration had him turning it over in his palms, long fingers cupping it as protectively as a baby's head. He held it out for Zoe to look at. “It's so beautiful.”

“It's so big,” she said.

He laughed. “105.6 carats, you won't find anything bigger in this day and age.”

Rose stretched out a finger to stroke the side, shivering. “How much is it worth?”

“It's said the wages of the entire planet for a whole week.”

“Good job Mum's not here,” she said, pulling her finger back. “She'd be fightin' the wolf off with her bare hands for that thing.”

Jack grinned. “My money's on Jackie.”

A thought passed across Zoe's mind, and she looked to Victoria. “Why do you travel with this? It's so valuable and you were travelling out in the open with less guards than I'd expect for something like this.”

“My annual pilgrimage,” Victoria explained. “I'm taking it to Helier and Carew, the Royal Jewellers at Hazelhead, as the stone needs re-cutting.”

“Oh, but it's perfect,” Rose protested.

“My late husband never thought so,” she said. “It used to be bigger than this but dear Albert was never happy. He always said the shine was not quite right, but he died with it still unfinished.”

“Unfinished...there's a lot of unfinished business in this house,” the Doctor said with a frown as tipped the diamond back into Victoria's hands; she put it back in the secret pocket in her petticoat. “His father's research, and your husband, ma'am: he came here and he sought the perfect diamond.” He raised his hands between them, forestalling any questions, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Hold on, hold on. All these separate things, they're not separate at all, they're connected. What if this house –? What if it's a trap for you?”

“How?” Sir Robert asked. “This house was established in the 16th century, years before any of us were born.”

“The house isn't the trap,” he said. “It's just in the right position. No. It's something else. The wolf intended to make a trap for you, or rather for the person wearing the Crown, but this is something else. The mistletoe, the observatory in the middle of nowhere, the friendship between Albert and Sir Robert's father, I think they knew. I think they made a trap within a trap.”

Jack frowned in an effort to keep up. “Show your thinking, Doctor.”

“What if his father and Prince Albert weren't just telling each other stories,” he theorised, rapidly. “They dared to imagine all this was true and they planned against it, laying the real trap not for you, Your Majesty, but for the wolf.”

“But that would mean –”

Zoe cut herself off when plaster dust fell from the ceiling. It scattered across the open pages of the book, and she looked up. Above their heads, standing on the glass-domed skylight was the werewolf looking down on them. The glass cracked beneath its weight, and Zoe found herself out of her seat and on her feet in the blink of an eye, the Doctor pushing her towards the door.

“Out! Out,” he yelled. “To the observatory, quickly!”

Sir Robert grabbed hold of Victoria and Jack grabbed hold of Zoe as Rose and the Doctor ripped apart the barricade, flinging the doors open. The moment there was a gap in the door, the Doctor reached back and dragged Zoe through it just as the glass dome shattered and the werewolf crashed in through the ceiling. Everyone tumbled out after each other, limbs jabbing into chests and heads, as they struggled to get out. Zoe attempted to orient herself, trying to remember which way was the observatory from her glimpse of it from the outside, when Lady Isobel rounded the corner with her female servants, pans of boiling liquid in their heads. The werewolf burst through the library doors only to scream in agony as the liquid was thrown over it.

It reared back with a hoarse scream, scampering away, crashing into the walls as it tried to get away from the pain, steam pouring off it.

The Doctor turned admiring eyes onto the woman who had thrown the liquid. “Good shot!”

“It was mistletoe,” a serving girl said, breathlessly, eyes wide in her young face, barely of an age with Rose. “Lady Isobel figured it out.”

“My darling,” Sir Robert exclaimed, shouldering his way through to his wife to kiss her, relief and desperation falling off him. “Now, get back downstairs.”

She drew him back to her and kissed him again, harder. “Come back to me. Be safe.”

He nodded and gave her a little push. “Go.”

Lady Isobel gathered her servants to her and proceeded back the way they came, pausing at the last moment to look back at her husband. Sir Robert smiled for her, it draining from his face when she disappeared. He smoothed down his jacket with trembling hands and looked to the odd group he found himself with.

“The observatory's this way.”

Zoe managed to keep up with the rest of them as the Doctor and Jack were on either side of her helping her when she slowed. They reached the observatory, and Jack sat Zoe down on a small stool away from the door, thwarting her attempts to stand back up again, pressing his hand to the top of her head until she stopped fighting him. The Doctor, meanwhile, stood outside the room and examined the smooth surface of the door, looking for engravings.

“No mistletoe on these doors,” he said. “Your father wanted the wolf to get inside here. Clever, clever man.” He looked to Sir Robert. “I just need time. Is there any way of barricading this?”

Sir Robert shook his head. “No.”

He scowled. “If we could bind them shut with rope or something, then –”

“Doctor,” Sir Robert interrupted. “I will give you the time you need. Do your work.”

“Too many people have died tonight,” he argued. “Not you too. You've got a wife who loves you. You need to get back to her.”

“Isobel will understand,” Sir Robert said. “But tell her that I love her. Tell her – tell her she has been my greatest joy.” The Doctor cleared his throat, emotion lodged there. “I said I'd find you time, and I will. Now, please, sir – get inside.”

He hesitated before squeezing Sir Robert's shoulder. “I'll tell Lady Isobel what you said. You have my word.”

Sir Robert inclined his head, resigned to his fate. “And you have my thanks.”

The Doctor stepped back into the room and closed the doors behind him, forehead briefly resting against the surface of it. He wondered if he would have the strength to sacrifice himself like Sir Robert if it meant never seeing Zoe again and leaving her alone in the world. There was a time he was capable of anything – destroying his home and his people, committing genocide against two species – but loving Zoe had given him something to lose again, had given him someone to hurt if he made the wrong decision. The responsibility loving her made him feel terrified him, worried that he was going to fall short and disappoint her.

Flexing his fingers, he pulled himself together, acutely aware of time running out. Pushing away from the door, he strode towards Victoria and held out his hand, wriggling his fingers. “Your Majesty, the diamond.”

Distrustful eyes focused on him. “For what purpose?”

“The purpose it was designed for.” He looked around. “Jack, get over here and help; Rose, keep an eye on the queen and Zoe.”

“I can keep an eye on myself, thanks,” Zoe grumbled but the run up to the observatory had exhausted her. “Don't worry about me.”

The Doctor and Jack gripped the telescope and heaved. “Lift it. Come on. What's the point in working out if you can't lift a bloody telescope?”

“What would you know?” Jack grunted. “You never work out.”

“Superior biology.”

“Shove your superior biology up your ass,” he groaned before the telescope clicked into place. He massaged his biceps. “Fuck. What is that made out of, pure gold?”

“Probably.”

Rose stared at them incredulously from the side. “Is this the right time for stargazin'? You said this thing doesn't even work.”

“It doesn't work as a telescope because that's not what it is,” the Doctor said, moving around it. “It's a light chamber. It magnifies the light rays like a weapon. We've just got to power it up.”

“It won't work. There's no electricity,” she argued before her mind snagged on the answer without help. “Moonlight!” She looked so delighted that Jack felt himself smile. “But the wolf needs moonlight. It's made by moonlight. How can it be hurt by it?”

“You're seventy percent water but you can still drown,” the Doctor said, tongue stuck between his teeth as the moon got into position and the howls of the werewolf echoed at the door; he slid the Koh-I-Noor into place and jumped down. “Come on! Come on!”

The werewolf burst through the door, Sir Robert's blood dripping from its muzzle, and the moon shone down the barrel of the telescope, bouncing between the prisms, magnifying as it went. Jack threw himself in front of Victoria just as the light reflected off the diamond. Refracted upwards, catching the werewolf in the beam, it lifting it from the floor, suspended in the air. Before their eyes, the bones shifted and the skin moved, the wolf becoming a young man again, hanging as though crucified in mid air.

Pained eyes looked down on them. “Make it brighter...let me go...please...”

Mercy moving his hand, the Doctor adjusted the magnification on the eyepiece and watched as the man shifted back one last time into a wolf, releasing a death's howl before it vanished into the light.


	15. Chapter 15

The ink-black sky diluted with colour as the sun began to rise over the horizon, marking an end to the night of terror that had taken place at the Torchwood Estate. The surviving servants piled the bodies of the dead out in the courtyard, the mutilated wrapped in bedsheets and curtains; Sir Robert's body was carefully pieced back together, wrapped in the dark red curtains of the library, and placed in the bed he had shared with his wife. Lady Isobel hadn't left his side, sitting in vigil, mourning the loss of her husband and trying to understand what had happened. Her husband's last words, relayed to her by the Doctor, served only to deepen the pain that lanced through her, shedding her tears in private as her fingers fluttered over Sir Robert's blood-stained hand. Refusing to disturb their mistress, the servants that were left took it upon themselves to put the house to rights but it was a slow, heavy process.

From the window of her bedroom, Victoria looked down onto the courtyard as hazy, early morning light spilt over the scene. White mist formed in front of the servants' mouths as they heaved another body out of the house, stumbling with exhaustion; her guards were helping with rolled-up sleeves and sweat-slicked faces. She wished that she was back in London, far away from the horrors that had been waiting for her in Scotland. She understood London and the world there. There were no monsters hiding around the corners, nothing supernatural to fill her with terror, no strange and terrifying people there to protect and save her. She resisted the urge to demand that she be taken back immediately, serving no purpose except to make her look unfeeling and thoughtless.

Shivering against the chill that stretched through the thin windows, she turned and moved to stand by the fire in the hearth. No one had been in since she was shown to the room, a weeping maid lighting the fire with trembling hands and sobs that tangled in her throat, so she stoked it herself and placed another log on it. Her eyes fixated on the flame trying to catch, taking solace in such a rudimental and _known_ thing. Fire was something she understood. It wasn't safe, but it also wasn't werewolves and talk of spaceships and different times. Flexing her sore fingers, she held her red-tinged hands to the heat and closed her eyes as the chill was chased out of her joints.

For the first time since the crown was passed to her, she hated that she was alone. All her life she had longed for solitude, desperate for it as a child whose life was ruled by the rigid and cruel Kensington System , seizing her first opportunity to demand the basic respect of privacy, yet now she wished for company. She wanted someone else there to reassure her that she wasn't mad, that she was safe. If someone else was there then she would be able to pull the cloak of royalty around her and act the part of the queen; alone, she was just a scared woman who longed for the safety of her husband's arms.

Grief swelled in her chest as Albert's absence hurt her afresh.

Not a day passed that she didn't miss him – life was grey and cold and purposeless without him – but she missed him furiously as she warmed her hands on the fire. The night had been terrifying and without reason or mercy; every minute that passed, she had hated but knew that Albert would have loved. All those years spent pouring over books on the supernatural and the occult, late nights when she was unable tempt him to bed because he was immersed in his reading, to be proven right in such a manner would have thrilled him. She regretted he wasn't there to see it.

She wished that he was there to thank for working so diligently to protect her from the things that she had dismissed as fanciful and silly.

“Thank you,” Victoria whispered into the fire, trying to remember the features of his face she loved, but time had blurred her memory and made her clumsy in her attempts. “Thank you.”

The sharp staccato of knuckles against the door made her jump, hands flying to smooth down the dress someone had been retrieved for her. Taking a moment to make sure that she was presentable and calm, she straightened her spine and cleared her throat.

“Enter.”

Disappointment and a trickle of fear passed through her when the tall, slender form of the Doctor entered the room. He looked dishevelled – loosened tie, top shirt buttons open, hair messy, jacket gaping open – but his eyes were bright from having spent the last few hours investigating every inch of the house to ensure that nothing supernatural remained. If he was affected by the cold that coated the building, he didn't show it. He flashed her a smile, hands sliding into his pockets, and she wondered how such a man was able to be so relaxed a night of horror.

“Your Majesty,” the Doctor said, pleasantly, in the smooth tones of received pronunciation, a reminder he was able to cloak his true self behind accented lies. “Just thought I'd pop in and take my leave of you. My friends and I are on our way out, or at least we will be when I round them up. I'm not sure where Jack's got to but Rose is tracking him down for me. She's always been useful like that.”

“Has anyone ever told you,” Victoria heard herself ask, “that you talk much but say little?”

He blinked at her, taken aback. “Yes. Quite a few times actually.”

“It's annoying.”

He laughed. “That's what Zoe tells me, so you're in good company with that thought.”

“Indeed,” she said, unimpressed, turning her back to him to face the fire again. “Tell me, how is the professor? Is she well?”

“Well enough,” he said. “She's been overdoing it, of course, helping with the dead and the general clean up. It's probably strained the wounds but nothing I can't fix once I get her home.”

“It's a shame,” she said. “She's rather pretty for a Negro and now her back will be forever scarred by it.”

The Doctor's eye twitched at the ingrained racism. “She's beautiful for a woman, full stop, scars, skin colour, and all.”

Victoria glanced at him. “I've offended you.”

“Not you,” he said. “Just the attitudes of this time. Being the Empress of India, one would think that perhaps you'd be more open-minded to the abilities and contributions of people who don't look like you, particularly considering your goddaughter.”

She turned back to him. “Sara?”

“An African child whom you took on as your goddaughter in a time when most wouldn't have bothered,” he said. “By all accounts, you love her.”

“Of course I do.”

“But you still think she's inferior to whites.”

“I do not have to think, it's scientific fact that the Negro race is intellectually inferior,” Victoria said. “Why else would they sell their own people into slavery? And why then would those slaves choose to remain in bondage?”

The Doctor stared at her. “There's a lot to unpick in what you just said, and I really want to, but I don't have the time. Needless to say, you're wrong. Skin colour isn't a determination of anything but how much melanin a person has. That's it. And, let me tell you, you'll be hard pressed to find someone on this planet with the same amount of intelligence, kindness, and bravery that Zoe Tyler has in her little finger in their whole body. She's an educated, cultured, curious woman who you're dismissing because of the colour of her skin. So, actually, yeah, I suppose you have offended me, Your Majesty.”

She stared at him, taken aback by the words that gained heat and energy as he spoke, unused to people speaking to her with such irreverence. “You, sir, are forgetting to whom you are speaking. I am your sovereign.”

“You're not my sovereign,” he told her. “I might sound British, but I'm not, no matter how fond I am of London and fish and chips and cups of tea. Besides, I've always found that people in positions of power need people around them to say things that might otherwise go unsaid.”

“And you take it upon yourself to perform such a service, do you?” She asked, archly. “Regardless of how little right you have?”

“When the occasion calls for it.”

She breathed out, short and sharp, through her nose. “I believe I understand more and more why the professor and young Miss Tyler are so... _rambunctious_.” He raised his eyebrows, confused. “They speak out of turn and with such ill-manners. The way they talk to you and Captain Harkness is unseemly.”

“Unseemly?”

“When women attempt to push free of the bonds that God has created for them, trouble surely follows,” Victoria said, the prim set of her tone causing the corners of the Doctor's mouth to deepen in amusement. “Let women be what God intended – a helpmate for a man.”

The Doctor touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip. “I have to disagree with that, _strongly_. I've known many women, all of them brilliant in their own right, and not one of them should be reduced to being a companion to a man simply because he's a man. Zoe and Rose are exceptional. I value their friendship, their help, and their different outlooks on life. They've saved my life more than you'll know, and I'd do the same for them in a heartbeat.”

Her eyes flicked over him. “What a strange man you are.”

“Now _that_ I've definitely been called before,” he said. “I have to admit though, I'm surprised that you would believe in keeping women down. You're the most powerful woman in the world.”

“Appointed by God,” Victoria said. “Chosen by a higher power to represent something much greater than myself. It is not a life I would have chosen for myself, honoured though I am to have been chosen. No, the greatest pleasure of my life was to help Albert achieve what he wanted to achieve.”

“And because you found happiness and fulfilment in your marriage and in the home, you think every woman should want that?”

“They don't know what they want,” she dismissed with a jerk of her small chin. “This talk of women's suffrage? A ridiculous concept. What on earth will women do with the vote?”

“Presumably the same thing a man does but better,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed. “You think you're witty, Doctor, but I find you tiresome.”

“Then it's a good thing that I'm on my way out,” he said, smile sharp. “It's a shame, though. If you were less close-minded, you'd be exceptional.”

Victoria bristled at the insult but bit her tongue, aware that if she got into a battle of words with the Doctor, she would lose. “Do be kind enough to take your world with you when you leave. I have no desire to ever be involved in it again.”

He shook his head, withdrawing his hands from his pockets. “That's not how it works, and I think you know that. Albert's work in this house with Sir Robert's father proves that my world is your world.”

Her mouth tightened, the lines deepening, eyes turning sharp in refusal. “It is not.”

“Oh, Victoria, don't be disappointing,” he said, impatiently. “This is what the world really is – mad, brilliant, terrifying, and so much more fun than your world of afternoon tea and horse riding and signing laws and whatever else it is you do to fill your time.”

“Fun?” The word scratched at him, clawing at the inside of her chest, echoing dangerously in her mind. “ _Fun_? People have died, Doctor. Good men have died because of that monster, and you think that all of this was fun?”

“It wasn't a monster,” he corrected. “He was a prisoner, trapped and changed by an alien presence –”

“Stop this talk!”

“By an alien presence that took everything human about him and twisted it,” he finished over the top of her. “Those monks didn't help matters by building a side religion around it but that's humans for you. You lot have never met a situation you can't make worse by slapping an element of religion to it.”

She glared at him, heart hammering. “Humans. You say that word as though you're not.”

He breathed in deeply, soothing the edges of his impatience. It wasn't Victoria's fault that he was worried about Zoe, and he knew he shouldn't allow that worry to manifest itself into sharpness and rudeness. When he spoke again, his voice was deliberately calm. “I'm not.”

“You're lying.”

“Am I?” He took a step forward only to pause when she recoiled from him. Spreading his arms out to his side, he presented a fuller picture to her. “Take a closer look, Your Majesty. I may look human on the outside but I assure you I'm not.”

Swallowing hard, Victoria took a small step forward – barely a shuffle – and looked up into his eyes. She thought him an average-looking man, handsome if one enjoyed tall, pale men, and she made it a habit to not look directly into people's eyes since it was obvious it made most people uncomfortable, but the Doctor held her gaze. His eyes were a warm hazel flecked with gold but the weight of life in them stole her breath from her chest; his eyes were ancient and bottomless, filled with grief and love and despair and happiness. Some, she considered, might find them fascinating but she found them terrifying and looked away with an short gasp.

Oddly out of breath, a fierce, wary expression crawled across her face. “What are you?”

“A friend.” A reassuring smile slid into place, a mask meant to soothe her. “Really, that's all I am. I'm a friend.” His hands went back into his pockets, and he rolled on his feet. She wasn't fooled by the boyish charm. “I've been coming to Earth for years. I've got a soft spot for humans, you see. I like to make sure you're all safe and everything's hunky-dory because, let's face it, the things you lot get up to when left unsupervised is _a lot_.”

Her hand pressed against her chest as she withdrew from him, seeking protection from the fire that warmed her ankles.

“I don't know what you are, but I doubt you are the friend you believe you are,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her. “If you hadn't been here tonight, then –”

“Then you would have died,” the Doctor interrupted. “You and everyone else in this house, but I was here and you survived. Your desire to pretend that the world isn't as it is won't change that fact. We didn't have to stay but we did because what we do is we help people; we save who we can and protect the defenceless. We get injured and hurt and scared so that people like you can live to be self-righteous about it.”

Her nostrils flared. “You're not accustomed to people disliking you, are you?”

“You don't like me?”

“Considerably not.”

“That's a shame,” he said. “But I'm sure I'll get over it. Plenty of people don't like me.”

“Enemies, I imagine.”

“Are you my enemy, Your Majesty?”

“I am certainly not your friend,” she said, sharply. “I may not understand your world, but what I do understand is that these monsters that you live with and play with and take pleasure in, _they_ are enemies of the Crown.”

“Not all aliens who come to Earth mean you harm,” the Doctor said. “Some are seeking refuge, some are explorers like myself, others are just passing through. You've nothing to fear from them.”

“I disagree” Victoria said. “But I will discuss this with you no longer. It's clear that despite your affinity to Earth, you do not truly understand those who live here.” He tilted his head, amused by the remark. “However, you are right in stating that you and your friends saved my life; Professor Tyler was injured in her valiant attempt to get me to safety. You are owed my gratitude.” An idea formed in her mind, one that allowed her to be gracious yet firm. “Join me in the library, bring your friends so that I may properly thank them before you make your departure. I assure you that I won't keep you long. The professor is injured, after all.”

A small frown pressed between the Doctor's eyes, curious at her change of track, before it cleared when he nodded. “Guess I'll see you there then.”

He bowed his head an inch before leaving. As soon as the door closed behind him, Victoria breathed out and staggered back, collapsing onto the edge of the bed, shaken. He was like no one she had ever met before. The strength of his convictions, his belief in himself and his mission of benevolent protection, as though he was a kindly god deigning to aid in the problems of his ignorant children, terrified her. Her mind worked as she tried and failed to imagine what was capable of stopping such a man.

After all, how does one stop a god?

* * *

The night had been a long one, and Jack's shoulders ached from the physical strain of helping move dead bodies out of the house. There was a metallic taste of blood in the air, and he was grateful for the cold, fresh brush of dawn that washed over his face. He stood at an open window and looked out over the back of the house, the location chosen because it didn't overlook the piles of dead bodies that were wrapped and waiting for burial. He wondered what the excuse was going to be, though he supposed it was fortunate that the Torchwood Estate was in the middle of nowhere; the bodies could be dealt with quietly, letters sent to families scattered around Scotland informing them of their loved ones death. The chaos and bloodshed at the house would be swept aside, lost to history, which Jack thought was for the best.

“How are you not freezin' your nose off?” Rose asked, coming down the long hallway towards him, shivering in her T-shirt and short denim dress. “I'm so cold, I can't feel my tits.”

Jack snorted. “Want me to warm them up for you?”

“You'd be so lucky.” She threaded her arm through his and leaned into him; he drew her into his body heat, eyes closing against the top of her head. “The Doctor wanted me to fetch you. Said we're goin' back to the TARDIS.”

“Good,” he said, swallowing. “I'm really tired.”

“Me too.” She pressed her face into his arm and shivered. He reached out and closed the window, her eyes tracking his hand. “You're covered in blood.”

“Yeah,” he grimaced, holding his hands out for her to examine. “This century doesn't exactly understand health and safety and I don't know where the first aid kit is. I have gloves in there, but I can't find it.”

“I think the Doctor picked it up,” she said, giving his arm a gentle tug. “C'mon, I'll help you clean up.”

He followed Rose down the hallway and into a small water closet that was a tight squeeze for the two of them, bodies brushing against each other in a way that might have been arousing if their friendship wasn't layered between them. Indoor plumbing had yet to fully reach Scotland, so where there would one day be a sink and a toilet, there was instead a bucket filled with water, the surface covered in a thin layer of ice that Rose cracked with the knuckles. Jack twisted and turned before managing to perch awkwardly on the edge of stone shelf, parting his legs to allow Rose was able to stand between them. A faint scent of flowers drifted from her, the comforting familiarity of her perfume made him want to rest against her, eyes closed as she tended to him.

Rose took his left hand in hers and applied a damp cloth to it, working the dried blood from the back of it. “You okay?”

“Just a little tired,” he said, fighting a yawn. “More than ready for my bed.” He lost the battle and yawned. “So much for Ian Dury.”

“This time I think the TARDIS is to blame,” she said. ““Between her an' the Doctor, it's a miracle we even get to half the places we want. Remember when we wanted to go shoppin' but she took us to that weird aquarium thing where the water was like jelly?”

“And the glow-in-the-dark penises?”

“They weren't penises,” she laughed. “They were antennae.”

“Listen,” Jack said, eyes crinkled in the corners. “If it looks like a penis, talks like a penis, and tastes like a penis, it's a penis.”

Rose paused and stared at him. “When did you taste it?”

“A gentleman never tells.”

“You're havin' me on,” she decided with a laugh. “You're definitely takin' the piss.”

“Only a little,” he said. “Forgive me?”

“Course,” she grinned, pinks cheek. She rubbed at his hand a little more vigorously than before. “This stuff that's got Zoe all worried, what d'you think about it?”

Jack observed the fall of Rose's hair over her brow as he considered the question. Torchwood was a ubiquitous organisation in his time, their fingers in many different pies, but there was nothing ominous about them; they were one of the most transparent organisations in existence with yearly audits, inspections, and public access. They set the gold standard for how galactic organisations should function and, to him, being afraid of Torchwood was like being afraid of the BBC in the early 21st century. It was a public service organisation and nothing more. Yet, Jack thought, the early history of Torchwood had been lost to time – various wars, alien invasions, and negligence had made the files of the early years spotty at best. Perhaps there was reason to be concerned about it in Rose and Zoe's time, he didn't know, and it was the not knowing that bothered him the most, and it made him choose his words carefully.

“I think that anything that gets Zoe worried the way she is, is something to be concerned about,” he said. “She's not exactly prone to dramatics, nor is she the type of person to worry over nothing.”

“No,” Rose agreed. “She's not.” She wiped clean his left hand and moved to his right. “How come the Doctor doesn't know about it, you reckon? He knows pretty much everythin'.”

“He only wants us to believe that he knows everything,” Jack corrected. “Secretly, I think he's an idiot.”

That startled a laugh out of her. “Say that to his face, I dare you.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “I'm not stupid. I'll leave those comments for Zoe to make.” She smiled, and he tapped her calf with his foot. “Don't worry about Torchwood. Whatever it is in your time, there's nothing we can do right now. No sense in worrying about it.”

“I'm not really worried about Torchwood,” she admitted, taking extra care to clean his cuticles. “I worry about Zoe. Everythin' else is just extra.”

“Zoe's fine,” Jack said, eyes on her face, wondering if Rose had seen something that he hadn't. “A bit grumpy but she's getting better at that.”

“No, it's just...” she paused and looked troubled. “When you were gone, she worked herself to the bone to try an' find a way to save you. If she thinks that Torchwood is a threat to us, to the people she loves, she's goin' to try an' find a way to stop it, an' I don't want her to get hurt.”

He slid his hand out from under hers and grasped her palms in his. “This is different. She's not alone any more. We're here, the Doctor's here, she's going to be fine.”

“Yeah,” she said, unconvincingly. “It's just...she's my little sister. I worry.”

Jack thought of Gray, his hand slipping from his, and grief pressed against his throat. “I know. I understand. I do.”

She cleared her throat and dipped his hands in the cold water that stung, changing the subject. “I always forget how hard blood is to wash off.”

“It'll come off,” he said around a fresh yawn. “It always does.”

“Speakin' from experience?”

He smiled tiredly. “I saw enough blood during my time as a Time Agent. I used to come back dripping in it sometimes.”

Rose's face crinkled. “God. What were you doin'?”

“Surprisingly, nothing bad,” Jack said. “It's just that we'd often go to time periods that were a little dangerous and sometimes we'd get injured.” He stretched his knee out, satisfied by the pop it made. “Once we went to the 46th century, Bangladesh, to chase down a rogue group of synths –”

“Synths?”

“Synthetics,” he explained. “Artificially-created lifeforms like – er – that guy from Star Trek, what's his name?”

“Data.”

“Yeah, him, just more advanced.” Rose focused her attention on the blood beneath his fingernails. “Anyway, there were a whole group of us there, not just me and my partner, and we had them cornered in this grain factory. They didn't want to be taken back in so they set themselves to self-destruct except they didn't explode like you'd expect, they shattered into pieces and those pieces – those very sharp pieces, mind you – flew out in every direction killing the hostages and drenching us in blood. It was a pretty horrible day, to be honest.”

“Jack...” she stared at him. “That's awful.”

“That was the Time Agency,” he said with a small shrug. “It wasn't always like that but towards the end it was a little... _rough_.”

“I'm glad you're not there any more,” she said. “D'you ever miss it though?”

He shook his head. “No. This is a much better life. I get to travel through time and space with the three people I love the most. This is much better than what I had before.”

Rose beamed at him, catching his thumb and giving it a squeeze. “We love you too, you know?”

“Course you do,” he said with his normal, sure grin. “I'm very loveable.”

“Yes, you are.”

His grin faltered, eyes softening as he looked at her, marvelling at how catching sight of her dangling from a barrage balloon in London during the Blitz had changed his life. At the time, he thought she was an easy mark with her inability to dress appropriately for the time period and her stumbling nervousness that fell on the side of charming rather than annoying. She had fallen into his arms, breathless and dizzy from the tractor beam, and changed everything about his life. Meeting her had given him a purpose and a family again, and his gratitude to her transcended his ability to put into words.

Pushing against the ground, he lifted himself and turned, cold hand sliding to cup the back of her head, and Rose had only a moment's warning before he kissed her. Surprise crashed into her, memories of dancing on top of his space ship and the desire to kiss him then flooded back to her; they had both put their initial attraction to one side, separately coming to the conclusion that an on-TARDIS relationship had the potential to end extremely badly, but his mouth on hers, kissing her after she hadn't been kissed in so long, made her drop the wet cloth and lift her hands to his shoulders, kissing him back.

Jack's free hand spanned her back, pulling her closer against him, and her mouth parted to deepen the kiss. Pressing his advantage, his tongue swept inside and the kiss changed from a warm press of mouths – a kiss that could be passed off as only between friends – to something deeper, hotter, and _wetter_. Rose made a small sound in her throat that sent desire shooting through him, his fingers curling in her loose hair, angling her head to one side as he kissed her, desperately trying to show her how much he loved and appreciated her in the only way he knew how. Her fingers scraped through his hair and clutched at his shirt, kissing him back as fiercely, arousal throbbing between her legs.

She was beginning to contemplate the logistics of having sex in the small space, worried more about the cold than how flexible she would need to be, when he broke the kiss with a ragged gasp, forehead coming to rest against hers.

“Sorry,” he breathed, relaxing his fingers from her hair. “Sorry, I didn't – I just wanted -”

She swallowed, her lips bruised from his attentions, and scrambled to pull herself back together as desire gave way to confusion. “It's fine, it's fine. Was a nice kiss.”

He huffed a laugh, putting his arms around her properly to tuck her into him, a hug that felt more brotherly than sexual. “Yeah, it was. I meant...I don't know what I meant.”

Rose frowned against his chest and pulled back to properly look at him. Exhaustion clung to his face, shadowed bags hidden beneath concealer that was only obvious up close, and worry pressed against her. Ever since his return from the Game Station, there was the niggling concern that he wasn't his normal self. He seemed more lethargic, though not noticeably so, and a little more subdued; at times it felt like he was making an effort to be upbeat and charming. She had put it down to his experience with the Daleks, but she was beginning to think that something else was troubling him.

“What's wrong?”

“What makes you think –?”

“Jack,” she said, unimpressed. “My sister's the queen of pretendin' that nothin's botherin' her an' the Doctor's the king. I know when people are full of shit an' you're full of shit. What's goin' on?”

He stared at her, unable to pinpoint the time when he had become open and readable to Rose, Zoe, and the Doctor. “I haven't been sleeping well. I've been...bad dreams have kept me awake.”

Her thumbs stroked his cheekbones. “What kind of bad dreams?”

“The kind based on memory,” he said, leaning into her touch. “I keep seeing my brother. Ever since the Game Station, it's like this wall that I built up to keep the memories away has been pulled down, and now I see Gray every night in my dreams. It's always the same thing. We're running, his hand falls from mine, then he's gone and I can't find him.”

Her face filled with concern. “It's just a dream.”

“No.” He shook his head. “It's a memory. I was a boy when my home was invaded; I'd just turned ten. My dad died trying to save us and I was supposed to keep hold of Gray as we ran but he let go, or I let go, and when it was all over, I couldn't find him. He was just gone. Couldn't even find his body.” He rubbed his face against her shoulder. “I don't know why it's coming back to me now. It's been nearly twenty years.”

She opened her arms and rested his head against her shoulder. As he lay there, breathing in the smell of her, something pricked in her memory. “When we first met, didn't you say that you were missin' some memories?”

“Two years' worth.”

“Now, I'm no expert on brains or whatever, but maybe somethin's not workin' right with the block,” she said. “You should talk to the Doctor. Did he ever have a look at your head?”

“No,” he replied. “He was distracted by Zoe after that Tolandra business.”

Rose grimaced at the reminded of her sister's torture. “Talk to the Doctor. He'll be able to help with the nightmares if nothin' else.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know I should, I just...not yet.” She hesitated. “Rose, please.”

“Fine,” she said, reluctantly. “But, for the record, I think it's a bad idea to keep it to yourself.”

“I haven't kept it to myself,” he said. “Mickey knows.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Mickey?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You an' Mickey seem to be close lately. I know I was teasin' you this morning – _yesterday_ – but...is somethin' happenin' between you two?”

Jack pulled back from her embrace, colour lightly brushing his pale cheeks. “Yes, a little. Does that bother you?”

“Maybe, I don't know,” she said, honestly. “I never thought Mickey'd be interested in, y'know, a bloke. Then again,” she looked at him critically. “You're everyone's type, aren't you?”

He laughed, dimples slicing through his cheeks. “Can't help that.”

“Mickey, he's...” she struggled to find the right words. “He's a good person, the best person I know. He – somethin' happened to me when I was – a few years ago, before I met the Doctor, and he helped put me back together. He's good an' he's kind an' he always deserved better than me treatin' him like I was settlin' for him.”

“He doesn't see it like that.”

“That's because he's good,” she said. “But I was. All I wanted was to feel safe after – _after_ , an' Mickey is a safe pair of hands. I knew he'd never hurt me, an' I took advantage of that an' hurt him when I left with the Doctor.”

Jack looked at her, softness in his eyes. “He loves you.”

“An' I love him, just not the way he deserves,” Rose said. “Do – d'you love him?”

A small, shy smile crept across his face. “I think...maybe...I don't know. I haven't loved anyone before. Not like I'm supposed to anyway.”

She squeezed his shoulders and ran her hands down his arms. “For what it's worth, I think you might be good together. It'll be proper weird for a whilst, but that's my problem, not yours. An' Mickey? He deserves to be someone's number one.”

“I just hope he gives me a chance,” Jack confessed before leaning back properly. “Do you mind keeping this to yourself until – well, I don't know when. But it's new, and I'm pretty sure Zoe knows because she walked in on something over Christmas, but she hasn't said anything about it, and the Doctor doesn't really miss a thing, but I'm just not – I don't think I'm ready to have it be out in the open yet.”

She mimed zipping her lips shut, and he looked at her with his dark, grateful eyes. The thought struck her that just over six months ago, she hadn't known his name, and now the thought of a life without him in it was incomprehensible to her. Lifting a hand from his arm, she cupped his face and pressed her thumb against his mouth that shaped itself into a kiss.

“I s'pose I'm glad you kissed me then,” she said, lightly. “Since it looks like you're off the market now.”

“Off the market,” he laughed. “That's a horrible expression.”

“I'd always wondered what it'd be like to have a kiss,” she admitted, tongue curling behind her teeth as she grinned. “An', just to let you know, you didn't disappoint. Top marks. Gold star, in fact. Mickey's a lucky blo– _ah_!”

Jack surged up and wrapped his arms around her, twisting her so that she was trapped against his chest, teeth sinking into her neck in a playful bite. It reminded her of roughhousing with Zoe as a child, and she twisted herself, attempting to grab a fistful of his hair to yank her way to freedom, but he pinned her in with his legs, a smile spreading against the back of her head. They were tumbling together, laughing, Jack showering kisses over her face, when the door opened and the Doctor stuck his head inside and paused, eyes going wide.

“Whoa! What the –? Sorry. Didn't mean to – I'll just.” His head connected with the sharp edge of the door frame, hand flying up to press against the pain. “Ow!”

“Doctor,” Rose laughed, flushed. “It's fine.”

He peered at them from between his fingers, rubbing his temple, tone accusing. “You were kissing.”

She forced herself not to smile as he sounded like a petulant child.

“An' now we're not,” she said, untangling her limbs from Jack, hands smoothing her hair down. “Thought you were talkin' with the queen.”

“She was beginning to get annoyed with me,” he said, lowering his hand and eyeing them curiously.

Jack rolled his eyes. “There's a surprise.”

“Oi!”

Rose nudged Jack with her elbow. “We leavin' then?”

“In a bit,” he said. “Ol' Queen Vic wants us in the library pronto to properly express her gratitude, whatever form that's going to take. Zoe's already there and she's more than ready to go. Her pain meds are wearing off. She's a little... _irritable_.”

Rose pulled a face. “The walk back's goin' to be fun.”

The Doctor nodded, misery already making an appearance on his face. “She's already snapped at me once.”

“I'll be sure not to breathe too loudly,” Jack said.

“Come on then,” he said, holding the door open wider. “If you're done doing whatever it is you were doing in here?”

Jack quickly dried his hands and ignored the Doctor's questioning look as he and Rose stepped out of the water closet, wondering if he was going to have an angry Time Lord knocking on his bedroom door later that night reminding him of The Rules.

* * *

“Oh, sorry,” Zoe apologised. “Here, let me –”

“Fuck,” the servant muttered, eyes flashing hatefully at her, strong jaw set in anger. “It's too soon.”

She frowned. “What?”

His hand connected with her shoulder and _shoved_ her out of the way. She fell back into the doorframe, the edge of it cutting down the middle of her damaged back, and when the pain cleared and she had her breath again, the servant was gone, leaving behind a strange metallic taste in the air as though it had been disturbed. She slumped to the ground, back flaring with agony, wondering what she had done to deserve being thrown about. Falling forwards to her knees, she peered around the edge of the door, seeking out the servant to demand answers and maybe hit him upside the head for shoving her, but he was gone as though he had disappeared into nothing.

“I hate racist centuries,” she complained, pulling herself back to her feet. “Rose doesn't have to deal with this shit.”

She entered the library and tucked herself out of the way against one of the large bookshelves that housed a collection of books on local history, leaned against a wall as her back throbbed. The medication Jack had given her hours ago had worn off, and her pain had been cruelly exacerbated by the shove on top of the fact that she had pitched in to put the house to rights – righting furniture, carrying the dead, mopping at the blood that congealed in pools on the floor all the while ignoring the Doctor's annoyed, tight expression of disapproval. It wasn't in her nature to sit still and watch as others worked, even when injured; as such, she was tired and felt more than a bit grim, ready to get back to the TARDIS.

She wanted to put as much distance between the people she loved and any mention of Torchwood as possible. Nothing that had had happened during the night put an end to her worries about Torchwood that had been on the periphery of her mind in the vague sense of one day looking into it more when she had the time and energy, perhaps shoot Harriet a text to wear her down into admitting what it was. Now, though, it was at the forefront of her mind and she fixated on what the word represented. Queen Victoria wasn't like Louis XV, Cleopatra, or even Elizabeth II who embraced the strange and unusual; she was steeped in fear and the limits of her time, unwilling to contemplate anything that might exist outside of her narrow world.

Zoe remembered Louis the night she crashed through the time window to rescue Reinette – and by luck of proximity, the king and his court. Overwhelmed was the kindest word to use for how he reacted to a strange woman bursting through a wall wielding a sonic screwdriver and bypassing him to speak with his ex-Chief Mistress; his hands had fluttered nervously when Reinette introduced them properly once the clockwork droids were deactivated and rendered harmless, but he had managed a shaky laugh and politely welcomed her to Versailles. He hadn't understood a single thing that had happened but his mind was open and remained open through the years of their friendship even when he found her strange and confusing.

Victoria's mind was firmly closed.

It was tremendously disappointing and something that worried Zoe. She wasn't able to see the timelines like the Doctor but it felt as though she was standing on a knife's edge of uncertainty and remembered Robert Frost's poem, _Two roads diverged in a wood._ Anxiety tightened in her chest, forcing her to breathe through it, remembering the tricks Yatta had taught her to combat it; she was reciting a poem in French, when the Doctor came up behind her.

“Will you sit down before you fall down?” He asked, irritably. She jerked in surprise, elbow knocking back into the bookcase, sending one falling to the ground. The Doctor caught it before he hit the ground, irritation fading as he took her in. “Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you saw me coming.”

“Wasn't paying attention,” she said, heart hammering. “Did you say something?”

He frowned and reached for her, adjusting the collar on his coat that was tugged tight around her. “You okay?”

“I'm fine,” she said, batting his hand away. “Stop fussing.”

“You promised I was allowed to fuss.”

“When we're back home,” she said as Rose and Jack approached them. “We're not there yet.”

His hand dropped back to his side. “Pedant.”

“Listen, have any of you seen a servant – blond, kind of square jawed, handsome?”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Weird time to get your leg over.”

She flipped him off. “No, you prat, I just want a word with him.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

“What did he do?” Rose asked. “Racist or sexist?”

She snorted. “Racist _and_ sexist, probably. It doesn't really matter. Forget I mentioned it.”

“You sure?” The Doctor asked. “You know we enjoy watching you tear strips off people. It's what passes for entertainment some evenings.”

“You're a comedian,” she said, dryly. “And it's not important. Where's -?”

Victoria swept into the room, stealing the question from her mouth, and Lady Isobel walked two steps behind her already dressed in black mourning clothes; her thin, delicately pretty face was pale and drawn, eyes rimmed with red that she cast down towards the ground. The visual struck too close to home for Zoe's comfort, remembering the weight of her own mourning clothes and the inability to do more than exist. She looked away, preferring to watch Victoria settle herself in front of the fire place that did little to warm the large, broken room.

“Doctor,” Victoria said, eyes flicking towards them. “As promised, I will not keep you long. In order to express my gratitude, I wish to confer accolades on you and your friends. Kneel before me.”

“Accolades?” Zoe murmured.

The Doctor fought a grin. “She's knighting us.”

“Brilliant,” Rose breathed, eyes lighting up.

“Still confused,” Jack said from the corner of his mouth. “What's a knight?”

“You're going to be Sir Jack,” Zoe whispered. “It's an honour, trust me.”

It was a struggle to lower herself to one knee in front of Victoria, and the Doctor had to help her whilst her throbbed in the new position, making her uncomfortable as a dull, hot pain washed over her back, teeth grinding as she breathed through it. The thought of her bed with it's soft mattress and thick duvet and pillows that smelt like the Doctor hovered tantalisingly within reach; she wanted the knighting ceremony to be over as soon as possible. In the time spent away from Versailles, Zoe had forgotten how much royalty enjoyed the theatrics of a good ceremony and found herself tuning out the build-up to the knighting. She was half asleep, head beginning to loll, when she felt the flat edge of the sword touch her left shoulder.

She snapped her head up and Victoria was stood above her, Sir Robert's sword pressed against her shoulder.

“I dub thee Dame Zoe of the Powell Estate,” Victoria decreed, pressing the blade against her right shoulder.

It was over in a moment before the queen moved on to the Doctor who looked as though he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Zoe doubted it was his first knighting. It seemed like the sort of thing he might collect. Victoria gave them leave to stand after knighting Jack, who looked bemused but pleased, handing the sword behind her to a soldier who sheathed it with a rasp. Zoe was helped to her feet by the Doctor, and she kept hold of his arm for fear of toppling over.

He patted her hand and smiled at Victoria. “Many thanks, ma'am.”

“Thanks,” Rose repeated, cheeks tinged with pink. “They're never going to believe this back home.”

“Indeed,” Victoria said, unimpressed, her eyes turning flinty as she looked upon them. “Then I hope that you have the opportunity to tell them before you leave.”

Zoe frowned. “What?”

“I have rewarded you, Sir Doctor,” Victoria said, ignoring the interruption. “And now you and your companions are exiled from this empire, never to return. I don't know what you are, the four of you, or where you're from, but I know that you consort with stars and magic and think it fun and _normal_. Yet your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death, and I will not allow it. You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good, and how much longer you may survive this terrible life. Now leave my world, and never return.”

“You ungrateful –”

“Zoe,” the Doctor said, sharply. She snapped her head to him, a flash of irritation at his tone, before he raised his eyebrows minutely, silently communicating his plea for her to be silent. She pressed her lips together and swallowed back the words she wanted to say. “If that's your wish, Your Majesty.”

Victoria glared at him. “It is my _command._ ”

He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, weighing his options, before he nodded and looked to his friends. “Come on, guys. Let's go home.”

* * *

“Will you just come to bed?”

“In a second.”

“The scars will be gone by morning.”

“But what if this is the start of something?” Zoe asked from the bathroom where she was twisting herself around, trying to see the thick pink lines of freshly healed skin on her back. “Like, what's actually going to happen to me with these scratches? Am I going to turn into a wolf once a month?”

The Doctor rubbed his face, amused. “No. That's not how any of this works. If you'd been bitten then there might be a problem but you were just scratched.” A thought struck him. “Although, if you start getting a craving for raw steak, let me know.”

She appeared in the bathroom doorway, dressed for bed in one of his T-shirts that swept against her legs mid-thigh, her hair braided on either side of her head. He tucked an arm beneath his head and drank in the sight of her, finding her adorable when she was grumpy and verging on petulant as it wasn't a look he got to see on her often. He was pleased when Rose and Jack had yawned their way off to bed – _separate_ beds, he thought though he wasn't entirely sure – once certain there was no lasting harm done to Zoe. What passed for their evening he wanted to spend alone with her, even if it looked as though she was going to be asleep in the next half hour.

With a yawn, she crawled into bed next to him and immediately curled up against his side, hand resting on his chest. His arm came down around her, feeling warm and relaxed.

“Well,” she said once she was comfortable. “That was about as successful as I thought it was going to be. I hope Jack's right that Torchwood is this friendly, progressive institute but I worry that in my time it's not friendly. Or, at least, not as friendly as it might be.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I don't think I helped there. I had a conversation with Victoria before the knighting ceremony, and it went off track a bit. She seemed determined to dislike me and I let her get under my skin when I shouldn't have.”

Zoe looked up at him. “That's unlike you.”

“It's the way she was talking,” he said. “I've been travelling for long enough to know that not everyone's going to be as open-minded and welcoming to new ideas as I'd like, but she was particularly stubborn about not embracing it. You know, she actually said that a woman's place was as man's helpmate.”

She hissed. “Oh, I might have smacked her. A man's helpmate? Honestly. She's aware that she's the most powerful woman of her time, right?”

“I pointed that out to her.” He rested his hand over hers, sliding their fingers together. “I'm old enough to stop letting things like that get to me, but she just set me off.” Her cheek rested on his chest, listening to the rapid beat of his hearts, and he didn't want to tell her about the racism that had spilt from the queen's mouth. “But, I have been able to remember where I heard the name Torchwood before. I was wrong, it wasn't from the 51st century, it was from Margaret Blaine of all people.”

Zoe popped herself up on her elbow, his hand falling to her back. “Margaret?”

“It was when she was imprisoned in the Zero Room,” he told her. “I'd just taken her dinner to her and she was talking about having read files on me – UNIT and Torchwood files. It struck me at the time that I hadn't heard the name before, but I didn't really think anything of it. It's not unusual for me to hear about a thing or a person before I actually meet them. I put it out of my mind and didn't remember until earlier.”

Her eyes were on him but unfocused as she turned the information over. “So Margaret knew about Torchwood? I don't like that. Not one bit. But the question is why would she know? Harriet said it was classified information, and I wouldn't have thought the Mayor of Cardiff would be in the know...Mayor of London maybe, but _Cardiff_?”

He laughed at the horrified, disdainful tone she used to pronounce Cardiff.

“Sorry,” he apologised off her annoyed look. “It's just – you're a bit of a London snob.”

“Oh –” she thwacked him on the chest. “Be serious.”

“I am, I am,” he said, catching her hand and kissing her fingers. “But it's not that much of a surprise. Margaret wasn't exactly what she appeared to be. Raxacoricofallapatorians have a much more advanced technological industry than you humans do in the 21st century. I doubt that any protective firewalls around something like UNIT and Torchwood would be enough to keep her out for long.”

“Then why did she and her brothers go through that whole drama of staging a crash in the Thames when they could have hacked the system?”

“Because each individual member country of the United Nations has a unique access code known only to the leader at the time,” the Doctor explained. “It changes with each new leader and isn't written down anywhere. Hacking would have been pointless.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Besides, Cardiff is a centre of interesting rift activity,” he continued. “That rift Rose and I accidentally created must spit out all sorts of weird and wonderful things. I assumed that UNIT had offices there and, to be honest, I was a little confused in the seventies as to why they weren't based in Cardiff, but maybe that area is Torchwood territory. If it was really established in 1879 then the rift's been active for about ten years now. They probably got first dibs.”

“That's not at all a comforting thought,” Zoe said. “I don't like the idea of an organisation in the middle of the Victorian age and with the Industrial Revolution going strong using alien tech to do whatever it is they do. How much of the technology of my time do you think is based on what they're doing?”

He swept a light hand down her back. “You're getting ahead of yourself. We don't actually know what Torchwood is doing. Making assumptions like these isn't going to help us find out. What we do know is what it's going to be three thousand years from now in Jack's time and that, _once_ , at Christmas, they put together a weapon for Harriet.”

Zoe flopped onto her back, wincing at the move, but she glared up at the ceiling. “Part of me wants to go see Harriet and shout at her until she tells me what it is.”

“I don't think that's a good idea,” the Doctor said. “Isn't she in New York this week, anyway?”

“Yeah, addressing the United Nations,” she sighed. “It's a big speech. She's worried about it.”

“So, you turning up demanding answers to things she doesn't want to tell you is probably not going to be helpful.”

She scowled. “Do you have to be so reasonable? It makes me look bad.”

He laughed and rolled onto his side, head resting on his hand. Reaching out with a finger, he touched her bottom lip that had fallen into a pout.

“Right now, there's nothing we can do,” he told her, pulling her bottom lip down. “Trust me. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened to me. Once, on Gallifrey, I was put on trial and met a future companion before I even knew about her. Sometimes things happen out of order. We get information at the wrong time and there's nothing we can do with it. We just have to keep living as we normally do and meet our future when it comes.”

“But if it is a threat...”

“If it's a threat,” he said, releasing her lip to trace her jaw. “Then anything we do now might lead us to the very thing we're trying to avoid. Time is tricky and malleable and constantly in motion. It's often best to do nothing in these situations, hard as that might be for you.”

She squinted at him. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You hate sitting on your hands,” he said. “It drives you up the wall.”

“It does not,” she lied.

“It does too,” he said, nodding to the pile of academic journals haphazardly assembled on the chair in the corner. “I assume that's what's behind your recent interest in neurobiology.”

She flushed, uncomfortable at the reminder she hadn't told him certain things. The memory of Zoe Heriot bathed in the warm artificial sunlight of New Berlin, Jaime the cat on her lap, her memory filled with holes swept to the forefront of her mind. Her mind swirled as she tried to find the right words to tell him but he looked relaxed and happy, and she was reluctant to give him bad news when he was feeling cheerful.

“You like having projects,” the Doctor said, mistaking her discomfort for embarrassment. “Which is great because I'm the same. Have I mentioned that I love what you've done with the garden?”

Attached to her study was a garden that she had discovered and tended to during her time at MIT as a way to think over problems that couldn't be solved with copious amounts of coffee and hunching over her laptop. Initially a ragged, ghostly place with dead flowers and weeds that strangled anything left alive, she had transformed it into a peaceful environment with lush green grass, riotous flowers, fruit trees, and a large pond that was currently brimming with tadpoles, having discovered a fondness for frogs in France.

“It is a nice garden,” Zoe agreed before sighing. “Fine. I'll try not to worry about it, but I'm not making any promises. _And_ if Torchwood turns out to be a big bad thing, I'm going to tell you I told you so. There might even be a dance involved, possibly cake.”

He laughed and kissed her. “I like cake.”

“Get off,” she complained with a laugh. “I'm too tired for sex tonight. I got scratched by a werewolf, you degenerate.” She rolled over onto her side to face him, arm tucked beneath her head. “Tell me about your trial though. I remember the Corsair telling me that you had _multiple_ trials?”

“Oh, just a couple,” the Doctor hedged. “You know...nothing too serious.”

“Didn't you once tell me that the Time Lords forced a regeneration on you once?”

“Well, yes, they did,” he said, the unpleasant memory drifting into focus. “But, really, the one I was talking about was a big misunderstanding. Personally, I think everyone involved overreacted.”

“Except yourself, of course.”

“Of course,” he said. “What happened was this. I might have broken a few laws that the High Council considered important and they dragged me back home for a trial...”

Zoe listened to him talk, his voice and story smoothing her worries away.

Torchwood, whatever it truly was, was in her future but, for now, everything was fine.


	16. Chapter 16

Under a dull, grey sky with clouds that began to blacken at the edges, Zoe straightened the collar of her leather jacket. The perfect silence was broken by the low, gentle hum of the TARDIS and the movements and scattered conversation of her friends, laughter bubbling up and spilling out as they all exited the TARDIS before Rose darted back inside, having forgotten something, the Doctor calling after her in exasperated annoyance. Zoe tilted her face up and breathed deeply, the fresh air tickling the inside of her nostrils, making her sneeze. She loved visiting new planets as getting to breathe in alien air and feel alien ground beneath her feet never got old. Bouncing on the balls of her toes, testing the gravity, she slipped away into the tall stems of grass; the TARDIS had flattened a square area around them, the force of the materialisation process forcing the stems to bend, but Zoe stepped through the tall, untouched grass and laughed when it came up to her thighs, the tips tickling her bare skin.

They had materialised on an open grassy plain that looked – as far as her eyes could tell – to be untouched by anything. A cool breeze swept over the land and the grass shivered in it, rippling like a small wave against the shore; the wind brought with it an interesting scent that reminded her of honeysuckle and lemon. She turned, one hand in her hair to keep it from blowing in her face, rising up on her toes as she strained to see if there were any lemon trees nearby; she was planning to add more fruit trees to her garden and wanted to venture outside of Earth-sourced seeds. Unable to see anything, she fell back onto her feet and started when she felt a shoulder against her thigh. Looking down, Jack was crouched in the grass next to her, attention caught by a small bird with yellow and blue markings on its chest. He had his hand extended, index finger stretched out, quiet clucking sounds emerging from his mouth as he attempted to coax it onto him.

Fondness warred with amusement. “What are you doing?”

Jack didn't look up at her. “Being friendly. Careful when you move, I don't want you to frighten it away.”

Her fingertips grazed the top of his head before stepping away, taking care to be careful as requested, leaving him to chirp at the bird. She ambled over to Rose who was leaning against the TARDIS, hands looped behind her back, eyes sparkling as she teased the Doctor who ignored her with a smile curved on his mouth.

“Have I ever been to a funfair before?” Zoe asked, leaning next to her. “I've been trying to remember but I can't.”

Rose looked away from the Doctor, a light pink blush in her cheeks. “Nope. Nan an' Granddad Prentice were going to take us when we were little but then Granddad died an' we never went.”

“The two of you break my heart sometimes,” Jack said, slowly rising to his feet, his new avian friend settled on his finger, feathers puffing out as it chirruped happily. “We had great funfairs on the Boeshane. Ferris wheels taller than the Empire State building and cotton candy the size of your head. Gray and I used to make ourselves sick with it; we'd puke rainbow colours on the way home.”

“Gross,” Rose said, nose wrinkled before her expression cleared. “But I totally want to do that today. I love candy floss an' toffee apples _an_ ' those weird hot dog things on a stick that the Americans always have.”

“Corn dogs,” the Doctor said. “And there will be no eating until we're sick. If anyone wants to complain about that rule, feel free to blame Zoe.”

She twisted her head to gape at him. “I was sick one time!”

“And that's enough for me to institute a blanket rule,” he said. “I don't want you chucking up on me again. Once a week is enough, thanks.”

“That wasn't my fault either, I'd just been attacked by a werewolf,” she reminded him, tugging on the bottom of her jacket. “Besides, that rollercoaster in Blackpool was faster than I expected, and I only threw up on your leather jacket. You were able to wipe it off.”

He shook his head. “No eating until we're sick.”

Rose sniffed. “Spoilsport.”

He ignored her, watching Jack softly stroke the feathered chest of his bird. “You made a new friend there, Jack?”

“I think so,” he said with a smile. “No idea what kind it is though. It seems to resemble a goldfinch but look here?” He gently ran his finger over the feathers on its wings. “Do you see how it changes colour?”

The Doctor slipped his glasses on. “That's interesting. Perhaps some sort of guanine nanocrystals to facilitate the colour change? Or maybe the feathers themselves react to physical stimuli?”

Jack nodded. “Possibly heat based as well. You try it, you run colder than I do.”

Carefully and slowly, so as not to spook the small bird, he stretched a long finger out and stroked the bird's feathers, the colour rippling with change.

“Interesting,” he said. “We could –”

“Let the bird go and have fun like we planned?” Zoe suggested from behind them. “Removing it from it's natural habitat might not be the best idea in the world.” Their eyes cast down in disappointment. “Come on, don't look at me like that. Jack, you know better than to play with birds you can't keep; Doctor, Jack doesn't need any encouragement.”

Rose shook her head in confusion. “Every time. This happens every time we leave the TARDIS.”

Jack scuffed his foot, petulant but accepting. “Can you at least take a picture so I can run it through the TARDIS later?”

Conceding, Zoe removed her phone and flicked through the screen before opening the camera app and snapping a quick and clear picture; two seconds later, Jack's phone vibrated in his pocket. Reluctant to let his new friend go, Jack raised his finger in front of hid face and spoke softly to the bird before gently releasing it back to the ground. It hopped three times before its wings stretched, revealing hitherto unknown swathes of colour on the underside that made Jack groan with want; it beat its wings, lifting itself up into the air, catching a passing wind current as Jack's eyes followed it with the greedy hunger of curiosity.

The disappointment didn't last – it never did with Jack – and he turned to them, a grin on his face.

“Right then,” he said, clapping his hands. “Fun times at the funfair awaits. I'm going to try my hand at winning a goldfish and possibly a teddy bear. Do you think they do that here? Teddy bears? I kind of want to win one for Mickey just so he gets all embarrassed about it.”

“I think they do teddy bears,” the Doctor said, offering his arm to Rose as Zoe double checked that the TARDIS was locked. “But why do you want a goldfish?”

“It's just one of those things you win at funfairs, isn't it?” He said, waiting for Zoe, arm stretched that he dropped over her shoulders when she reached him, hers looping around his waist. “Although we didn't so much have goldfish on the Boeshane as _mechanical_ goldfish, which were cool, but I once took our family one apart to see how it worked and Gray wouldn't stop crying until I went out and won him a new one.”

“That sounds...traumatising,” Zoe decided. “And slightly pathological to boot.”

“You never took anything apart when you were a kid?”

“Not the family pet.”

“It wasn't alive!”

“Gray seemed to think so.”

“Yeah, well, Gray was always a little slow,” Jack said before laughing. “No, that's a lie. He wasn't, but he bonded with absolutely everything. We had to upgrade the house's AI once and instead of the voice we'd grown up with, we had a new one greeting us when we got home from school. He couldn't sleep properly for months because he couldn't deal with a stranger in the house.”

The Doctor's eyes crinkled at the corners. “Your brother sounds like he was a character.”

“He was.” The pain of talking about Gray faded the more he fleshed his brother out for his friends, breathing life back into the stale memories that had haunted him for so long. “So, I'm going to win a goldfish and maybe name it Gray.”

“I think I'd like a goldfish,” the Doctor mused. “Maybe I won't name it though.”

“An' what are _you_ goin' to do with a goldfish?” Rose asked, sceptically. “You're not exactly a pet type of person.”

“No, not really,” he agreed. “I like dogs, but the TARDIS isn't exactly a safe place for a dog. But I want a goldfish because I'm studying optical nerves and how to enhance them for the Gilraenians. They're an amphibian species and they've been having trouble with their vision over the last five generations. I said I'd help.”

Zoe looked to him. “When did you agree to that?”

“About five hundred years ago,” he admitted, making them all laugh. “All right, don't give me that! Things got away from me a little. It's not like I'm in any rush. I don't know if you lot have noticed but I do have a time machine.”

Rose shook her head. “Sorry, no, I'm still stuck on you wantin' to use goldfish as an experiment.”

“Only the one,” the Doctor said with a smile that attempted to charm her. “And I won't hurt it, I just want to study how their eyes are affected by different light rays. It's just like me shining a multicoloured torch into your eyes. Nothing to worry about.”

Rose looked to Zoe for confirmation but her sister just shrugged.

“I mean, it sounds legit,” she said, sweeping her hair from her eyes. “But I focused my biology courses on neurophysiology than anything macrobiological beyond the required courses. For all I know, he could be building an army of goldfish in his lab and my first warning would be when they come to kill me in my sleep.”

The Doctor spun so that he was walking backwards, a curious expression on his face. “Why would I build an army of goldfish?”

“Why would you do any number of things you do?” She asked in return. “I've seen you eat pizza with banana on it.”

Jack groaned. “Please don't remind me of that. I'm still trying to get over the memory of it.”

“It was nice!”

“So I think an army of goldfish wouldn't be the weirdest thing you'd do in your spare time,” Zoe said. “But, hey, if it keeps you from faffing with my coffee machine, more power to you.”

The Doctor, unable to think of anything to say in response, settled for the time-honoured Tyler tradition of settling such conversations – he blew a raspberry at her; in retaliation, she ripped off a handful of grass and threw it at him before yelping in surprise when he lunged for her. She scarified Jack to make her escape, running through the long grass with the Doctor on her heels and Rose and Jack's laughter chasing them.

It wasn't difficult for the Doctor to catch her, and she laughed loudly when he hoisted her up and over his shoulder, twirling her around; her eyes were bright and the urge to kiss her was strong when he set her back on her feet. Barely resisting, he crouched in front of her to give her a piggyback as they made their way back to Rose and Jack who were ambling through the grass hand in hand. Her legs on either side of him, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, and her familiar weight against him, the Doctor found himself smiling as he walked back to his friends, pleased that everyone was relaxed and happy after the events of the Torchwood Estate and Queen Victoria.

The lazy day they spent on the TARDIS the day before had helped everyone recover and stop yawning so widely he was able to count their teeth and bounce a pea off their tonsils. Zoe's back had recovered nicely, nothing of the werewolf's claws remained, and whilst he had needed a fresh sample of her blood to run again since he had picked up aberrations the first time around, she was perfectly fine.

Feeling that they needed an easy day out, he had suggest the Krakov Funfair – one of the most renowned funfairs of the 23rd century that was at the height of its popularity. Normally, they weren't a funfair or theme park group of people, though they did enjoy the occasional foray to Disney World and the odd rollercoaster ride when there was nothing else to do and they were in the area; and once, he and Zoe had ridden the rollercoaster at Blackpool in the 48th century when they were avoiding an enamoured Judoon that had taken a liking to the Doctor in the year they spent alone together after Zoe's return from France. Otherwise, they generally preferred markets, cities, shopping centres – anywhere that there was a large concentration of people that they could mix with and get a feel for the local culture. Yet, he sensed a lingering lethargy in his friends that morning over breakfast and decided that a day spent at a funfair might help to shake off the Torchwood experience and help them find their joy quicker.

In particular he felt that Zoe and Jack needed something nonsensically fun. Since he slept next to Zoe – or rather spent time watching her sleep – he knew that she had nightmares. She had jerked awake three times during the night with the word Torchwood on her lips, heart pounding in her chest, before falling asleep in the tight embrace of his arms; and Jack was also besieged by nightmares, often wandering the TARDIS when he thought everyone else was asleep, though he had yet come to the Doctor for help. He hoped Jack would come to him when he was ready, but in the meantime he was able to provide plenty of distractions.

“Go on then,” Rose said, once he set Zoe back down.“I know you're probably dyin' to give us the history of this place.”

“Why do you encourage him?” Jack asked. “We don't need the tourist spiel.”

“I want it.”

“Well, it does have an interesting history,” the Doctor began with a sniff. “But I'd hate to bore you with it.”

“Oh, no,” Zoe teased. “Jack, you've hurt his feelings.”

A heavy, resigned sigh tempered with laughter sounded behind the Doctor.

“I'm sorry, Doctor,” Jack apologised. “Will you please tell us everything you know about this planet and the funfair? I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep tonight without it.”

“Sarcasm to one side, _yes_ , I will tell you, captain, because let it never be said that I don't provide the full experience for my friends.” The Doctor met Jack's grinning eyes over his shoulder. “The Krakov Funfair started like this –”

It began as a travelling circus from the planet of Drax in the neighbouring solar system. A huge carnival ship that moved through the stars, stopping at star bases and colonised planets and asteroid settlements where they would set up for months at a time and peddle their wares and showcase their abilities. Some people joined them, some people left, but they kept moving through the solar systems until mechanical difficulties forced them to set down on Krakov to facilitate repairs. At the time, the Krakovians were a primarily agricultural society with technology geared towards eking a living out of the soil. They relished the entertainment that the circus bought and, slowly, they folded the travellers into their way of life and their community and the Krakov Funfair was born, helping to bring much needed tourism and money to the planet.

“And they never left?” Zoe asked. “They just stayed here?”

“They liked it here,” he said. “And why wouldn't they? By the time they fixed their ship, they had fallen in love with the natives, had children, and built homes. They'd set down roots here and saw no sense in ripping them up to return to their nomadic lifestyle. They were happy so they stayed.”

In the distance, the top of the funfair became visible over the blanket of treetops, a forest that they had to walk through.

Rose's hip bumped his. “Did you have funfairs back home?”

The unexpectedness of the question surprised him as Rose and Jack tended not to ask him questions about Gallifrey, cautious about salting the wounds from its destruction. “Not really. I mean...the Gallifreyans did, but I was always much too serious for those kinds of things being a Time Lord and all.”

Her tongue curled against her teeth. “Strange to think of you as bein' all serious an' stuffy.”

“Oh, you should have met me when I first came to Earth,” he said. “You would've hated me. Absolutely no sense of humour, at least not one you humans would have got.”

Zoe hopped up onto a bounder and balanced on the balls of her toes, frozen in a moment like a ballerina mid pirouette. “I'd like to meet that younger you. I think it'd be fun.”

“For you maybe.”

“Exactly.” She jumped down. “Why else would I do it?”

He met her eyes and a smile pulled at his mouth before looking away. He understood why she wanted to keep things between them private for a time, but it was difficult not to reach out and touch her when she looked so charming in her white button up dress, leather jacket, and shoes that matched his. Her pleasure at finding pair almost identical to his that morning had made him jump out of the shower, thinking she was in trouble as she called his name, stumbling into their bedroom wet and naked, sonic screwdriver held aloft only to see her excitedly pointing at her feet. _Look_ , she had said around a laugh, _we match_!

The wind played through her loose curls, sending a handful scattering across her eyes that she brushed away, and he was struck, once more, by the strength of his feelings for her. Sometimes he wondered if what he felt for her, the sheer force of it, was the result of some chemical imbalance in him, something gone wrong with his regeneration, because it seemed impossible – and impractical – to desire her on such a constant basis. It wasn't just sexual desire that slipped through him and choked the breath from his lungs, but the desire to be around her and to hear her voice and watch her read and gaze at her as she drank her coffee also.

Everything about her consumed him.

“Er – guys,” Jack said ten minutes later, stopping on the wild, overgrown path to point up ahead. “Is it me or does the funfair look a little...rusted?”

As one, their eyes swung up to look at the Ferris wheel that, upon closer inspection, did look a little old; now that they were paying attention, they heard the absence of voices and laughter and music that were typical staples of funfairs. The Doctor looked around and noticed for the first time that they hadn't passed anyone on their walk through the forest, a path that should have been teeming with people. Beneath his feet, he frowned at the path that looked as though it hadn't been trodden on for years, and everything around them looked unkempt and wild, as though Mother Nature was in the process of reclaiming what was hers.

As they drew level with the entrance, he saw that the doors were jammed in an awkward, open position. Thick vines twisted up the sides of the door, cracking the wood under the strength of it, and moss spread from the base and climbed up to the top; words that were once fresh and vibrantly painted were peeled and faded, bleached under the sunlight. He reached out and touched his fingers to the wood, rubbing his fingertips together at the damp softness that greeted him. The doors had been left to go to rot for. long time. He removed his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and began to scan the area.

_So much for our fun day out,_ the Doctor thought, his screwdriver buzzing.

“This is ominous,” Rose said, sleeves tugged down over her hands, eyes sweeping over the area with a wariness developed from experience. “This is really ominous.”

“There's no one inside,” Jack said, peering through the gap in the entrance doors. “Not that I can see anyway.”

“Here.” Zoe removed her phone and tossed it to Jack. “Scan for life signs.”

He threw a pointed look at the Doctor. “If the Doctor ever returns my manipulator, I won't need to borrow your things.”

“Vortex manipulators are cheap and nasty and they shorten lifespans with each use,” the Doctor said, reeling off the same list of facts he had been using since Jack's manipulator had started sparking after Rose's coronation ceremony on Kanag. “It's a miracle you haven't been turned inside out yet.”

“You're a snob,” he said, shoving his arm through the gap and holding the phone steady for it to scan. “You've got the TARDIS and you're a complete snob when it comes to other forms of time travel.”

“Yeah, I am,” the Doctor agreed. “I'm also your friend and don't want you to explode.”

The phone beeped. Jack pulled his arm back inside and looked at the results. “Nothing. No one's in there. There aren't even animal life signs.”

“There are definitely animals out here,” Rose said, gesturing back towards the forest where a flock of birds burst out of the canopy and soared high up into the sky. She watched as they flew close to the funfair but veered away and headed in the opposite direction. “Doesn't look like they want to be here.”

The Doctor stared up at the wooden walls. “There's no security shield keeping them out. There must be something we can't detect just yet.”

Zoe tied her hair back into a ponytail. “Dangerous?”

“Maybe,” he said, distracted. “Don't know yet.”

It took all four of them pushing against one of the doors to force it open just enough for them to slip through. Behind the door were a tangle of weeds and thick vines that grew into the cracks beneath the doors and made them stumble on their way in. Catching Rose before she hit the ground, the Doctor looked around. The funfair was obviously abandoned: old food stands had rotted, their roofs collapsed in on themselves; the once hard-packed ground of earth was covered in a wave of grass and weeds that knotted themselves around the man-made structures, slowly crushing them; the rides were rusted beyond all use – Jack reached out and touched a small horse attached to a carousel near the entrance, its nose crumbling to metallic ash under his light touch. A cold, crawling sensation spread across his skin at how ghostly everything looked, and he bent to examine the base of the ticket booth that oozed a strange black liquid that was absorbed by the earth, the smell strong and earthy.

A high-pitched, broken laugh cracked through the air.

Rose screamed, startled, and the Doctor whipped around. Jack grabbed a crumbling plank of wood that was raised, instinctively ready to fight back, and Zoe was some feet away, hand clutched to her heart, the other over her mouth, eyes wide with fright.

Slowly, she lifted her foot of of a child's doll.

“Sorry,” she whispered, clearing her throat. “I didn't see it.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Rose exhaled, shaking. “What the hell was that?”

“Just one of those creepy dolls that little girls have,” she answered, bending. She gave a tug and an old doll, soil encrusted in its eye, gave a weak, warbling laugh that faded. “It must've one of those weird laugh tracks in it.”

Jack slowly lowered the wood, exhaling. “That was creepy, that was textbook terrifying right there.”

“Sorry,” Zoe apologised again, pitching the doll as far away from her as possible. She shook her arms out and shivered violently, hugging herself. “A child must have dropped it.”

The Doctor caught her eye. “You okay?”

“I'm fine.”

“This feels like the beginning of a very bad horror film,” Jack said, the air tight with tension around them. “Are we in the right time?”

“2361,” the Doctor nodded. “I double checked when we landed. This shouldn't be happening. The funfair doesn't shut down for another two hundred years, and even then it doesn't become abandoned like this. The Krakovians turn it into a cultural museum, the epicentre of their social history. This – this is wrong.”

Rose brushed her palm over the top of the grass. “Chernobyl.”

He turned to her. “Excuse me?”

“This reminds me of Chernobyl,” she said. “You know, _after_.”

Jack looked between them. “What's Chernobyl?”

“It was a major nuclear disaster in Ukraine during the 1980s,” Zoe explained. “The nuclear reactor went critical and caused a core explosion that eventually resulted in the entire city being evacuated and put into an exclusion zone; it was the biggest nuclear disaster on Earth. And I think what Rose is getting at is that this place looks like Chernobyl now – ghostly, nature reclaiming everything, right?”

“Right,” she said. “I saw pictures in one of your National Geographics a while back. Guess they stuck with me, but, yeah, this makes me think of Chernobyl.”

The Doctor switched settings on the screwdriver. “Excellent observation. No one touch anything else until I check for radiation.”

Zoe kept her hands buried firmly in her pockets. Her previous experience with radiation poisoning was still fresh in her mind. She watched the Doctor scan before he turned back to them.

“There's lingering radiation in the air,” he said. “Nothing to worry about that. Whatever happened here happened a long time ago.”

“Nuclear disaster then,” Jack said.

“Probably,” he replied. “But I don't remember there being a nuclear disaster in the history of this planet.”

“Didn't you tell me once that the Time War has made history a little unpredictable?” Zoe asked. “This could be one of those changes.”

His face darkened. “One day, just once, I'd like the change to be a positive thing.”

Her eyes softened in sympathy. “We should probably go. It's not like there's anything we can do to help.”

“I want to have a look round first,” the Doctor said. “Give me an hour?”

“You're just going to feel guilty,” she warned him. “And you've got nothing to feel guilty about.”

His smile failed to reach his eyes. “Oh, you know me, bit of a glutton for punishment and all that.”

Jack looked between Zoe and the Doctor. “I'm kind of with Zoe on this. Looking around is just going to make you feel awful. Why don't we go back to the TARDIS and figure it out from there?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “You lot fuss too much.”

“Only because we care,” Rose said, looping her arm through his and resting her chin on his shoulder. “Let's go home.”

He hesitated, reluctant to give in but he knew that they were right; looking around the funfair and seeing the abandoned rides and discarded toys and forgotten shoes was just going to feed into his guilt over what the Time War had done to previously peaceful and lovely planets. His tongue wet his bottom lip, and he sighed. He was about to agree when Zoe held her phone out to him; he raised his eyebrows.

“You're not going to be satisfied until you've at least done another scan,” she said. “Boost the scanner on my phone with your screwdriver – amplify its range to get a proper topography, satisfy your curiosity, and then we can go.”

He took her phone. “You know that requires me to take it apart a little?”

“Just don't break it.”

He grinned. “Thanks. Ten minutes, then we can go.”

* * *

Deep in the centre of the funfair, between the twister and the bumper cars, hidden beneath grass and weeds that needed to be stripped away, was a square door that, when pried open, revealed a dark chasm that stretched down and down. Jack shone his torch down into it, revealing concrete steps that didn't seem to end, and the stale smell of trapped air gushed up to them. There was nothing obviously nefarious about it, except for the fact that it was in a middle of a funfair. Not having actually expected the Doctor's scan to find anything useful, Zoe was only a little surprised by the turn of events.

Rose was the first to speak, breaking the contemplative silence that gripped them. “Yet more ominisity.”

The Doctor stepped right up to the edge, toes hanging over the hole, as he peered down into the darkness. “I don't think that's a word.”

“You understood what I meant, didn't you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then don't nitpick.” He flashed her a smile, and she gripped her hands. “So, who wants to go down into this creepy hole of suspicious darkness first? I say, not me.”

“I vote the Doctor,” Zoe said, his head whipping around, betrayed. “Don't look at me like that. You're on the verge of jumping down there anyway. Might as well go first.”

Jack handed over the torch. “Here you go, Doc.”

“I take you all to nice places with nice food and amazing adventures,” he grumbled, casting the light over the stairs. “And this is how you repay me?”

“Do you hear that?” Zoe asked, suddenly. They went still, ears straining, before she relaxed. “That's the universe's tiniest violin playing for you. Now, get in the hole.”

The Doctor scowled at the laughter from Rose and Jack before stepping onto the top step. It was difficult to tell how far the descent stretched but it wasn't the first time he had ventured down into an underground facility. Hand braced on the side so as to avoid knocking his head, he started his descent, holding the torch steady to avoid plunging to another regeneration, and, behind him, the others made their way after him without hesitation. After all, there was one firm rule that they all abided by - unspoken but the most important of all - and that was to never let someone venture into danger alone unless it couldn't be helped. Sometimes it frustrated him that his very human and very fragile friends were so reckless with their lives – he had enough nightmares of Zoe dying on Skaro and Rose and Jack dying on the Game Station to last a lifetime – but most times he appreciated their bravery and companionship as he ventured into the unknown.

In the air there was a damp, stale smell that coated the back of his throat and made him grimace; the door hadn't been open in many years, yet the inside was untouched by the passage of time. The concrete stairwell was free of vines and weeds, protected from nature's reclamation project. He ran his palm along the wall through the condensation and grimaced, wiping his hand on his coat as he left the stairwell and emerged into a wide hallway where trip lighting was attached to the ceiling and various emergency exit signs were faded with age. He heard Zoe make a soft, curious sound in her throat. She brushed past him, drawn to something that caught her eye, and he followed her for lack of anything better to do.

Using the edge of her leather jacket to wipe away the dust and grime, the flat screen of a computer embedded in the wall was revealed, flickering faintly. As she removed her glasses from her pocket, the Doctor pressed his sonic screwdriver to the side of it and fed it more energy so that it flared to life. She threw him a quick smile of thanks before she started poking at the screen.

“It looks like life support for the entire underground whatever this is,” she concluded after half a minute's exploration. “Bunker? Complex?”

“Looks like a bunker,” Jack said. “Could easily be a complex depending on its size.”

“Suppose it makes sense having life support panels running along here,” she said, glancing around the hallway. “Place like this, you want to make sure everything's working.”

“Look here,” Rose interrupted, pointing at a section of the screen that was highlighted in a faded puce. “Doesn't it remind you of the life signs aboard that slave ship?”

“That's a really good point,” the Doctor said, hand on her shoulder. “One second, I might be able to access some more information if I –” arms on either side of Zoe, he typed quickly and more information popped up. He froze a section of it. “Level twenty-four –”

Jack and Zoe spoke in unison. “Complex.”

The Doctor spared them an annoyed look before continuing. “Through to thirty-eight. Stasis pods on every level. One thousand to each level by the looks of it.”

“14,000 people?” Zoe said. “Hidden away in the earth beneath a funfair in stasis pods? This really does feel like a bad horror film. Does it say why they're here?”

“No, but then again, it wouldn't,” he said. “Whoever put them here wouldn't need to say why. There's actually not a lot of information available. The system's really badly eroded, it's lucky we even picked up how many levels this place has.”

“Any chance we could get some lights?” Rose asked, hopefully. “It'll feel less creepy with some light.”

“Let me have a look,” Zoe said, sweeping the Doctor's arms out of the way; she tapped at the screen and tried to access the generator. “Oh, this is nice – it's run by solar power. I do love a good renewable energy source.” She tilted her head back, the top resting against the Doctor's chest. “Did I tell you that Harriet's wanting to push through a renewable energy policy? She wants all government housing to be run entirely off solar energy by 2020. It's ambitious, but she's really enthusiastic about it.”

The Doctor looked down at her. “How often do you talk to Harriet?”

“Every other day, I suppose,” she said. “We also text a lot. You know we're actually proper mates, right? Although, I haven't messaged her since the Torchwood thing. I don't really know what to say.”

“I wish I was surprised that you're mates with the prime minister,” Rose said. “But, honestly, I'm not.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It's not like you had a lot of mates growin' up,” she pointed out. “You never wanted them. It's like you're makin' up for it now.”

Zoe huffed. “I prefer quality over quantity, thank you.”

“Can we get back to the complex filled with stasis pods, please?” Jack asked pointedly. “And discuss Zoe's lack of a social life later?”

“I have a social life.”

“You have like a whisper of a social life,” he told her. “The complex?”

Zoe pulled a face at him and returned her attention to the screen. “Blah, blah, blah, renewable energy, blah, blah, blah – ah, here. There's a back-up generator that seems to be powered by radioactive decay: uranium or something similar would be my guess.”

“Super interestin',” Rose said, impatiently. “Lights?”

“Hold on, hold on,” she said. “I need to make sure I'm not diverting power from the stasis pods. I don't fancy killing people today.” She clucked her tongue rapidly in her mouth, making a staccato beat that echoed around the corridor. “Re-routing the power lines so I can draw from the generator. Now a little how-di-doody and –” she pressed a button and the lights came on. She stretched her arms out to the side in triumph, hitting both Rose and Jack in the chest. “Oops, sorry, but _voil_ _à_! Light.”

“All right then,” the Doctor said, touching Zoe's hip. “Let's go see what horrors are waiting for us in the bowels of this place. Although,” he looked around curiously, twirling a finger in the air. “With this light, doesn't it remind you of that facility on Mondas?”

Zoe followed his eyes, the familiarity registering. “Oh, yeah.”

“Fingers crossed we don't run into any Cybermen,” Jack said, taking the torch from the Doctor and taking the lead down the concrete corridor. “Or, you know, anything else.”

With ease that came from experience, they made their way down the hallway with the lights flickering over head, their shadows dancing on the wall. There were no doors that led off into other rooms, only faded, grimy emergency signs that indicated the nearest stairwells; the layout seemed designed to funnel people to one shared location. At the end of the corridor, next to the wide double doors that concealed the stairwell, there was a lift whose doors needed to be pried open. A metallic groan filled the air as Jack and the Doctor forced them apart, Rose shining the torch in between the gap. Leaning his body against one of the doors to keep it from shutting, Jack watched as the Doctor placed the flat of his foot on the floor, slowly applying pressure to test the support. He lunged, hand grabbing a fistful of the Doctor's coat, yanking him back forcefully as the floor gave way. The Doctor fell back against him as the lift door hit the bottom of the shaft with a distant, echoing thud.

“Stairs,” Jack determined, letting him go. “Definitely the stairs.”

The Doctor straightened his coat with a jerk. “Agreed, thanks.”

Unlike on New Earth where the stairs in the hidden lab had creaked and swayed under their weight, terrifying Zoe with their precariousness, these ones were solid and carved out of natural stone. It was an interesting geological phenomenon, at least that was what the Doctor told them, but as they passed out of the enclosed stairwell and into a wide open space in the hollowed out ground beneath the surface, she became distracted by the sheer drop. White noise buzzed in her ears as she descended, shoulder pressed up against the wall; it was a source of deep confusion to her as to why people constructed stairs and then didn't attach safety barriers to stop unsuspecting people – or human women with a healthy fear of heights – from toppling over the edge. Upon reaching the bottom, she stepped off the stairs and put distance between her and the drop as quickly as possible.

Rose found the light switch and lifted the lever up, flooding the large room with faded light that gasped and flickered before the Doctor boosted the power with his screwdriver.

The room stretched for as far as the eye could see, built into the stone itself, and was filled with stasis pods placed at equidistant intervals, all of them attached to the wall or the ground, drawing power from the renewable energy source that kept the facility running. It was cold as bitter air circled around Zoe's feet when she moved in amongst the stasis pods, fingers trailing over the edges of them. She imagined that the other floors contained rooms similar to this one, filling the complex with the survivors of whatever had befallen Krakov.

“They had time,” she said, her voice carrying in the cavernous room; three heads turned, drawn to the sound. “This wasn't a Chernobyl-type disaster or whatever. They had time to prepare for this – whatever this is.”

“Probably a nuclear war,” Jack said, using his sleeve to wipe at the glass chamber. His nostrils flared when he looked inside. “This one's dead.”

Rose wiped her hand on her trousers. “So this one.”

“And over here,” the Doctor confirmed. “There must be a flaw with the energy system, or in the individual pods themselves.” He turned and spoke Zoe's name, tossing her the sonic screwdriver. “Try and see what you can get from the system.”

Preferring working with the antiquated computer system over the macabre task of sorting through the stasis pods, Zoe crossed the room. The computer station was covered in dust and general detritus – pens, paper that fell apart under her fingers, an old coffee cup whose contents had hardened and blackened the insides – but, underneath it all, there was a glow of life. Bent over it, it took her a moment to figure out how everything worked before she turned the monitor on, giving it a tried-and-tested smack to make the screen settle.

She called out an apology when the chair beneath the desk shrieked under her weight before cleaning the computer screen as best she could, smearing dust and grime across the surface, generally making it worse. Glasses perched on her nose, the words on the screen rearranged themselves until they were English; she began to type, seeking access deeper into the system, slipping through the half-hearted security layers that were in place. By the time the others reached her ten minutes later, having checked the stasis pods and looked around for any clues, Zoe had a wealth of information to share with them.

“So get this,” she said, spinning in her chair, stopping the movement with a press of her toes when she faced them. “I was wrong. Shocker, I know, but bear with me.” Rose's mouth became shadowed by a smile. “About a hundred and fifty years ago, there was a nuclear disaster at a processing plant on the other side of the globe – Chernobyl, except a thousand times worse. We're talking apocalyptic disaster: acid rain, melting skin, huge deformities, etcetera. But the spread of the disaster was slow – I don't know why - maybe the weather held it up or something – but it was slow enough that a small percentage of the population, chosen by a lottery system, were placed in the stasis pods here. The complex was built quickly because of time pressure and volunteers stayed above on the surface to keep it running for as long as they could before they, you know, died horribly.

“By the looks of it,” she continued, “the same is true across the globe. The focal point of the disaster is completely gone – _obliterated_ – but the areas that were on the outer edge of the meltdown were able to put systems like this in place. This computer system isn't unique. It's run from a central command about four thousand miles away and that command centre keeps everything running.”

“That seems really badly designed,” Jack said. “Even if they were rushing, to have the life support system monitored and controlled from elsewhere means that if anything goes wrong here, it can't be fixed.”

“Sorry, no, my bad,” Zoe apologised. “The life support system _is_ run through here. The main system is something else entirely, and it is so, so cool. I'm having a bit of a fangirl moment right now.”

Rose never understood when the conversation turned to computer systems or engineering updates or ship repairs but since none of them ever made her feel stupid for it, she didn't mind asking questions. “What is it?”

“When you're put in stasis, your mind is still active,” she explained. “Not at the level that ours are now, but at a lower level, like REM sleep.”

“The thing where we dream?”

Zoe nodded. “And REM sleep is super important for our minds and bodies. So, if we're in long-term stasis, it's important that our brains have stimulation. Waking people up for that sort of defeats the entire purpose of being in stasis, so there are computer systems that will integrate the minds of those in stasis with a system and create a sort of dream world where their minds can be kept active. Nothing that will make them feel like they've lived a hundred years, but enough to keep the neurons firing and the grey matter from rotting.”

“And this central computer system?” The Doctor asked, enjoying her enthusiasm. “That's what it's doing?”

“It's the most sophisticated system of its type I've ever seen,” she said, eyes bright with excitement. “I mean, this is so far beyond anything I ever saw in the 32nd century. It starts off with the basic coding but look here and here.” She spun around and pointed to the screen with her index finger. “Do you see the changing patterns? I think this is a self-adapting code. It's growing and changing and creating new stimulation for the pod people.”

“Okay,” he said, breath disturbing her hair when he leaned over. “That is kind of cool.”

“Right?” She grinned. “God, I want of to see the inside of this. Think I can –?”

“You are not getting into a pod,” he told her, firmly, her face falling. He pointed at a file on the edge of the screen. “What's this?”

“Oh, that,” she said. “I was waiting for you lot to get here before I activated it since I think the system only has enough power to play it once. It's a hologram. Thought we should all watch it together.”

Tapping her finger against the screen, she boosted the power output so that a faded, static form of a tall man with short hair with grey threads running through his temple appeared before them. He was dressed in a white uniform that Zoe associated with doctors, and he appeared calm and collected when he spoke.

“My name is Ulster Pren,” he said, a crackle of noise in the background – people shifting and talking, child crying as they hurried to their stasis pods. “If anyone is hearing this, then it means that the stasis pods haven't been deactivated yet. We're only meant to be in these pods for one hundred years but we've had to rush to get them together to avoid what's coming. I hope that this message isn't needed but, if it is, and if we're still in our pods after one hundred years, please help us wake up. The longer we stay in stasis, the higher the risk of dying or developing health problems that can't be solved. Across the globe, there are eight other facilities like this, each with 14,000 people. We're all that is left of a civilisation that once reached a population of 9.2 billion. Please. Help us.”

The hologram blinked out of existence. Zoe tapped her fingernails against the computer desk, pressing her tongue up into the space between her incisors and her lip as she thought.

“Fifty years late,” Rose said, breaking the silence. “How bad is it?”

“It's not great,” the Doctor admitted. “But it's not bad. Shift over, Zo. I want to check something out.”

She rose from the seat. “What are you looking for?”

“The wake-up button,” he said. “If any of the other complexes were woken up then they would have sent people out to check on the others -it's what you do -so the fact that no one is here means that the entire surviving population are still in stasis, which means there's most likely a fault with the rise-and-shine code. Probably just an easy fix.”

Rose lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Why'd you say that? Now you've jinxed us.”

“Superstitions are the purview of the ignorant or foolish,” the Doctor said, not looking up. “And you are neither, Rose Tyler.”

“You say hello to magpies,” Zoe pointed out.

“That's just polite,” he said, and Rose pulled a face at the back of his head. “Ah. Oh, dear.”

Jack leaned forward. “What?”

“This is weird,” he frowned. “Am I reading this right, or am I having a senior moment? Zoe, Jack have a look for me, here. What do you see?”

They followed his finger to a particularly complex tangle of code. It took a few moments for Zoe's eyes to make sense of it; when she understood what she was looking at, a confused frown dropped onto her face; a quick glance at Jack showed him to be equally bewildered.

“Is that...?” He squinted at the screen. “That can't be right.”

“This looks like wake-up button is _inside_ the stimulation system,” Zoe said, and the Doctor nodded, pleased that he wasn't losing his mind. “That's a really bad way to organise things.”

“I don't think it was planned that way,” he said. “You see this code around here?” He drew a small circle with the tip of his finger. “It's wrapped around the off switch, almost as though it's suffocating it.”

“That's either a flaw with the original code, or the programme is growing in an unpredictable way,” she theorised. “It's reacting to something that we can't see: a perceived threat, maybe a virus of some kind, and it's trying to protect it.”

“Guys.” Rose cut into their science speak. “English, please.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor apologised. “Basically, something's happened that's caused the off switch, the code that we can use to wake the pod people up, to invert itself. We can't access it from the outside. We can only get at it from the inside.”

“Inside the computer? How?”

Zoe pointed at a stasis pod. “Using that.”

“I thought you said that the programme to stimulate the mind wasn't really another life,” Jack said. “That it's like a dream. I don't know about the rest of you but I can't control what I do in my dreams. Not when I want to, anyway. How are we going to get to the off switch?”

“One problem at a time, captain,” the Doctor said, spinning in the chair as Zoe had done. “The first thing we need to decide is whether or not we're going to help them.”

He was met with three simultaneous eye rolls, and he grinned.

“That's what I thought,” he said happily. “We also need to decide who's going in –”

Zoe threw her hand up into the air, eager to volunteer. He raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugged. “What? I've wanted to see what these things are like since I learned about them. I want to go in.”

“She might actually be the best person.” Rose said, and Zoe turned around surprised as she didn't normally like her only sister putting herself in danger. “Your stupid Time Lord brain isn't likely to be a match, an' I'm useless when it comes to computers. So, either Zoe or Jack makes the best choice, an' Zo's kind of the best at computers.”

Jack sighed. “I'm not _that_ bad.”

“No offence,” she said.

“Come here then,” the Doctor said, accepting the inevitable and rising from the seat. He took her by the shoulders and sat her down. “Let me scan your brain for compatibility.”

“Scan away,” she said, cheerfully. “I've been told I've got a lovely brain.”

His lips twitched as he ran the screwdriver over the top of her head and around the circumference. “I think I told you that.”

“And were you wrong?”

“No, you do have a lovely brain, all soft and squidgy and human,” he said, checking the screwdriver. His face fell. He shook the screwdriver and checked it again. “That's odd. I would've thought – you're not compatible.”

“What?” Disappointment crashed over her. “Why not?”

“I don't know.”

“Scan me again.” Another attempt yielded the same results. She plucked the screwdriver from his hand and stared at the readings. “Dammit. I really wanted to go inside.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said, mind ticking over because it was odd that a human brain, compatible with most technologies, wasn't right for the task. “You're out. Jack's up.”

“Sucks to be you,” Jack said, smugly, and she jabbed him in the ribs when they changed places. “ _Oof_.”

The Doctor repeated the procedure with him and breathed out, annoyed. “Your brain's wrong too.”

“What?” He asked, disappointed. “What the hell are we going to do then?”

The Doctor looked to Rose who was standing off to one side, arms folded over her chest, looking at her foot as she worked the rubber of her trainer that was peeling away over the ground. Hearing the silence, she looked up and caught him staring at her.

“What?” Her eyes glanced between Jack and Zoe, realisation dawning. “Oh no. No, no, no. I've got to get Zoe to do the updates on my laptop. An' – an' you remember that time I tried to download that book app onto my phone in Jamaica? It started smokin'.”

“That's a very good point,” Zoe said. “I'm still not sure how she managed that.”

“Look,” the Doctor said, kindly, holding out his hand. Unable to resists, she put her hand in his and let him guide her to the chair. “It's unlikely you're a match since Zoe isn't, but let me just scan your brain and check anyway. If you're not, I guess we'll think of something else, or maybe put in a call to a galactic agency, see if they can send a ship out or something but, for now...?”

He waggled his sonic screwdriver at her, and she sighed heavily, already regretting her decision. “Fine, go on then.”

_After all,_ she thought, _what's the worst that can happen?_


	17. Chapter 17

Rose twitched her fingers nervously against her side as Jack cleaned out one of the stasis pods for her, lifting the clothed remains of a body out. A small flinch ran through her when it snapped into pieces in his hands. The dust and bone fragments made him cough, but he dispersed the fine pieces with a wave of his hand and set about removing the skeletal parts one piece at a time, doing his best to keep them in some sort of order in case the Krakovians required them for their funerary traditions. She watched him, attempting to ignore the Doctor and Zoe behind her who were speaking so quickly and emphatically to each other by the computer station that it was like they were speaking another language. From their tones and gestures, it sounded as though they were having a disagreement, which was disconcerting when she was about to go into a computer system.

The fact that her brain was the only one compatible with the machinery didn't sit well with her either. She liked her brain, and she had suffered through enough sci-fi shows and films with Zoe during their youth that she was worried her brain might leak out through her ears if something went wrong; she didn't want to become brain soup. While she trusted the Doctor and knew that Zoe and Jack wouldn't let anything happen to her, she was still going to be entering the simulation alone.

“Hey,” Jack said, appearing before her, hair was dusted with the remains of the freshly evicted skeleton. “Don't worry, everything's going to be fine. This is such a common piece of technology where I'm from. We use them for generational ships and the dangers are minimal.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, catching her hand and kissing it. “And I used something similar during my training at the Time Agency. They were simulation systems that projected straight into your brain but the basis of it's the same as this. And I was okay, a little headache after but that's normal when something is in your brain.”

She worried her bottom lip. “I s'pose.”

“You know we won't let anything happen to you, right?” Jack asked. “Even if the Doctor and I were willing to risk your life, which we're not, Zoe would never let us. We've got your back, Rosie.”

She managed a smile. “I know. I'm just...scared.”

“You'd be silly not to be,” he said, glancing over at the Doctor and Zoe whose conversation had become reduced to gestures, frowns, and annoyed grunts, which meant they would soon be reaching a conclusion about their next steps. “Come on. I'll help you get in.”

Rose exhaled long and slow before rising and letting Jack help her climb into the stasis pod, his coat a warm cloak of protective familiarity around her that she readjusted beneath her legs. She remained seated, the back of the pod cutting into her back, not willing to lie flat in something that strongly resembled a coffin before she had to, and waited for the Doctor and Zoe. It took five more minutes before they came looking as though they hadn't spent the last ten arguing with each other; she looked between their faces and put on her bravest face.

“So, how're we doin' this?”

“It's a little complicated but we think we've figured it out,” Zoe said, taking her hand and twining their fingers together. “You okay?”

She nodded her head.

“We need a way to communicate with you while you're in there,” the Doctor explained. “Because we don't actually know what you're going to be walking into. It's not likely to be dangerous as these systems are meant to provide positive stimulation not negative, but better safe than sorry.”

“Jack's going to keep an eye on your life sign and at the first sign of trouble, we're going to pull you out,” Zoe finished.

“How?” Rose asked, and they stared at her. “You said the switch is on the inside.”

“That's what this is for,” the Doctor said, holding up a small circular metallic thing between his fingers. “I'm going to attach this to your temple and it's going to act as your own personal override so that we can pull you out through that instead of through the system. It'll be a little rougher than we'd like but you'll come back to us.”

“You just had this to hand?” Jack asked, curiously.

“No.” He shook his head. “We took apart Zoe's phone for the bits we needed.”

“Zo...” Rose stared at her. “You love your phone.”

“I love you more,” she said, taking the device from the Doctor and leaning over her, pressing it to her temple; Rose winced when it bit into her. “Give it a couple of seconds. You're going to feel dizzy –”

The world dipped and swam. She grasped the edge of the stasis pod, stomach churning. “Oh god.”

“– but it'll pass.”

Even as Zoe spoke, the world righted itself. Rose blinked the dazed spots of light away, a slick taste of bile in her mouth that she swallowed back.

“You're going to talk to her through that?” Jack asked, leaning close to examine it, finger pressing against it. “How?”

The Doctor leaned against the pod. “We're going to use telepathy for that.”

Rose blinked. “I'm sorry, what?”

“I'm going to create a temporary telepathic connection between you and Zoe,” he told her. “The TARDIS will help support the connection and Zoe's going to anchor it so you don't have to think about it. I'm not sure how strong it'll be because neither of you are telepathic, or actually have any genetic inclination towards telepathy that I know of, but you're sisters, and I'm hoping the changes in Zoe's biochemistry from what I had to do to her after Mondas is going to help here. Even if it doesn't, you both have a strong emotional connection to each other so it should work.”

“Basically,” Zoe said with a smile, “yell, and I'll come running.”

“Okay,” Rose nodded, swallowing. “That's...okay.”

“You good?” She asked. “Because we don't have to do this if you don't want to.”

“No, no, it's fine, it's good. I'm good,” Rose said, ignoring the sympathetic tilt of Jack's gaze. “Just – just tell me what I need to do when I get there. Please.”

Zoe and the Doctor exchanged a look, and Rose watched as they had one of their silent conversations that she never understood before they looked back at her. The Doctor switched places with Zoe and took Rose's hand between his.

“When you get there, we don't know what it's going to look like,” he said. “It'll probably be a representation of something that you find comforting, _familiar_. These systems are meant to be kind, and the switch shouldn't be hard to find. The system is protecting it, guarding it, but only because that's what it's been told to do. It doesn't want any accidental activations so you might have to figure out a way to get to it, but pressing the button should be easy enough.”

A thought struck her. “If they can get to it, why haven't they?”

“Time probably passes a little differently in there,” he replied. “It's like when you're dreaming, time doesn't have the same meaning. They may not know they're past their wake-up date, all you have to do is push the button. If it's anything more complicated like inputting a code, shout Zoe's name and she'll be able to talk you through it. If she can't, she can pull back from the connection and talk with us.”

Zoe smiled at her. “I won't let anything happen to you.”

“All right,” Rose said, bobbing her head, still nervous. “Go in, find the switch; if in trouble, shout for Zoe.”

The Doctor grinned. “It's like a haiku.”

Jack leaned over and kissed her forehead before moving to the computer station so that he could monitor her life signs. It took Zoe and the Doctor a few minutes to get her properly attached to various wires before the Doctor touched his fingers to Zoe's temple and his other hand to Rose's, a gasp pulling from them at the feeling of the other's presence in their minds. It was a strange sensation, as though they were in a vast empty space together where they were aware of each other but unable to properly touch, reminding Zoe of the weightlessness she felt when she hadn't existed a decade before.

“This is weird,” Rose muttered, rubbing her head. “I can feel you. You're hungry.”

“I am a little peckish,” Zoe admitted. “I was hoping to have a hot dog or something here. I should do what Mum does and bring a sandwich every time I leave the TARDIS.”

She laughed. “Cheese an' pickle. You're thinkin' about a cheese an' pickle sandwich right now.”

“Don't remind me,” she grinned. “Otherwise I'm going to be thinking about it when I need to focus.” Zoe tentatively reached out and prodded at Rose's mind. “Feel that?”

“ _Ow_ , yes!”

“Sorry,” she apologised. “Just needed to check.” She leaned over, face hovering above Rose's. “I'll be there if you need me. All you've got to do is shout.”

“Geroff,” Rose complained, pleased by the concern. “I'll be fine.”

The Doctor touched Zoe's back lightly. “It's time.”

“Okay,” she said, pulling back from Rose, addressing her one last time. “See you in a few.”

Zoe sat on the hard ground, folding her legs beneath her and rolling her shoulders back as she tried to get comfortable even though the cold air seeped into every pore on her. A shiver rolled through her, her eyes shut, and she felt a warm weight drop around her. One eye popped open to see the Doctor pulling back, his coat about her shoulders, and she smiled softly as she threaded her arms through it, mouthing her thanks at him. Warmer, she closed her eyes again and breathed deep, focusing on the connection that linked her to Rose. Grabbing hold of it, she poured all of her attention into keeping it firmly within her grasp, anchoring it to ensure that Rose was able to find her way back.

Without opening her eyes or moving an inch, she spoke.

“I'm ready.”

The Doctor looked down at Rose, hand running over the top of her head, fingers pushing her hair back with an encouraging smile. “Here we go then.”

Claustrophobia clawed at her when the Doctor's face became distorted by the glass closing between them, shutting her into the pod. Drawing a deep breath in through her nose, she tried to stay calm as a white mist hissed from small tubes around her and filled the space, and goosebumps erupted even beneath the thickness of Jack's coat. It ran across her skin and pricked at her bones, her heart beating faster; slowly, like treacle stretching off a spoon, her consciousness drained from her, eyes growing heavy as she fought against the gas. Feeling out of control, panic swelled and she slammed her hands against the glass, trying to push it open. Almost immediately, she felt Zoe in her mind as the Doctor said her name through the glass, voice muffled.

Between one blink and the next, her surroundings changed.

Appearing upright on her feet, she stumbled and caught herself on some wood. Her head span and she struggled to orient herself before she looked up and realised that she was at the entrance of the Funfair; except, where it had been old and abandoned, everything was fresh and vibrant. The wood was polished and firm, and the paint splashed across the front of it, displaying the name of the funfair, was bright and golden. The noise hit her next as her ears popped, joyful music bubbling up over the top of a din of chatter and laughter. She pushed away from the entrance gate and stepped inside.

In front of her, men, women, and children were all enjoying the funfair. Children ran about, screaming with laughter as their parents looked on fondly. Food stalls were busy with queues that wove like snakes through the grassy pathways, and the sweet smell of cotton candy and roasted nuts filled the air, Rose's stomach rumbling. The Ferris wheel glimmered in the sunlight as it made its slow progression through the air, carriages swaying in the warm breeze beneath the bright blue sky.

It was the funfair that they should have visited, and Rose looked around in amazement, drinking it all in just as there was a touch on her mind that startled her. Zoe was stretching out telepathic fingers, clumsy in her inexperience, poking a little too hard and deep, but Rose focused on the feel of her sister – solid and warm – and sent back a message that she hoped was reassuring. Whatever it was, it reassured Zoe who fell back to the very edges of her mind, allowing her to return her attention to the funfair.

It was incredible, but she soon became aware of the problem that faced her.

How was she supposed to find the wake-up button amongst the lively chaos?

Before she was able to think, a face appeared in front of her. Rose pulled back, a yelp leaving her mouth as she jumped and stared, wide-eyed, at the face that was simply a face – there was no body or head, nothing that gave it size or shape; it looked as though a child's drawing had been lifted from the page and thrown into the air. Odd and uneven lines, clumsy in their inexactitude, had dawn the outline and coloured heavy brows; the mouth was wonky and too large; and one eye was the size of a one pound coin while the other was the size of a dinner plate.

“What's this?” It asked, turning upside down. “Someone new?”

She cleared her throat. “Hi, I – I'm Rose. Rose Tyler.”

“Hello, Rose, Rose Tyler,” the face replied. “I'm Poona. Welcome to the Krakov Funfair, the best and most amazing funfair in the quadrant! Do you like games, Rose, Rose Tyler?”

“I – yes?” She said, uncertain if the face was the part of the system that was meant to welcome people; if it was, she needed to have a word with the designers about how creepy the thing was. “I s'pose so.”

“Then you can come and play,” Poona trilled, spinning in the air so fast that Rose only saw flashes of colour through its see-through face. “We haven't had anyone new to play with in years!”

Her eyes tried to keep up with Poona's movements but nausea settled in her stomach. “Can you stop? Please? I can't –” Poona stopped abruptly. She sighed with relief. “Thank you. Look, Poona, I'm here to help. I'm from the outside where everyone's sleepin'. I'm here to find a button that wakes everyone up. D'you know where that is? Can you help me?”

“Button?” Its badly drawn mouth drooped, mismatched eyes wide. “Why do you want a button?”

“Or a switch, maybe even a computer,” she said. “I don't actually know what I'm lookin' for, I just know what it does.”

“Why do you want it Rose, Rose Tyler?”

“To wake everyone up,” she said, and Poona's mouth opened, a pained, fearful cry cracked through the space between them. Rose's eyes darted around, worried and a little embarrassed. “What are you doin'?”

“No, no, no.” It shook its head. “Rose, Rose Tyler can't be here. Momo won't be happy. Momo won't like this. No, no, _no_.”

“Who's Momo?” Worry that the whole situation was going to be more difficult to deal with started to creep in. “Poona –”

“Momo is Momo,” Poona said, unhelpfully, fading away with a desperately sad look on its face. “Oh, no, no, no. This is bad. This is very, very bad.”

“Wait,” she cried but Poona faded from the space in front of her, leaving her yelling at nothing. “Great. Just great. Now what do I do?”

Feeling off balance from the odd meeting, she cast her eyes around and paused when she saw that while the music was still playing and the sweet smell of food was coating the air, the laughter had stopped. People stood there, their eyes sneaking glances at her as though afraid to look at her directly, and a small frown rippled across her forehead; she raised her hand in a greeting, mouth opening to call out, but panic flared across their faces and they hurried away. Her hand fell limply to her side, mouth snapping shut, and she experienced the same thing when she moved into the funfair and tried to greet others that she met. It was as though she was infected with something, people turning away from her, fearful of catching what she had. It didn't help that the sky was turning dark and a chill wind was setting in, biting at her exposed flesh. She shivered, at a loss for what to do, and tightened Jack's coat around her, wishing he was there with her.

_He'd know what to do,_ she thought, walking slowly through the empty grass pathways, eyes peering nervously out of tents at her.

She leaned against the side of the bumper cars, arms folded across her chest, when a voice from behind her interrupted her thoughts.

“You shouldn't be here.”

Rose spun on her heels, the coat flaring out behind her. With a jolt, she realised she recognised the man. “Ulster Pren. That's your name, isn't it? You're Ulster Pren.”

He eyed her cautiously. “How do you know that?”

“I saw your hologram,” she said, gesturing vaguely towards the exit that was out of sight. “Outside, in the real world, my friends an' I saw your hologram. We're here to help.”

“You saw...?” He began before his eyes darted around; he moved forward and grabbed her so quickly that her scream didn't have time to leave her throat. “Say nothing else. Come with me. Quickly.”

“Wha –?”

“And quietly,” he hissed, manhandling her out of view of the main thoroughfare and pushing her through the tents that were erected to contain attractions. She heard the roar of lions and the sound of instruments being tuned as he made her twist and turn until she was stumbling into a small tent that was empty of everything except a handful cushions on the floor. “Sit down.”

“No, ta,” Rose said, pulling herself out of his hands. “What the hell are you doin'?”

“You're from there? Krakov?” Ulster asked her, closing the flap on the tent and sealing it tightly. “Really?”

“Well, I'm actually from Earth,” she said. “But my friends an' I came to Krakov for the funfair an' saw it was abandoned. We found you in stasis under it.”

Ulster released a breath, and years' worth of tension drained from him. “Thank the maker. I thought – I _hoped_ someone would come. How long has it been? How long have we been in stasis?”

“About a hundred an' fifty years.” Horror seeped into his face, and she regretted the blunt delivery. “Sorry.”

“A hundred and years?” He repeated. “We've been in stasis for an extra fifty years? I thought...it felt like longer, but also shorter. I don't –”

“It's okay,” Rose said, feeling sorry for the man. “We're goin' to help you. That's why I'm here. The computer system's sort of turned the off switch inside out so that it's in here an' not out there. I'm here to find it an' press it, or flip it, I don't know. D'you know where it is?”

Ulster looked at her, defeat etched into the lines of his face. “Momo has it.”

“ _Momo,_ that name again,” she said. “Poona said Momo won't be happy that I'm here.”

“She won't be,” he sighed, exhaustion ageing him before her eyes. “And she'll already know that you're here. Poona will have told her.”

Rose frowned. “Who's Momo?”

“She's the system,” he said. “Something went wrong and it became corrupted. Momo is the manifestation of the system but she's more as well. She has all of our lives in her head and she plays with the memories; she's like – like a child in constant need of attention and entertainment.”

“Right,” she said, slowly, trying to understand. “That's...I don't fully get it, but okay. So, she has the off switch?”

“Yes.” Ulster rubbed his eyes. “Momo didn't manifest herself until decades into our time here. Something must've happened on the outside to corrupt the code because she just appeared one day. At first we thought it was an aberration but she kept growing more and more powerful, and more and more unstable. She runs everything now. You stay here long enough, you'll see what I mean.”

“If you know where the switch is,” Rose said, “why haven't you tried to get to it.”

He sank down onto the floor, bracing his arms on his knees. “We did, in the beginning, when we realised how dangerous Momo was. We figured that whatever was waiting for us out there had to be better than what was in here, so we tried and people died. We haven't tried again.”

“Is it everyone?” She asked. “From the planet? Or just the people from under the funfair here?”

“It's everyone,” he answered. “We don't always see the funfair. Sometimes it's a child's birthday party, other times it's a game of hide and seek. It varies but everyone in the system is represented here. Momo controls everything and everyone. She's in our heads.”

The tent flickered, darkness dropping over it, the flap whipping as though caught in a fierce wind.

“And I always know everything.”

Fear froze Rose in place as she took in the monstrosity that was Momo. Draped in the form of a small female child, roughly the size of a ten-year-old, Momo was distorted. Her skin was so pale that Rose could see Ulster's terrified face on the other side, tiny numbers running rapidly around her body, coding instinctively; her hair was dark and greasy, plastered across her egg-shaped head, and her large, bulbous eyes protruded from her face. She had no eyebrows, and her skin was stretched tightly across the idea of cheekbones and forehead as she didn't have bones. It was her mouth though that rendered Rose speechless, cutting across her face in a V-shape and jutting out over her teeth; where Rose's mouth stopped low on her cheeks when she smiled, Momo's reached all the way up to her ears.

A dirty and tattered pink dress floated about her knees, revealing spindly legs that were pale beneath the dirt.

“Hello, Rose Tyler,” Momo said, her voice high and warbling like a child's. “I'm Momo. Poona says you've come to kill me.”

“What?” She looked around to Ulster whose eyes were turned to the ground, fingers curled into tight fists on his lap that flexed. “I'm not – _no_. I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to help.”

“They don't want your help,” Momo said with an edge of petulance that sharpened in anger. “They have me.”

Rose took a small step forward, hand splayed before her in peace. “But Krakov's fine now. The danger's passed, an' they can't stay in stasis for much longer. They're already fifty years late. They need to wake up.”

Dank hair clumped against the side of her neck as she shook her head vigorously. “No.”

“Look, this is –” Rose started but Momo interrupted her by screaming, the sound so high-pitched it made her jaw ache. “Stop it!”

Momo's hair lifted from her neck and floated around her, her foot stamping against the ground again and again, making the world shake.

“No! No! No! No!”

“What's happening?” Rose cried as she fell to her knees. Ulster reached out for her, grabbing hold and keeping her steady as the entire world tilted to one side like they were on the bridge of a ship in the midst of stormy waters. “Tell me!”

“You've upset her,” Ulster said, mouth bent low against her ear as he curled himself around her protectively. “And that means Court.”

“What?”

“Don't let go!”

Rose screamed as the ground dropped from beneath them and they fell.

The only thing connecting her to any sort of up and down was Ulster's hand in hers as they fell spinning through the air, a scream ripping from her lungs as they plummeted. In the back of her mind, she felt Zoe pressing against her in response to her distress, but fear blinded her, chasing from her mind everything except the terror of the fall. Even forming Zoe's name was too much for her, everything blurring around her before she was twisted the right way round and dropped heavily into a wooden chair in the middle of a large, expansive courtroom, pain spreading out from the back of her thighs and into her hips.

Around her, a terrified silence consumed the room.

She twisted to take in the rows and rows of people that rose high above her, thousands of faces staring down at her, blank expressions hiding their fear. She was willing to bet that the number of spectators matched those who were still alive in their stasis pods all over Krakov, and she breathed brokenly in an attempt to catch her breath from the fall and painful stop. Feeling flooded back to her hand, skin prickling as blood rushed into her fingers, when Ulster released it.

“What is this place?” Rose asked, chest heaving. “Where are we?”

“Court,” Ulster said, tightly, face frozen in a fearful rictus. “This is Court.”

“An' what's that when it's at home then?”

“This is where Momo punishes us,” he said, eyes darting around. “Make sure that we remember who's in charge.”

“Punish you how?”

The line of his throat moved with a hard swallow, and his eyes met hers, stealing the breath from her lungs at how frightened he was. The pads of her fingers pressed into the hard wood of her chair in an effort to ground herself, closing her eyes as she began to chant Zoe's name over and over again in her mind, hoping to call forth her sister like a protective spirit – or a malevolent one, she didn't care, she just wanted her sister.

_Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zo-_

The loud boom of a trumpet made Rose's eardrums ache and her eyes snap open as everyone rose to their feet as one. Gestured urgently for her to stand, Ulster hissed her name that cracked open on a plea; it was only for fear of something happening to him if she disobeyed that had her pushing out of her seat, rising warily and much more slowly than anyone else. Down a faded red carpet that was edged with fraying gold, Momo skipped down it with doll clutched in her hand and her tattered dress fluttering around her translucent thighs. To Rose's eyes, she looked like a child resurrected from the dead and then left in the strange, half-human form it had crawled out of the grave with.

“Be seated,” Poona called, the face floating behind Momo as she took her seat on a throne that was too large for her, forcing her legs to jut out.

Everyone sat back down, and there was half a minute of shuffling until everyone was situated and the heavy, fearful silence grew pronounced once more. For a long time, Momo didn't speak. Wilfully inattentive to the fear that was sparking in the air, she brushed the hair on her doll and readjusted its dress before tiring of it and setting it to one side, tucking it between her strange body and the edge of the throne. She scooted forward and swung her legs, the back of her heels creating a sharp beat with each kick against the bottom of the throne.

Ulster flinched in time with the sound.

“We have a visitor,” Momo said on a giggle that carried on an echo. “Rose Tyler.”

Rose turned her face to the ground, throat sticky with fear, and raised her hand, giving her fingers a small, nervous wriggle in greeting. “Hello.”

“Be quiet,” Momo snapped, tears swelling into her large eyes that seemed to grow in size. “Only I get to talk! Not you!”

“Just sayin' hi.”

“She wants to _kill_ me,” she accused, heels pausing their abuse on the throne. “She came here to kill me because she's horrible and mean.”

“That's not true,” Rose protested before gasping as her breath was knocked out of her. Restraints appeared from thin air and wrapped around her chest, squeezing and making the blood rush to her head; her fingers tore desperately at the restraints and they loosened. She surged forwards, sucking in desperate air. “Stop it!”

“I said be quiet!”

“I'm here to help,” she snapped, temper flaring, pleased her voice carried as well as Momo's. “I'm here to help you all wake up. Krakov is safe now. I just need to –”

She was cut off mid sentence. Her eyes widened as she tried to move her mouth, unable to shift her jaw, and her hands shot to her face and touched. The tips of her fingers pressed against where her mouth should be but there was nothing. It was gone. Only firm flesh and muscle greeted her touch, and a scream echoed in the sealed chamber of her mouth, eyes flashing with fear and anger as she strained forwards, claustrophobia sweeping over her. Panic made her chest surge and nostrils flare, colour sweeping over her face, before Ulster dug his nails into her arm to calm her and keep her seated. Momo giggled, bouncing up and down on her seat, clapping her hands together as though Rose's suffering was the best thing she had ever seen.

_ZOE! ZOE! ZOE!_

Along the connection, she felt Zoe struggling to reach her, something blocking the path. Feeling the force with which Zoe was fighting to get to her helped to calm her down, the scream dying in her throat.

“Nobody gets to leave, Rose Tyler,” Momo sang. “This is their home. No one needs stupid and smelly Krakov. Not when I give them everything they need. They're happy with me. Aren't you all happy here with your Momo?”

In unison, the people spoke. “Yes, Momo.”

Rose stared, beginning to understand that they were either brainwashed or simply so filled with ingrained terror that they couldn't imagine fighting against Momo. She knew that feeling. Jimmy Stone was her Momo and she knew how preferable it was to not fight back; she always knew what Jimmy would do to her within the confines of their relationship, she didn't know what he would do if she tried to leave. That uncertainty sent fear trickling through her even years later, thousands and thousands of lightyears from home where the name Jimmy Stone would never be spoken. She understood why the Krakovians didn't fight back, they had been trained not to.

“See?” Momo smiled down at Rose. “We don't want you here.”

Rose screamed at her, fear giving way to anger. The pressure against the side of her mind where Zoe was trying to reach her was making her nauseous, and the sudden thought of what might happen if she threw up without a mouth made her push back _hard._ Zoe retreated, pulling back only so the pressure eased but she remained there, hovering behind whatever obstacle separated them.

“Momo...” Ulster said, slowly and carefully. “Please. We've been in here fifty years longer than we were meant to. We're losing people every day. We can't keep this up forever. Let us go. _Please_.”

Momo tilted her head to one side and examined Ulster closely: his hair was white when it had once been only sprinkled with signs of advancing age, and his shoulders were slumped under the weight of life within the simulation.

“No,” she said, and his eyes flickered shut. Her voice rose to address the audience. “Mr Pren wants you all to leave me. He wants to toss me to aside like I'm nothing after everything I've done for you. That's not very nice, is it?”

“No, Momo,” the Krakovians chorused.

From the shadows beneath the throne, emerging from either side of the carpeted stairs, two clowns stepped out and made their way towards Rose and Ulster, their shoes squeaking as they walked, the noise amplified by the silence in the tent. Next to her, Ulster made a low, pained sound as they descended on him, seizing him under the arms; Rose shot to her feet, grabbed the arm of the nearest clown and yanked, receiving a sharp, throbbing pain across her jaw was her reward. She hit the ground, blood trickling from her nose, forced to watch as the clowns dragged Ulster off, his feet dragging impotently across the ground, leaving tracks in the loose mud behind him.

She drew her hand under her nose and stared at the streak of crimson blood, amazed that she was in pain. _Dreams don't hurt,_ she thought, dazed, and pushed herself up only to come face to face with Zoe.

“Rose?” She asked, eyes widening at the sight of mouth. “Oh my god, what happened?”

Rose threw one word at her translucent sister with all the strength she had in her – _HELP!_

“We'll pull you out,” she promised, turning as though talking to someone. “Rose. Hang on, we're com – AH!”

Zoe disappeared with a scream, Momo stepping through where she had been, and Rose fell back into her seat. Closer and closer Momo came until her flat-nosed face pressed against hers, cold sweat trickling down her back as her large eyes stared into her.

“That was naughty,” she chastised, reaching up with long, skeletal fingers to touch the side of Rose's temple where the recall device was embedded. There was a sharp shock of electric that _hurt_ and then Momo was peeling the device from her skin and crushing it to dust between her skeletal fingers. “I told you, Rose Tyler. No one gets to leave.” A slow smile stretched her face apart. “At least not alive.”

Her cold giggle bouncing around the tent, madness seeping into the air, and she bounced back to the throne where she threw herself into her seat with excitement spilling from her. Legs folded under her body, she leaned forward, eyes bright as she took in Ulster's kneeling form, a lion pacing back and forth in front of him, shaking its mane on a rumbling growl, the two clowns holding him in place.

Momo, too excited to sit still, jumped up onto her throne so that she stood upon it, feet placed on either arm rest, arms flung out wide.

“OFF – WITH – HIS – HEAD!”

Horror crashed through Rose as the lion's jaw gaped widely before it wrapped around Ulster's head and bit down in the pressing silence.

She screamed.

* * *

_ Outside the simulation _

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”

“Hold still.”

“Stop shouting.”

“I'm not,” the Doctor said, forcing Zoe's hands from her head, her skin slick with sweat and colour drained from her face. “Keep your eyes shut. This'll help, just give it a minute.” He took her jaw and applied a small amount of pressure so that it popped open, setting a painkiller on her tongue that dissolved into the saliva. Unable to stay and make sure it worked, he reluctantly left her in pain and hurried over to Jack. “What's the situation?”

“Rose is fine, he's dead,” Jack said, bluntly, scanning the stasis pod in front of him. “A massive dose of epinephrine went through him before he died, and his body released a large amount of oxygen and energy – way too much for just lying here. It put too much of a strain on his heart.”

“A heart attack then.”

“And an aneurysm,” he said. “But I don't think this is a coincidence. Look at him, does he look familiar to you?”

The Doctor looked down at the grey-haired corpse. “It's the hologram man.”

“The system's fighting back and Rose is in trouble,” Jack said, eyes flashing urgently. “We need to pull her out.”

“Not yet,” Zoe said from behind them, hunched over and squinting against the light of the room. She heaved herself forwards and leaned heavily on Ulster Pren's stasis pod. “She's in trouble, definitely, but the system threw me out like I was nothing. I can't feel Rose any more. I think it destroyed the recall device.”

“Shit,” the Doctor swore before glancing at her, reaching up to curl his hand around her upper arm. “How are you?”

Her head felt as though it had been cleaved in two and she was so dizzy that the only thing keeping her upright was the fact that Rose needed her. Her vision was blurred and she felt that she was half a minute away from upending the contents of her stomach onto her shoes; she was also coated in a thin sheen of sweat that rapidly cooled in the refrigerated air, sending chills and shivers through her.

“Fine,” she lied. “Do we have a plan?”

“Not really,” Jack admitted, scrubbing the back of his neck. “How did the recall device even break?”

“Massive electrical feedback,” the Doctor said, eyes lingering on Zoe before he moved them away to focus. “It ran along Rose's neural network and is probably the thing that pushed Zoe out. It's why you feel so bad.”

“It's like I touched an electric wire with my brain,” Zoe said, swallowing hard. “But there was something there. I couldn't see it but I knew it was there. Rose is in trouble because this thing – whatever it is – it took her mouth.”

The Doctor and Jack turned to stare.

“It took her what?” Jack asked.

“Her mouth,” she repeated. “Her face was normal but where her mouth is supposed to be there was just this dome of solid flesh. She was standing in the middle of a tent, like the kind that you might see at a circus or a funfair where all the big performances take place. You know, the ringmaster, acrobats, lions, those sorts of things.”

“That's weird,” the Doctor decided. “The system knows that she's there to wake everyone up but it's fighting against her. Why?” They looked at him, waiting for him to answer his own question. “No, I do actually need suggestions here. Why would a system fight back against her?”

“That's what it's been programmed to do,” Zoe suggested, drooping over Ulster's pod. “Rose isn't Krakovian so it recognises her as a threat.”

“Or Rose's entrance into the simulation has disrupted something,” Jack said. “Maybe disorganised things and, again, she's perceived as a threat, like she's a piece of bad code that needs to be dealt with.”

“Maybe, maybe.” The Doctor nodded his head, forehead creased in a frown. “What if she is viewed as a threat, but not because of all of that. What if it's the system itself that's been corrupted?”

Zoe mopped at her forehead with a the edge of her jacket, sweat rolling off the faux leather. “Explain.”

“It's not bad code that's the problem, it's a bad environment,” he continued. “Think about it. This isn't the central system, this is just one of the satellites. If the centre is closer to the nuclear fallout then there's a possibility that the nuclear waste's infected the computer systems just enough that it's effecting the operating system.”

“I've heard of chemicals altering computer systems before but not radioactive ones,” Jack said. “Wouldn't it just eat away at the wires?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said, a thought striking him. “Outside, near the entrance, I saw this viscous liquid soaking into the soil. If it's in the soil then it won't be directly touching the wires, it'll just be surrounding it, releasing small amounts of toxic energy at a time.”

Zoe shifted with a grimace. “This is all well and good, but how does it help us with Rose?”

“It doesn't,” he said. “But it's important to know where we're starting from. So -” he clapped his hands and strode away only to spin and face them. _Lecturing mode: enabled,_ Jack thought, turning to share a grin with Rose only to be reminder of the danger she was in by her absence. “If we accept the hypothesis that the system's been corrupted by the toxic waste in the soil, then it's not going to act with any sort of pre-programmed logic. It's going to react defensively to any attempts Rose makes to shut it down. Why?”

Jack shrugged. “Because it doesn't want to die?”

“Exactly!” The Doctor pointed at him. “It doesn't want to die. Zoe said it herself –”

“I did?”

“Self-adapting code,” he said. “It's learning and developing and it wants to be alive but because it's a simulation, it needs the minds of the pod people to keep it alive. Of course!” They jumped at his exclamation, and he spun on the spot. “Rassilon, this is brilliant. A new life's been created out of this disaster – completely accidentally but that's life for you – and it wants to survive. That's what it's fighting for.”

“It's threatening Rose,” Zoe reminded him. “And it killed someone just now.”

“Defensively,” he argued. “It thinks we're trying to kill it.”

“I love a good discussion on morality just like the next person, but not when my sister's in danger,” she said, the pain in her head making her sharp. “How do we get Rose back? That's our only priority right now.”

He stared at her. “Of course it is. That goes without saying.”

“Does it?”

“Zo –”

“Can you two save this for later, please?” Jack asked, pointedly. “Rose's vitals are settling but her heart rate is still way too fast.”

“What about the TARDIS?” Zoe asked. “Can't we use her computer system to link in with this and project one of us inside?”

“It'd take too long,” the Doctor said, a tight feeling in his chest that he tried to ignore. “And the risk of having the TARDIS infiltrated by this system is not something I want to consider.”

The TARDIS computer system was an intricate web of coding and machinery that didn't even closely resemble what it was meant to. Already a museum piece when he stole her out of the junk yard, pushing Susan along in front of him as he looked over his shoulder for the guards, her navigation system had been knackered and her internal computer had been stripped apart and barely worked; it was a miracle he and Susan had ever got her into flight let alone off Gallifrey. They had spent months working together to repair her, stopping at ports and junk yards around the universe while trying to avoid the Time Lords on their trail. Improvising with what they had to hand, patchwork repairs had been made – and adapted over the centuries since – but while she held together brilliantly, he did worry that her computer systems weren't as protected as other TARDISes might have been, so he was a little more cautious about exposing her to an adaptive potentially vicious programme.

“Rose is on her own then?” Jack asked. “We can't do anything to help her?”

“We can't pull the people out of stasis because they're too integrated,” the Doctor said. “If we shut down the power, the shock might kill them: they need to be released from the inside. With no way of contacting Rose, we can't advise her or get updates on what's happening.”

“So she's on her own,” Zoe said, heavily, pulling herself over to Rose's stasis pod and looking down at the form of her sister within. “We put her in there and now we've left her.”

* * *

_ Inside the simulation _

Rose stared at Ulster's body that twitched on the ground, blood spurting from where his head used to be, soaking the dried mud beneath her feet. Momo's laughter filled the room, and there was no time to react beyond blank horror when the world shifted again. She tipped forward out of her chair, hands flying out in front of her. She fell through the floor and tumbled down and down before warm grass pressed against her hands and knees, gasping when her mouth reappeared. She sucked in panicked lungfuls of air and touched her face desperately, pressing at her lips, teeth, and tongue to make sure it was actually there.

Adrenaline and fear crashed through her, making her like a leaf in the wind. Part of her believed that Ulster wasn't dead because to die in the simulation seemed impossible but she had seen so many impossible things since she met the Doctor that she knew, deep down, that Momo had executed him in the simulation and beyond.

Nausea turned her stomach, but she tightened her fingers int the grasp and breathed deeply, slowly calming until she felt in control of herself once more. Pulling herself together, she pushed up onto her knees and took in her surroundings. She was inside the funfair again, abandoned in the middle of the food stalls where people stepped around her, the music and laughter back. Beneath the cheer, she heard the strain and fear that she had missed the first time around, forcing themselves to enjoy the fun that Momo demanded they have. Getting her feet beneath her, she staggered off to the side and sat down, arms draping over her knees.

“Fuck,” she muttered, looping her fingers around the back of her neck. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck._ ”

There was a small, prickling sore on her temple where the recall device had been embedded, forcing a sharp headache to drill into her skull that was as painful as it was distracting. With the device gone, there was no way to get her out of the system without going through Momo first, and, as she was all-knowing, flying under her radar was going to be near-on impossible. There had to be a way to do it though, of that she was certain – as Zoe liked to say, nothing was impossible, just improbable. Besides, Rose had seen the Doctor talk himself out of all sorts of situations, and Jack was crafty at wriggling his way out of tight spaces – the four of them were excellent at beating the odds when together, the only problem was that she was alone.

“Fuck,” she said one last time, leaning into the word emphatically before she straightened up and tied her hair back. “All right, Rose, _think_.”

If any of the others were in her place, Rose was certain they would already have solved the problem. She wasn't like them: smart, computer-minded, quick thinking; although, she knew that they would all disagree. Sometimes she felt as though she was being left behind, particularly with Zoe's change in circumstances - nearly thirty years old, a university graduate, a widow, and so much more. At least when Zoe had been normal, Rose hadn't felt as though she was struggling to keep up because Zoe would always ask the Doctor to explain but she understood more things now and Rose felt left behind again; not all the time, but enough to make her feel more than a little useless when the three of them got going on a technical or scientific conversation.

The weight of over 100,000 lives pressed down on her, suffocating her. She held her breath, cheeks puffed out, as she thought her way through the problem.

Ulster died because he had spoken to her; therefore, she couldn't expect help from anyone else – not even her friends on the outside now that her connection with Zoe was severed. The odds were against her but they had been against her months before when they were on Tolandra in the days before Jack Harkness was someone integral in their lives. Zoe and the Doctor were been taken from her and she managed to rescue them without their help; that time, she used local dissidents angry at the isolationist policies of their authoritarian government, but this time, she needed to find something that she could use to her advantage, something that would give her an edge.

Except she had nothing.

_You've got a brain in your head, use it,_ a voice that sounded suspiciously like Zoe's said.

“I'm not clever,” Rose muttered, rubbing her face. “I don't know what to do.”

_That's all right,_ it said, snidely, morphing into Jimmy Stone's cruel tones. _Just sit and wait to be rescued. You're good at that._

She shot to her feet, cold sweeping over her, and she shook the shadow of Jimmy from her as she pulled Jack's coat tighter around her body. As she walked, people stepped out of her way to avoid her, their eyes not quite meeting but she felt them on her back when she passed. The signs of abuse were common to her, and she found it difficult to look at them and see herself reflected in their fear. By the time she realised that something was wrong with her relationship with Jimmy, she was in too deep; she felt as though she couldn't leave regardless of how many bruises he left on her body or how filthy he made her feel during sex because she had cut ties with Jackie and Zoe, ignoring her little sister with tears on her face when Zoe had tracked her down and begged her to come home. The shame of shutting the door in her face, listening to her sobbing on the other side of it, crawled through Rose, an old injury Zoe had long forgiven her for.

And, in the end, she hadn't left Jimmy, he left her.

She hadn't been able to break the cycle of abuse, so she didn't fault the Krakovians for not being able to either.

She walked the full circuit of the funfair and found that Momo was nowhere to be seen, though Rose imagined that she was watching, curious to see what she was doing. Climbing up the steps to the carousel, she sat herself on top of a heavy plastic horse, remembering how difficult it was to peel Zoe off the one in Rye Park when they were younger. Free for them to use as Jackie had been dating the operator for a summer before it ended badly – as most of their mother's relationships did – Rose tired of it quickly, but Zoe had loved it; she used to beg Rose to take her down there every afternoon after primary school let out. In her memory, Zoe was dwarfed by the faded horse, her little legs flying out to the side as she went round and round in circles, gurgling with laughter and delight and _again, Rosie, again!_

“Are you really here to wake us up?”

Rose looked to the horse next to her, a round woman with red cheeks and flyaway ginger hair was clutching at the bar, a small child with a look of blank boredom on its face in front of her.

“I am.”

“Momo won't let you,” she said. “Ulster...he was a warning to the rest of us, and to you too. She won't let us go easily.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Rose said. “But why?”

“Because without us she ceases to exist,” she replied. “She's only alive because we're here. She's an amalgamation of all of us: we helped give her life. She lives because of our memories. Without them, she's nothing.”

“She's what?” Rose asked, confused. “Feedin' off you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said, kissing the top of her son's head who blinked slowly. Rose wondered if he was even aware of where he was, or if he was somewhere better in his head. “It's been so long and even though she's bored, it's better than the alternative.”

“Bored?” Rose repeated. “How can she be bored? She has all your memories.”

“They got old after a while,” she said. “The funfair is the one that she keeps returning to because it's the most exciting but there are never any new rides, no new people, and the more people that die because she kills them or their stasis pods fail...the less memories there are to play with. She's clinging onto us because it's all she knows.”

Rose shook her head. “I don't understand how she killed Ulster. This is a dream, an' that lion just...”

“A chemical reaction,” she told her. “When fear and adrenaline run through you, it releases chemicals into your body that can shut down your system. So, Ulster's head wasn't really bitten off but the fear of it is what killed him.” A smile twisted wryly across her face. “We've had a lot of time to figure things out. Too much time.”

“I bet,” Rose said, shoulders sagging even as an idea poked the back of her mind, looking for attention. “Why are you even talkin' to me? After what happened with Ulster I thought no one'd want to speak with me.”

“It takes a while for your mind to fully integrate into the system,” she explained. “She won't be able to see you clearly for a time, and we've found a way to block her, temporarily. We can't do it all at once or she'll know, but we can take some time here and there, never too long, just enough to remember what privacy is.”

Rose looked at her hands. “I'm sorry. I came here to save you, but I don't know what to do.”

“It's okay,” she said with a small shrug as though she hadn't expected anything different. “At least we'll have new memories to walk through. I hope you've been to some nice places because they're all we've got now.”

“Actually, I've been to pretty amazin' places,” Rose laughed, tilting her head back to look at the faded paint on the ceiling of the carousel. “You wouldn't –” she trailed off, the faint idea coalescing into something stronger and harder until it gleamed in her mind like the Koh-I-Noor had in the Doctor's hands. “I know what to do. Shit, fuck –” her eyes darted to the child who had shifted his eyes and started showing signs of life as he watched her. “Sorry. I didn't mean – I can save you. God, I can actually save you!” She laughed, a grin stretching across her face. “What's your name?”

Alarmed by the sudden change in mood, she eyed her cautiously. “Nia.”

“Nia,” Rose said. “I hope you're ready to wake up.”

Before the ride even started to slow, she swung her leg over the saddle of the horse and carefully timed her jump, grunting when her knees buckled and she tumbled face first into the grass, but she immediately picked herself up and waved to Nia and her son. Taking a deep breath and holding onto the hope that the Doctor and the others would be able to figure out how to save _her_ later, she spun on the spot, Jack's coat flying around her.

“Momo, I want to talk to you,” she shouted, sending people scurrying away from her, ducking into tents to hide. “Momo, can you hear me? _Momo_!”

Momo appeared before her, sulky. “What?”

“Let them go,” Rose said, the taste of triumph in her mouth. “An' you can keep me.”

Her V-slashed mouth turned down. “No. You're boring. You're only one person.”

“You're wrong about me, I'm not borin',” she said, eyes gleaming. “I'm excitin'. I'm a traveller in space an' time. I travel through the universe visitin' alien planets an' savin' people from trouble. I've met all sorts of people an' seen things you can't even begin to imagine. You ever heard of a planet called Drana?” Momo shook her head, silent. “It's got purple oceans an' _mermaids._ I went there for a picnic only a few weeks ago. New Earth? I was there an' had to run through a hospital because some cat nuns were experimentin' on people. Charles Dickens? Met him an' some ghosts. The Face of Boe? Oh, we're old mates me an' Boe. Tolandra? A planet drippin' in jewels an' I helped stage a prison break. You think I'm borin', Momo? You've never been more wrong about anythin'. I'm the most interestin' person you're ever goin' to meet, an' my memories are yours if you let everyone else go.”

Momo stared at her, mouth gaping to reveal the code swirling within. “Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes,” Rose said, shoving her hands into the pocket's of Jack's coat to keep the tremor from Momo's eyes. “I'm from a planet called Earth in a completely different galaxy to Krakov. I've seen things that'll you keep you entertained for centuries, an' it's all yours if you just let everyone else go.”

She hesitated before shaking her head, exactly as Rose expected. “No. I want it all.”

“You can't.”

“I can too!”

“All right, then, I'll kill myself,” Rose bluffed, watching it land on Momo and the slight widening of her eyes. She was hungry for new experiences, and Rose knew that she had her. “I'll hang myself from the nearest ride an' you'll never get my memories. You'll be stuck here with all the same experiences, an' no one else'll come because my friends will make sure that this entire planet is quarantined. You'll live forever but only with the memories an' experiences that you have now...or, you accept my offer.”

Momo leaned forward, _wanting_ , but she remained hesitant. “How do I know this isn't a trick? You might be a big fat liar.””

“You don't, but it's not an' I'm not,” Rose said. “You're too smart for me. I can't get out of here if you don't let me go. My friends won't risk killin' me, so they won't pull me out, which means I'm stuck here. It's like you said, no one leaves alive.” She stepped closer, desperate not to overplay her hand. “But everythin' I know, everythin' I've lived, it's yours. All you need to do is let these people go.”

Momo thought about that before peering suspiciously at her. “What if you're lying?”

_Dammit,_ she thought, impatience running through her as she thought quickly. “Can we test my memories? Just the two of us, so you know I'm not lyin'?”

Her mouth moved unpleasantly, but Momo eventually held out a slender, delicate hand that Rose took in hers. Around them, the scenery started to fade, the funfair melting into the darkness that left Rose and Momo alone together.

“Give me your memories,” Momo demanded, a petulant, hungry child. “ _Now._ ”

“Okay, okay,” she said, tongue wetting her dry lips. “I know the perfect one. How do I...?”

Momo rolled her bulbous eyes. “You _think_ , Rose Tyler. It's not hard.”

Rose stilled her face and closed her eyes, heart beating heavily in her chest, not sure if it was going to work. Pulling to the forefront of her mind a scene that haunted her, she tried to find a way to stop what had already happened. It took a while to remember the details – the smell, the noise, the fear – but when she opened her eyes she was there again in the thick, dense jungle of Mondas, watching as the Cybermen made their way through the trees. In front of her, Jack grabbed Mickey and shoved him deeper into the jungle, and Rose caught sight of herself, her blonde hair disappearing around thick vines, shouting for her mother who stumbled and fell. Behind her, out of view, the Doctor was yelling for Zoe, his throat opening on raw fear that made Rose's heart pound even though she knew what was happening there.

At her side, Momo was awed, her strange mouth open. “Where are we?”

“Mondas,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. “It doesn't exist any more. It was destroyed, a long time ago.”

A long, pale finger pointed. “What's that?”

The Cyberman turned its blank, terrifying gaze onto them, and fresh fear shot through Rose. “That's a Cyberman. Why –” her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “Why don't you go say hi?”

“Is it going to be my friend?”

Shame slashed through Rose at what she was doing. Momo looked at her with wide, innocent eyes, her loneliness broadcasting from every part of her, but there was an entire species of people that were counting on her.

“Yeah, Momo, it's going to be your friend,” she lied with a smile that crinkled her eyes.

Momo beamed and skipped off, her dress sticking to the back of her thighs in the humidity, doll held in one hand as she approached the Cyberman. Rose watched as she stopped in front of it, the memory becoming a new, living thing.

_Be like the lion, be like the lion,_ Rose thought, desperately.

“Hello, I'm Momo.”

The Cyberman lifted its hand and placed it on top of Momo's head, a small giggle slipping from her mouth, electricity sparking along its fingertips.

“ _DELETE.”_


	18. Chapter 18

“...an' I didn't know it was goin' to work, how could I? I just – y'know – took a stab that Momo'd made everythin' just a little too realistic. I thought if she could kill Ulster by scarin' him to death then maybe she was daft enough not to realise the danger to herself.” Rose shoved a forkful of roasted aubergine into her mouth. “An' I was right, the shock from the Cyberman blew a circuit or somethin'. Next thing I know I was wakin' up in that coffin thing.”

Sitting in the kitchen, the rich aroma of Jack's much-loved spiced aubergine in the air, Rose ate hungrily. Without the sick press of nerves and fear running through her, her appetite roared through her and helped her polish off her meal and Zoe's before making her way through the remains of the Doctor's. It wasn't often that she had the full attention of the others, and she was enjoying being the focus as she recounted her experiences inside the Krakovian computer system. Throughout the retelling, Zoe kept leaning over to top up her wine, making it impossible for Rose to keep count of how much she was drinking – judging by the blush she felt in her cheeks and her general light-headedness, it was too much; and, as she spoke, her eyes kept shifting to the Doctor, quietly but eagerly seeking his approval and praise, even if she was too proud to ask for it.

“It was a good gamble,” he said, leaning back in his chair, ankle resting on his knee. Her eyes drifted to his long fingers that played with the stem of his wine glass. “The best I can figure is that you surprised the system –”

“Momo.”

“Momo.” He nodded. “And that element of surprise was enough to disrupt the pathways that had been created over the proper framework. It looked like it created feedback and caused a burnout in the central system, triggering the secure release for the Krakovians. Lucky when you think about it, because I reckon an abrupt awakening might've killed some of them.”

Jack mopped up the sauce on his plate with some bread, letting it drip from his fingers as he spoke. “They're going to be okay though, right? The Krakovians?”

“Should be,” the Doctor said, remembering mid-sip that didn't enjoy wine; swallowing his mouthful with a grimace, he tipped the rest of his glass into Zoe's. “They've got a lot to catch up on but, really, in the grand scheme of things, 150 years isn't that long. They'll catch up to where they're supposed to be before long, it'll just be a little harder than it should've been.”

“I don't know,” Rose said with a frown, eyes focused on a point beyond Jack. “They were in there for a long time with Momo, an' she wasn't the nicest of people. A lot of them are goin' to have issues with what happened.” She toyed with her food. “It was a really, really abusive place. She liked to play these power games with them an' keep them on the edge of afraid all the time; she never left them alone in all that time. People don't get over that quickly.”

Softness tugged at the corners of his eyes. “They will though. In time. People are generally more resilient than they look. But, thanks to you, they have a future again, _freedom_. I still say we should've stuck around for you to get that medal that they were talking about.”

Heat climbed up the back of Rose's neck and spread through her cheeks at the reminder. So grateful for what she had done for them, she had been thrust in front of a makeshift ruling council via the inter-planetary communication system where their gratitude bordered on obscene. There had been talk of a ceremony, a medal, possibly a new city named after her before the Doctor sensed her embarrassment and made their excuses, hustling them away.

“Who needs medals when they have Jack's spiced aubergine?” Zoe said, grinning at rose. “And I did break out the good wine for you as well.”

“Don't know why you bother,” she said, busying herself with her glass of wine. “It all tastes the same to me.”

“That's because you have the taste buds of an unrefined cactus,” Zoe said. “But I'm trying to slowly train you into drinking quality.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks anyway.”

Jack lifted his glass. “To Rose, who saved the day with absolutely no help from the rest of us. We were, I have to say, completely fucking useless.”

The Doctor scratched behind his ear. “We were a bit useless today. I didn't like sending you in there alone but, like always, Rose Tyler, you managed to succeed. I'm very proud of you.”

“Hear, hear,” Zoe said, enjoying the way Rose's skin burned bright red. “I'm still a little envious I didn't get to go in though.” She waved her hand to forestall any remarks. “I know, I know, horrible system that terrified its prisoners and all that, but you actually got to be inside a computer system that's unique in the universe. You got to interact with it and everything.”

“Zoe,” Rose said, resisting the urge to fan her blush away. “I love you, but you're the biggest nerd I know.” Zoe and Jack both pointed at the Doctor who preened under what he took to be a compliment. “Him included.”

“How am I bigger nerd than he is?” She protested. “He talks to the TARDIS.”

“You talk to the TARDIS,” the Doctor reminded her. “All the time. You were discussing Emily Dickinson's poetry with her just this morning.”

“All right, yes, I talk to her, but she's good company,” Zoe admitted, holding up a finger that turned in his direction. “I don't stroke her though.”

“That is true,” Jack said. “You do stroke her. Sometimes it borders on creepy.”

“And disturbing.”

The Doctor threw an unimpressed look at Zoe who held his gaze as she sipped her wine, smiling behind the rim. “Just because she's a machine, doesn't mean she doesn't need a bit of TLC every now and then.” A thought struck him. “And need I remind all of you that Zoe sniffs her books?”

“Yeah, not ashamed of that,” she said, instantly. “Books smell amazing, the books in the library smell even better. It's like a drug – that instant rush of endorphins. It's perfect. Why anyone would do cocaine when they could sniff books is beyond me.”

“Nerd,” Rose repeated. “An' a weirdo to boot.”

Zoe drew in a deep breath, mouth opening in a rebuttal, and Rose immediately tuned her out: a lifetime of experience having to suffer through her rants about the various benefits and advantages of her odd and sometimes fetishistic relationship with books triggered an automatic response; Jack, still comparatively new to his relationship with Zoe, made a valiant effort to argue with her only to be knocked back with well-worn arguments.

_Silly sod,_ Rose thought with a laugh, noticing that the Doctor wasn't engaging but was rather watching Zoe as his mouth softly curled and his eyes lingered on her as though entranced. She supposed it happened every time one of them got passionate about something, but there was a quiet, settled delight in the Doctor's eyes that made Rose's forehead twitch into a frown. She was used to people being taken aback by Zoe – when they were younger, people often joked that she must have swallowed a dictionary because of the things she said – but there was something in the Doctor's eyes as he watched her, an unguarded expression on his face that hinted at something _more_ , that made her frown deepen.

Just as the thought started to take root, it was chased from her mind when a yawn cracked through her and allowed thought of nothing but the exhaustion that was settling into her muscles and the horror of the last few moments in Momo's system.

Being back in the TARDIS, surrounded by familiar rise and fall of her friends' voices and the comforting thrum of the ship, was a relief. She felt safe and protected but the desire to be alone pulsed inside of her. she wanted to go to her room and try to make sense of the uncomfortable pressure that swelled in her chest as she remembered Momo's dying scream as the surroundings fluctuated, flipping too fast between all the memories, before she fell out of existence in a shower of electrical sparks so bright that Rose still felt the burn in her eyes.

She didn't think it was murder what she did – she wasn't even sure Momo was alive, but there had been a time when she thought that about the TARDIS as well. The memory of trying to pry her console open, desperation to get to the Doctor and save him clawing at her, filled her with shame now she knew better. If the TARDIS was sentient then there was every chance that she was wrong about Momo and had killed something that was alive and had a right to life; the thought of what that might mean - of what that made her - sent a chill through her. She pulled on the sleeves of her baggiest jumper and curled her fists inside them, pushing back from the table. Zoe paused in the middle of loudly lambasting Jack for daring to suggest that electronic books were an acceptable alternative for physical copies – a point Rose was sure he had made just to get her riled up – and looked at her.

“Where are you going?”

“Bed,” Rose said. “Unlike you three, I've been bloody busy today. I'm goin' to get some sleep.”

The Doctor's chair scraped across the floor and stood with her. “Mind if I check you over first? I just want to make sure nothing got scrambled.”

Privately enjoying his worry, she nodded. Bidding the others good night, she left with the Doctor as Jack and Zoe picked up their discussion, their voices trailing them down the hallway. Instead of guiding her to the medical bay as expected, the Doctor took her to her bedroom, holding the door open for her to pass under his arm, and seating himself on the edge of her bed, silently indicating that he was prepared to wait for her. Unsure of what to do with herself, his presence in her bedroom unnerving her, she gathered up her pyjamas and fled into the bathroom.

After a quick brush of her teeth and gargle of mouthwash, she wiped the make up from her face, moisturised, and tried to make herself look as attractive as possible in one of Mickey's old T-shirts and a pair of faded pyjama bottoms. Looking at herself in the mirror, she wished she had grabbed one of her nicer sets of pyjamas but figured that he had seen her looking far worse – not an unusual occurrence considering some of the things they got themselves involved in.

“Ta-da,” Rose said, self-consciously, standing in the doorway of the bathroom; the smile that picked up the corners of his mouth warmed her chest and threatened to draw another blush to her cheeks. “Here I am.”

“Looking lovely,” the Doctor assured her, standing up to pull the covers back for her, patting the bed invitingly. “Come on then. I'll tuck you in.”

Losing the battle with her blush, she hurried across the room and slid beneath the covers. “You goin' to read me a bed time story too?”

“Maybe.” He flashed a grin that made her heart beat faster, and her eyes tracked him as he leaned forward to pick up her book from her bedside table. “Ooo, the Half-Blood Prince. Yeah, well, I suppose you missed that release date what with meeting me and all.” His eyes lit up, an idea sweeping into his mind. “We should go to the last one. There's a huge event for it in London. We could dress up.”

Rose's eyes flicked over him. “Dumbledore?”

“Yep.” The p _popped_ between his lips. “Hermione?”

“I always liked Tonks, actually,” she admitted. “I thought it'd be nice to change my appearance like that.”

His eyes considered her hair. “I can see you rocking the pink.”

A yawn stretched her mouth again before she was able to respond, tears popping into her eyes that she blinked away only to find the Doctor already scanning her with the sonic screwdriver, book back on the bedside table. The tips of his fingers were feather-light under her chin, thumb brushing over the softness of her cheek, and she held her breath, watching him. In the low light of her room, the freckles that were dashed across his cheekbones weren't visible – coming and going depending on how much sun he got – and his hair appeared darker than it normally was; his mouth was parted in concentration, the tip of his tongue visible as it pressed against his bottom lip. The heady pulse of arousal began to build inside of her, tiredness eroding her normal self control around him, and she let her hand rest on the curve of his knee, feeling the cool heat of him through his trousers.

“There we go,” the Doctor said, pulling back the screwdriver to examine it. He dropped his hand from her jaw and turned his attention from her. Feeling the absence of it, she swallowed back her disappointment. “All in all, you're as fit as a fiddle. Bit of a headache though, I imagine.”

“That thing you gave me earlier helped,” Rose said, conscious of the rounded cap of his knee in her palm. “'S not as bad anymore.”

“Still, let me give you another one.” He rooted through his pockets and popped a blister pack for her. He held it out to her but, feeling coy, she opened her mouth, and a smile tugged at his mouth as he placed it on her tongue for it to dissolve, the pain dripping out of her. “You did very well today. I'm sorry I wasn't able to help more.”

“You'd have figured it out,” she said, shuffling down in her bed and turning her head on her pillow, hand resting lazily on his thigh, not daring to move further. “If it hadn't worked, you'd have rescued me.”

His eyes softened. “You didn't need me. You rescued yourself.”

“I did,” she agreed. “Still scary though.”

“I bet.”

“Doctor...” she hesitated, heart beating a little faster while he waited, patient and kind. “D'you think – Momo – was she alive? Did I – did I kill her?”

A series of emotions whipped across his face too fast for her to name but his reaction was to poke her in the hip and shove her across the bed, lifting his legs up to settle next to her. Seizing her opportunity, she shifted closer and rested her head on his chest, his arm tucking itself around her.

“You didn't kill it – _her_ ,” the Doctor said, words rumbling through him to vibrate against her ear. “She was a responsive system that mutated into something no one could predict, but I don't think she was alive. Not truly, in any sense.”

“Not like the TARDIS?”

“Definitely not like the TARDIS,” he said, firmly. “No, I think Momo was an aberration, a sort of mixture of the people inside of her – their fears, their worries, all of them amplified to the nth degree and given physical form.”

Rose flattened her hand against his stomach. “That's kind of what Ulster said. He said that they'd created her an' by the time they realised she was dangerous, it was too late.”

“That sounds about right,” he said, taking her hand in his. She tilted her head back to meet his eyes as his thumb passed over her knuckles. “You didn't kill anyone or anything. You saved over 100,000 people today because you paid attention to the weaknesses in the system and turned that into an advantage. Don't feel guilty about what happened, be proud of what you do.”

She nestled into his side, eyes sliding shut and, when she spoke, her voice rasped over her emotions. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” he said. “It's what I'm here for.”

Rose hesitated, not wanting to seem desperate or clingy but wanting to keep him with her for a little bit longer. “Will you stay? Until I fall asleep?”

His lips pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I'll stay.”

Letting the smell and feel of him wrap around her, cocooning her in a safe embrace, the beats of his hearts slowly lulled her to sleep.

* * *

In a manner sharply reminiscent of her sister, Rose snored.

The Doctor watched her sleep with amused fondness, taking in the way that her mouth pursed and nose creased as something in her sleep disagreed with her, tracing the familiarities between her and Zoe. He was so used to seeing both of them on a daily basis that he didn't pay attention to the familial resemblance any more unless one of them did something that made him pause. Sometimes Zoe would grin and it would be identical to the tongue-kissed smile Rose had given him when she joined him on the TARDIS the first time, or Rose would catch his eye when someone was doing something stupid and he would only be able to see Zoe reflected in her expression.

Humans and their likeness to those within the same genetic pool fascinated him. He looked nothing like his parents and brother – now or through his regenerations; even as a baby there had been no similarities, nothing someone could point to and say that came from his father or that from his mother. He had been pale and blonde as a child while his mother was so dark she seemed to shimmer with blue and his father had an olive cast to his skin with thick dark hair and a stocky build. Even he and Brax had never looked similar, his brother rarely regenerating but, when he did, able to exercise more control over his final form; so, being able to catch sight of the people he loved in someone else's face delighted him, and it was one of the many reasons he loved the human race.

However, one thing he didn't like about humans was their ability to contort themselves into twisted shapes and sleep peacefully.

Rose was wrapped around him like an octopus, his spine twisted awkwardly to accommodate her, and pain lanced up and down his back. He was loathe to move in case he woke her but the pain was becoming intolerable. Carefully, he shifted from beneath her, moving inch by inch, carefully monitoring her breathing, before he removed himself from beneath her snoring, drooling form. He slipped out of her bed and gently tucked the blankets around her, watching as she snuffled deeper into the covers. Affection for her filled him, and he pressed a small kiss to her sleeping temple before leaving.

Outside her room, he groaned as he stretched, his back popping, acknowledging that he was getting too old to hold himself in contortions for too long. Letting his yawn finally break free, he shrugged out of his jacket and rubbed at the patch of drool on his pale blue shirt before making his way through the hallway, tugging his tie loose. Reaching out with his mind, he prodded at the TARDIS who gave the equivalent of an eye roll before directing him to the kitchen where French music played out of Zoe's phone as she washed up. The sight of her swaying on the spot to the beat made him pause in the doorway, light amusement chasing any thought of a quick ten-minute nap from his mind.

“No Queen?”

Dark eyes glanced over her shoulder, mouth curving in welcome. “Can't really dance to Queen, much as I love it.”

Setting his jacket down on the back of a chair, he stepped behind her and lowered his head to nuzzle at her neck, hands warming her waist. “You want to dance?”

“With you? Always.”

He pressed a kiss to the soft spot beneath her ear and hummed, small vibrations against her skin. “Why don't you leave the washing up and we can _dance_?”

“Look at you,” she teased, pressing back into him. “Using euphemisms. Jack'd be so proud.”

“Got it from you, actually.”

“Oh?”

“London, height of the blitz, you were busy confusing me with your powers of flirtation.”

She laughed. “Something to look forward to.”

“Where is he anyway?” The Doctor asked, slipping his arms around her, content to simply hold her and be close to her. “I thought you'd be trying to beat him down with logic still.”

“He made an escape about ten minutes ago,” Zoe said, setting a fork to dry on the rack. “Said he wanted to call Mickey.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “His crush seems a little more than a crush, doesn't it? Has anything happened between them?”

“If it has, no one's told me.” She emptied the sink and pulled the rubber gloves off. Turning in his arms, she leaned back against the counter and took hold of the end of his tie, slowly pulling it from him. “But I don't think so. I actually think they're courting.” His eyebrows lifted, and she grinned. “I know, but it's kind of sweet. Jack's properly taken with him and I don't know of anyone who's not taken with Jack, so I think something's going to happen one day. I just don't know what or when.”

“That'll be nice,” he mused, slotting his knee between her legs as he toyed with the hem of her dress, slowly dragging it up her thighs. “Mickey and Jack together. I suppose it'll save on the TARDIS making another room when he eventually comes and joins us.”

“Soft touch,” she said before poking his hand that was dragging the backs of its fingers against her thigh. “What's this doing?”

“Seducing you.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Is it working?”

“Maybe a little.” His hand dipping further up her thigh, fingertips brushing the edge of her underwear before - “how's Rose?”

He groaned, freezing as though ice water had been thrown on him. “Can you please not mention your sister when I've got my hand up your skirt?”

Zoe's face lit up with laughter, hands smoothing an apology over his chest. “Sorry, but, yeah, how is she?”

With a sigh, he removed his hands from her body and placed them on either side of her, bracketing her against the counter. “Sleeping. She just wanted to talk a little about things. She was worried the system was sentient like the TARDIS and that she'd killed it.”

“I hope you told her –”

“That she hadn't done anything to worry about,” he finished. “Of course I did. We don't know exactly what it was, and I'm not about to give Rose anything to worry about.”

“I know.” She drew her hands down his chest and hooked her fingers into his trousers, staring at his throat. “I was worried about her today.”

“You're always worried about her.”

“More than normal then,” she said. “Shouldn't have been though. She took care of everything.”

“That's because Rose Tyler is brilliant,” the Doctor said. “Like her sister and – never tell her this – her mother.”

Zoe's eyes snapped to his, a smile spreading across her face. “You know, Mum'll never believe that you sing her praises like this when she's not here. She thinks you take the piss when you compliment her to her face.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, with a small, embarrassed shrug. “I've got a lot of ground to make up with her. Besides, it's all true. She's not half bad your mum.”

Her face was a battleground as she fought the urge to laugh.

“High praise indeed,” she said, mouth twitching. “But Mum likes you too now. If she didn't, you know you'd be hearing about it – at length.”

“Don't I know it – _ow_!” He rubbed his nipple where she pinched him. “You're a mean woman.”

“No, I'm not,” she said, rising up onto the balls of her feet to pass her lips over his, and his attention shifted again. “Now, what were you saying about dancing?”

“You're distracting me.”

“No, I'm _seducing_ you.”

“I thought that was my job.”

“We can take it in turns,” she said, arms around his neck as she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him slow and deep until he was breathless and his fingers ran eager traces down her side. “I'm sorry I yelled at you today.”

Swallowing the taste of her, he brushed his nose against hers. “You more snapped than yelled, and it's fine, you were worried.”

“It doesn't matter, I still shouldn't have snap-yelled.” He huffed a laugh. “I know you'd never put Rose in danger, I just didn't like being out of control. I worked for too long and too hard to keep you lot safe that I'm more aware of how difficult it is to fix things when they go wrong now. I let that panic overwhelm me and took it out on you. I'm sorry.”

“It's fine.”

“Doctor?.”

“Yes?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Forgive me.”

“You're very demanding at times,” the Doctor told her. “I forgive you.”

“Good,” she smiled. “Thank you.”

“It is a shame you weren't able to go in there,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her to him as he turned her in a small dance to the music, drawing her away from the sink. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, feet automatically making room for him. “I still don't know why you couldn't. You and Rose are sisters, you should be able to access the same technology if it's biologically based. It's strange that it didn't work for you.”

“We still don't know the full extent of the changes done to me after Mondas,” Zoe said, sinking into the dance and letting the Doctor guide her. “There might be changes small enough to make a difference but not big enough to notice.”

He hummed and looked down at her. “Let me scan your brain.”

“Weirdo.”

“Zo –”

She sighed and eased back from him. “Your dancing techniques require a little more focus.”

“You've never complained about my dancing before,” he said, pointedly, and she bit her lip to stop from retorting. He laughed and pulled her close, kissing her firmly before releasing her. “Come on, quicker I scan your brain, quicker we can get back to dancing.”

“Such romance,” she sighed, hand slotting into his, allowing him to pull her from the kitchen. “Have you looked at my second blood results back, by the way?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I meant to do it this morning but I got distracted by cinnamon rolls. I'll have a look while you're being scanned. Mind if we do a comprehensive one? It's going to take longer but I want to see what we're working with here.”

Zoe submitted to the full scan with reluctance, never enjoying spending her time in the medical bay when she could be doing anything else, and the fact that they could have been in bed rather than attaching electrodes to her head was particularly galling. Not even the way he dragged his fingers down the side of her neck to make her squirm made up for it as he left her sitting cross-legged on the bed to focus his attention on the blood results. For lack of anything better to do, she straightened her posture and watched him. She enjoyed watching him work – the deep concentration and air of the serious scientist he exuded intrigued her; it was as though she was able to glimpse the man he had been in the years before he left Gallifrey. Her eyes on his face, she saw the moment he opened her blood results on the computer and paused, confusion and then concern appearing.

A cold, nervous sensation trickled down her spine.

“What is it?” Zoe asked. “You've got that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The something's-wrong-but-I-don't-want-anyone-to-panic look,” she said. “Is something wrong with the results?”

“Not _wrong_ , just...interesting,” the Doctor said, leaning back in his chair and spinning to face her. “I haven't looked at your blood since you left the TARDIS to recover just before the Game Station. Under normal circumstances I'd have kept a close eye on you but there were four years that we weren't together and you didn't see the need to keep weekly scans because why would you? You felt awful but were slowly getting better. No need to scan yourself to tell you that.”

She had considered keeping more detailed records of her health but it was just one thing too many to deal with at the time. Some days it had been a fierce battle to get out of bed, barely having the energy to sit up let alone live her life, and it hadn't seemed worth it since she didn't know where to start as well; so, she had taken her pills, scanned herself when she felt worse than usual, and trusted the TARDIS to keep an eye on her.

“But?”

“It just makes it a little difficult to tell what's normal and what's not,” he admitted. “Your blood work is definitely different from before. Not bad different, just different. You're perfectly healthy.”

“Okay,” Zoe said, not understanding. “Why's that concerning?”

“Because you're a human,” he said. “Humans always have something wrong with them – high cholesterol, weak hearts, malfunctioning livers, wonky kidneys, not to mention than nasty bout of cholera who had about six years ago. There's always something happening even if it's small but, with you, you're perfectly healthy, and I mean perfectly.”

“And that's strange?”

“Yes.”

“You told me that you had to change me to make me better,” Zoe said, thinking out loud. “Maybe you accidentally changed me into having perfect health? And, I have to say, as far as side effects go I like this one more than the increased appetite. Those energy shakes were horrible, and I get flashbacks when I see them in the cupboards.”

“They were good for you,” the Doctor said distractedly, fingers tapping on the counter. “I suppose it's a strong possibility this is just another side effect. What I did was unprecedented and humans do have odd reactions to things. You lot are an unpredictable species, it's really quite annoying.” Amusement passed across her face. “Since you got better, have you been sick at all? Colds, allergies, that sort of thing?”

“Er –” she considered the question. “No sicknesses. I think I have a mild allergy to some mango ice cream from Massachusetts that's in the freezer though. It always makes my mouth and throat tingle.”

“Is that the one in the yellow box?”

“Yeah.”

“That's not an allergy,” he said. “It's supposed to make you feel like that. You know pop rocks?”

“The things that are like firecrackers in your mouth?”

“Those are the ones.” He rubbed his jaw, eyes not quite focused on her, thinking even as he spoke about something else. “The ice cream in the 32nd century has tiny little pop rocks in them to combat dental issues. It was a way to get people to keep eating ice cream when there was a global health crisis over dental diseases after the newly-established planetary government tried to drive up dwindling sugar sales for the high taxes in the 25th century.”

Zoe blinked, surprised. “Did people just stop brushing their teeth or something?”

“Or something.”

“All right then, in answer to your questions: no colds, no allergies, no nothing.”

“Well this isn't the worst thing in the world,” the Doctor said, though the not knowing clearly ill with him. “I could always infect you with the common cold to see what happens, use that as a control result.”

“You're not infecting me with anything,” Zoe said, firmly. “That is off the table.”

“Just a little sore throat?”

“No!”

“Fine,” he huffed. “Some scientist you are.”

“I am not Dr Jekyll,” she said. “I do not experiment on myself.”

“Probably for the best,” he replied. “My mother experimented on herself once.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows lifted. “What happened?”

“Me.” He grinned, drawing a laugh from her. “All right then, let me check your brain scan, then I'm going to do a full physical on you.”

“Oh god,” she groaned, head tipping back. “That takes ages!”

“Better safe than sorry,” the Doctor said, jumping to his feet and digging out a white medical gown for her. “Pop this on and we can get started.”

She held it. “Why do I need to wear this?”

“It's been specifically designed to give off no readings when you're being checked,” he said. “Your clothes carry all sorts of bacteria and pathogens that might confuse the scanners.” His gaze turned dark and mischievous. “Also, you look ravishing in it.”

She laughed again. “You're such a dork.”

“You love me anyway.”

“Strangely enough, I do,” Zoe said. “Shame there'll be no dancing tonight. I was looking forward to that. Instead, I get to be poked and prodded.”

“And a few kisses here and there,” he said, sweeping in to give her one. “Now, get your kit off.”

* * *

_ Shan Shen Market _

Rose examined the jewellery on display closely, releasing Jack's arm to drift towards the sparkling gems that caught her eye, wondering if a necklace would be suitable for Jackie's fortieth birthday that was fast approaching. Plans were in full swing for a huge party on the estate, everyone they had ever known was invited, and the Doctor was under strict instructions to not miss the day no matter what; Rose wanted to make sure that she got Jackie something memorable and lasting for her birthday since the last one had been spent under a cloud of worry about Rose's disappearance. Guilt tugged at her, and she pressed her lips together, bending low over the display to hide her sudden moment of discomfort. Neither Jackie nor Zoe blamed her for her year-long disappearance, the blame squarely placed on the Doctor's shoulders, but she didn't like being reminded of absence.

Having experienced what it was like to be left behind, not knowing if people she loved were alive or dead, she had a new understanding and sympathy of what her mother and sister went through during that year. It was why she wanted Jackie's birthday to be special. She wanted to fix what she had accidentally broken the night she ran into the TARDIS to join the Doctor, but she also didn't want to go over the top. Normally birthday presents in the Tyler family were small, simple things – books, earrings, a new jacket – but it was the first year that Rose actually had money to spend, even if it was the Doctor's, and she wanted to treat her mother to something different and meaningful. Zoe hadn't given much thought to a birthday present yet, shrugging over breakfast when Rose asked, but, knowing her, it would be something book related.

“This is nice,” Jack said next to her, lifting up a bracelet that changed colours in the light. “Very light.”

“For Mum or you?”

“For Mickey.”

“He's not really a jewellery guy,” Rose said. “Men in my time don't really wear it. If you want to get him somethin', try clothes. Or somethin' obviously alien. He'd like that.”

“No jewellery, got it,” he nodded, setting the bracelet down. “What about something that releases fragrances?”

“Like candles?”

He pulled her to another stall. “No, like this.”

Having needed a bit of rest and relaxation after Krakov, the Doctor had brought them to Shan Shen. It was Rose's favourite market where she could buy anything she wanted for a reasonable price, and she enjoyed stepping out of the TARDIS and recognising her surrounding; she knew the best place to get noodles, where to get her hair cut, how to properly haggle, and how to avoid the pickpockets that ran through the crowded streets. She liked that people recognised her and called out a greeting when she moved through the covered streets, stopping to chat with those that she liked and ducking out of sight to avoid those she didn't. It was a bustling community of ramshackle stalls with faded fabric covers and the sound of a Chinese variant carrying in the air that came from the Chinese settlers of old who had taken a barren rock and transformed it into a centre of commerce as well as a top tourist destination for the more adventurous traveller.

As Jack worried over an appropriate gift to give Mickey that walked the line between a gift to a friend and a gift to a boyfriend, Rose let her mind wander.

The Doctor had begged off trawling the stalls, preferring to accompany Zoe to the book section on the other side of the market; they were all going to meet up for lunch in a few hours, and Rose fully expected the Doctor to be weighed down with Zoe's purchases. Part of her wished that he was there with her. After the previous night when she fell asleep in his arms, the sound of his hearts under her ear, she wanted to be close to him and disappointment sliced through her when she woke up and realised he wasn't there anymore. Her fingers skirted her neck, the tight, buzzing pressure of her feelings for him threatening to seep out of her skin.

Sometimes she thought he barely even registered that she was a woman, lumping her into the just-above-primitive apes category that he had for humans. Other times, like last night, she did wonder if perhaps he saw her as something more.

_He was so sweet to me,_ she thought, playing with the ends of her hair. _But he's always kind_. _He'd have done the same for Jack an' Zoe, even Mum._

“What about this?” Jack asked, holding up something that looked like a metallic starfish. “You programme it to show a night's sky. I thought maybe he could put it in his bedroom and project the constellations around.”

“That's actually a really nice idea,” Rose said, a warm smile spreading across her face. “He'll love it.”

“Yeah?” He asked, childlike in his eagerness to please. “There's also a telescope but the light pollution in London is awful, and I don't think he'd –”

“Jack,” she interrupted. “Get him the starfish thing.”

He beamed and turned to start haggling. She slipped away from him and decided on a pair of earrings that would suit Jackie, handing the money over.

The problem with the Doctor, she considered, was that he wasn't human. He acted like a normal bloke most of the time but then he would say things or do something stupid like lick a skeleton and Rose would be reminded that he was very much an alien. She had spent enough time travelling with him to know that culture determined a lot about how a person reacted to situations and events. It made sense that the Doctor wouldn't think about certain aspects of human culture that might draw the wrong conclusion. To him, holding her as she slept was probably something he thought human friends did and, to be fair to him, it was, but the touches and the smiles and the hand-holding and the tying her hair back when it was in her face – he had to know.

Except maybe he didn't.

She groaned, frustrated with her circular thinking.

“Uh-oh,” Jack said, tucking his gift away. “That sounded pained. What's up?”

“Just gettin' annoyed with myself,” she said, sliding her eyes towards him, a nervous courage taking root in her chest. “You an' the Doctor talk, right?”

“Sure.”

“About things that maybe the Doctor wouldn't talk with me an' Zo about?”

His expression shifted and turned curious. “What kind of things?”

“You know,” she said, awkwardly. “Like girls an' stuff. _Women_.”

Amusement swept across his face. “Are you asking if the Doctor and I talk about women?”

“Yes.”

Jack laughed and a blush sank into her cheeks. “Sorry, Rosie, I'm not laughing at you. Well, I am a little, but the Doctor and I don't really talk about that.”

“Oh.”

“Why do you ask?”

She shook her head, embarrassed. “No reason.”

“Rose.” His voice held a timbre of disbelief. She glanced at his face and sighed, shrugging. Sympathy flashed across his face. “Oh, honey. You too, huh?”

“You –?”

“Course I'm in love with him,” Jack said as though the thought of it never happening didn't eat away at him. “I have been since we met. No, tell a lie, I've wanted to bed him since we met but I started to love him after the Zygon incident in Berlin when I nearly split my skull open.” Rose remembered being surprised at how much blood there was, panic crawling through her because she had already loved Jack then and didn't want to lose him. “I don't know – it's just inevitable, I suppose, for anyone who travels with him.”

“Is it?” She asked, pained. “Because I didn't use to feel like this, y'know, _before_. I fancied him, course I did, but now? It's so much worse.”

“He is very sexy now,” he grinned. “That hair.” She groaned again, and Jack slung an arm around her shoulders. “I know, I know. It's just something we've got to deal with. Maybe he'll do something so awful that we'll just stop loving him.”

Her face pressed into his chest. “Like what?”

“I don't know,” Jack said. “But that banana pizza came pretty damn close.”

A weak laugh slipped free. “I wish I could be like Zoe. She doesn't seem to be affected by him at all.”

“Well, Zoe's always been a little bit odd,” he said, rubbing her back comfortingly. “And she's still grieving for Reinette, I think. I'm not sure the Doctor even looks like a man too her.”

“Must be easier,” Rose sighed. “Do you – d'you think that he might –?”

“No,” Jack said, softly, firm but kind. “I know we joke about him and Cleopatra but I don't think he does that sort of thing. At least not the way we would need him to. Time Lords probably had really different ways of having relationships with each other – cerebral or telepathic or something. I don't think it'd even cross his mind.”

Her body deflated. “Yeah. I guess – I thought it might be like that, I just... _hoped_.”

“Me too.” He kissed the top of her head. “Nothing wrong with loving someone though, even if they can't love us back the way we want. And he does love us, in his own way.”

“He does,” she agreed, heaving in a deep breath before pulling from his arms and brushing the tears from her eyes. “Sorry, I'm bein' silly.”

“Nah, you're just being human.” He passed her a handkerchief. “Unrequited love is a bitch and all that.”

She laughed wetly. “Yeah.”

It wasn't as though what Jack told her was new information; he had just confirmed everything she already thought and suspected, but hearing it spoken aloud by someone who wasn't her made it real. She wanted the Doctor to look at her with love in his eyes; she wanted to feel his hands on her and be the sole focus of his attention; and, she spent an inordinate amount of time wondering exactly how far his oral fixation went, eyes lingering on his mouth when he was talking. There was a part of her – a small, selfish, arrogant part – that thought maybe she was different. They had met at the worst time in his life and maybe she was just different enough – _special_ enough - for him to make an exception for her, and she knew it would hurt in the long run but she thought it would be worth it.

She wanted everything from him, but as Jack had said, the Doctor didn't even think of them like that.

Sniffing and mopping up the rest of her face, she understood that she needed to deal with her feelings for him so she was able to enjoy what he was offering her – friendship, fun, excitement.

She didn't want to ruin that because he didn't return her feelings.

“Come on,” Jack said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “Let's go get some food and –”

A loud commotion stole the words from his mouth as a stall exploded in a shower of colourful jewellery and curse words. The Doctor burst out from the chaos, tripping over his feet, and smacking his forehead against the table of a stall on the way down; Zoe followed him quickly, leaping over his fallen body with a yelp. She grabbed a piece of artisan soap and hurled it back into the chaos, grabbing the back of the Doctor's coat and hauling him to his feet as people darted away from them, screaming.

“This is your fault,” the Doctor yelled, hand clamped to the red mark on his forehead. “You couldn't keep quiet. You just had to say something.”

“Like you weren't thinking it – _duck_!” They both dropped as a weapon's blast singed the wall behind them. “And let he who has never said the wrong thing throw the first stone, you bloody hypocrite.”

Jack shook his head in amazement. “They went to look at books. How does this always happen?”

The Doctor threw Zoe out of the way of another blast. She fell against a stall, caught herself, straightened and found herself looking at Rose and Jack. Relief bloomed across her face.

“Hello,” she said, making her way towards them as though they had bumped into each other on a peaceful stroll. “We need to run.”

Rose looked between her and the Doctor. “What happened?”

“What happened?” He repeated, looking dishevelled with a burn mark on the bottom of his coat while Zoe looked put together if a little windswept. “What happened? I'll tell you what happened, Zoe bloody Tyler happened.”

“Oh, don't go on about it.”

“I will go on about it,” he said, spinning to her. “I'll go on about it a lot!”

Jack stared at them. “What –?”

“This one here stumbled upon a Zygon minding its own business as a bookshop owner and decided to roundly insult it,” the Doctor said, jerking his thumb at Zoe who spared him an annoyed look. “Next thing you know, we're running for our lives.”

“He's conveniently leaving out the fact that there was a dead body in the back room and a stack of drugs in a hidden room behind the bookshelves,” she said, patting the bag that was slung across her chest. “Which I have, by the way, and I really think that's the bit that the Zygon took offence to, not me questioning its parentage.”

The Doctor's jaw tightened. “Well, it didn't help.”

“If you've stolen the drugs –”

“ _Confiscated_ ,” Zoe corrected.

“And the Zygon was shooting at you,” Jack continued. “Then were is it now?”

The Doctor stilled and looked around, suddenly aware of the silence. “That's a very good – AH!”

Jack kicked the Doctor in the back of the knees, sending him to the ground just in time to miss a shot that would have taken his head off. He was laughing when he pulled the Doctor onto his feet, grabbed Zoe by the bag strap and put his foot on Rose's behind to get her moving.

“Run, _now_!”

_Never a dull day_ , he thought happily to himself as they raced away from the Zygon blaster fire with a bag full of stolen drugs and pointed accusations flying freely between them.

* * *

_ Cairo, Egypt, 1923_

Unprepared for the small step off the dance floor, Zoe stumbled. The low heel of her period appropriate shoes turned beneath her weight and her ankle gave way. Lovely polished stone with a beautiful mosaic embedded in it started to rise up in front of her before the Doctor's arms slipped around her, securing her against him and keeping her upright. Her head fall back with a laugh as he walked her off the dance floor, manoeuvring her around the other party goers dressed in their finery. Tongue pressed against her top teeth, she snagged a glass of champagne from a waiter that walked past, lifting it to her lips.

She was breathless, flushed red from the Doctor's enthusiasm at having her on the dance floor, leading her in a waltz, a foxtrot, and – delightfully – a jive. Her shoes, which had been comfortable on the TARDIS, rubbed against the tops of her feet and were pinching at her toes but as long as she ignored the dull throbbing in them, she was fine. Turning in the Doctor's arms to look up at him, she felt more carefree than she had done in a very long time. She tried to put her finger on when she was last so relaxed and free of worries and she figured that it was in the days before she became stranded in France for her life-changing sojourn there. Everyone she loved was safe, nothing was demanding her attention, and she was alone with the Doctor while Rose and Jack had their feet popped up in front of the East enders omnibus, cocktails in hand.

After a long and busy week of exploration and adventure where the Doctor had seemed determine to run them ragged, Jack had surprised them all by begging off first, asking for a day of doing absolutely nothing, complaining that his skin was dry and he needed a manicure. The Doctor had turned to Rose, his mouth half open with a suggestion for where to go next, and took in the sight of her with a cool gel pack on her eyes to combat the tired swelling and his mouth had shut, a small feeling of guilt creeping into him and not realising how tired his friends were. They were normally excellent at keeping up with him that sometimes, in his more manic periods, he forgot they were humans at the end of the day. Fortunately for him, after a quick nap – four hours, which the Doctor thought was a long time but she assured him was the perfect amount – Zoe was ready to go off and do something with him, which had taken the sting out of Rose and Jack not wanting to participate.

Zoe swayed into him, her mouth a distracting red. “This was a brilliant idea. _You_ are a brilliant man.”

“So I've been told on occasion.” His hand was on the small of her back and the other was plucking the empty glass from her hand, enjoying her affectionate, tipsy state. “But I recall having promised you dinner and dancing some time ago. I'm sorry it took so long.”

“No.” Her hand ran down the length of his back, verging on impropriety. “This is perfect. I love it.” Her mouth pressed against his, warm and slightly sticky from the champagne. “Thank you.”

The Doctor was proud of his choice for their official first date. After going back and forth on the matter for days, he decided to simply do what felt right and combined Zoe's love of dancing, eating, and history in one neatly packaged evening. Parking the TARDIS at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza some 14km from the city, the Doctor had brought them to Cairo, Egypt in 1922 for the grand New Year's Eve celebration that was combined that year with a celebration of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Anyone who was anyone in archaeology, journalism, the colonial office, and the aristocracy based in Egypt were in attendance at the party with plenty of food and free-flowing alcohol despite the fact that were in a Muslim country.

The party was being held at Shepheard's Hotel, a large building with grand architecture that loomed over the other buildings in the area; it was decorated with candles and sweet-smelling flowers, waiters moving about the large ballroom in crisp white tuxedos, offering trays of canapés to the attendees. The music was vibrant, the food excellent, and the dance floor just large enough for the Doctor to spin Zoe around.

She looked breathtaking in a calf-length emerald green dress that left her arms and back bare though it did have a disappointingly high neckline. Her hair was swept up off her neck and pinned low, decorated with gems that glittered in the light, her mouth a vibrant red borrowed from Jack's make up. She had been in her element moving about the room with a grace picked up in France, talking with everyone about everything. As far as he knew, archaeology wasn't a specific interest but she did enjoy history and was able to hold her own in conversation with people like Howard Carter, Flinders Petrie, and the Emersons.

Pleased by her obvious delight, he ducked his head, mouth brushing against her ear. “Have I mentioned how beautiful you look tonight?”

“Once or twice,” she said, toying with his bow tie, glancing up at him from beneath her eyelashes, heat spooling through him. “But I do love to hear it.”

“Then let me tell you again and again and again,” he said, pressing a small kiss to beneath her ear, delighting in the light pink colour that rose to her cheeks. Unable to resist, he kissed her mouth, wishing her lipstick would smudge but it remained stubbornly on her lips despite his best efforts. He kept his arms around her when he pulled back. “What do you think of the 1920s?”

“I'm liking it,” she said, freeing an arm so she was able to take a whole tray of canapés from another waiter, flashing him a charming smile to forestall any complaints, and a handful of crab cakes went into her mouth. “Less racism than I thought there might be, but I suppose these people are used to working with the Egyptians.”

“It is a more enlightened society right now,” the Doctor agreed, plucking a crab cake from the silver platter and examining it. “Not by much, admittedly, and it won't last, but there's less overt racism at play right now.”

“Ah, well, most of us here are British,” Zoe said. “And you know what we British are like – rude but only behind your backs.”

He popped the crab cake into his mouth. “You're a complex people.”

It was inevitable that the heat of the room eventually became too much for her, though they were able to squeeze another dance in before she took his hand and led him outside into the cool night's air, English and Arabic swirling together on the breeze. Their path was illuminated by lanterns that swung from the lower branches of the trees, and she followed it to see where it went, taking them deeper into the the carefully cultivated garden attached to the hotel – a little taste of Europe in the middle of Egypt. The flowers gave off a soft, lovely fragrances, and the night's sky was a blanket of stars above their heads, filled with places yet to visit.

“When I was little,” Zoe said, tilting her head back to see the stars. “I used to think that I could swim in them.”

He smiled. “That's adorable, tell me everything.”

She laughed, bringing her gaze to him. “I just thought it was logical, that's all. I could swim in water so why couldn't I do the same in the stars? I must've frustrated Mum so much because I kept asking to go and swim in them.”

“I do think Jackie deserves a medal for raising you and Rose,” he said, tugging her closer to him. “And I think I'd like to meet you as a child. Maybe I'll skip back in time and have a look at you – the questions alone would be well worth the trip.”

“You'd have been all my Christmases come at once,” she told him. “With your alien self and the TARDIS. I'm not sure I'd ever let you go if you come across me as a child.”

“Oh?” He asked, intrigued. “Does that mean you intend to let me go now?”

“Not a chance,” she said. “You're mine. Finders, keepers and all that.”

He nodded, solemnly. “That is the universally accepted rule, of course. I think the Shadow Proclamation have passed something to ratify it.”

Her fingers poked him in the stomach in response before they climbed over a low stone hedge to lie on the grass, his jacket spread beneath her to protect her bare skin from the chill. When she was comfortably nestled against his side, he traced the stars for her. She knew most of the constellations but he was able to point out the stars that had planets orbiting them.

“Oo, that one, there,” the Doctor said, taking her hand and guiding her finger to it. “That's an interesting star. It's got some long, boring scientific name but the people in orbit of it call it Halani, which means ice goddess in their language. It burns cold, and you'd think that it wasn't capable of supporting life in the solar system and you'd be right to a point, but there's one planet in orbit of it that draws its heat from geothermal wells beneath the surface. It's enough to heat the entire planet and have a fairly robust ecosystem but they have the most vicious winters imaginable.”

Zoe's head rested on his chest. “Have you been there?”

“Once, with Charley.” He lowered their hands to rest on her stomach. “Bit of a piloting error –”

“Shocker.”

He pinched her stomach lightly and she squirmed. “Ended up having a nice time though. We landed just before one of the snowstorms that swept the city and had to wait two weeks before the drifts died down enough to get back to the TARDIS. Plenty to do indoors so we weren't too bored.”

“All these places to see...” her words trailed off into the night's air. “It's like books. I'm never going to read all the ones I want, just like I'm never going to get to see all the places in the universe. It's disappointing.”

“We'll see more than most people,” the Doctor said. “But I get what you mean. There's too much to see and do for any one person.”

She rolled over onto her stomach and rested her torso against his, propping herself on her elbow above him. “What's the one place that you really want to go to but have never been?”

His face twisted in delight at the question. “Oo, that's a question. I don't know. I suppose – I'd like to go to the founding of Gallifrey. That was a really interesting time in my planet's history. I'd love to have met Omega, Rassilon, and the Other in their prime.”

“I know Rassilon,” Zoe said. “And you've mentioned Omega before, but the Other?”

“It's a little bit of personal curiosity,” he admitted. “There were three founders of Gallifrey – Omega and Rassilon who were these titans of Time Lords: they towered over the rest of us, none have measured up to them since, but history told us that there was a third Time Lord whose name was lost to time and we just called him the Other. I want to meet them to find out if there was any truth to the rumours.”

“What rumours?”

“That I was the Other.” Her eyebrows shot up. “I know you don't like the word but it would be nearly impossible for that to be true. Travelling through time on Gallifrey would violate the First Law of Time – for the present to never interact with the past. I know I've broken a lot of rules over the centuries but that's the biggest of them all. I don't think even I'd break it. I mean, if I didn't break it when Gallifrey burned, I can't see a time when I would.”

Zoe stared at him, momentarily speechless. “Against the rules it may be, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you were the third founder.”

His mouth twitched towards his eyes.

“Me neither,” he said to her laughter. “What about you? What's the one place or time you want to go to that I haven't taken you yet?”

“Nothing comes to mind,” she admitted. “You were very thorough in helping me tick off my old list from when I was seventeen.” He smiled at the memory of her notebook filled with places and times she wanted to go, uncertain if they actually existed only to be thrilled when he was able to deliver. “I'm happy to go where the wind takes us.”

“It is fun not knowing what's coming.” He brushed his fingers over the bare skin on her back. “Keeps us on our toes.”

Zoe showed her agreement by kissing him, his hands on her body, and by the time they were chased from the gardens by an irate manager who was yelling in a mixture of English, Arabic, and French, they were pleasantly dishevelled from agreeing with each other. Instead of catching a carriage back to the TARDIS, they walked the road back hand in hand until the pain in her feet got too much to handle and the Doctor gave her a piggyback instead. He was trying to explain why a joke about a boatload of woman dressed in fishing nets was considered the height of humour in Pharaonic times when they entered the TARDIS hours after they left, her arms around his neck, shoes dangling from her fingers.

The Doctor stopped short at the sight of Jack sitting on the jump seat dressed and looking ready for action while Rose fiddled with the buttons on the console, hair pulled back from her face. Slowly, he set Zoe onto her tender feet, worry creeping over him.

“This looks serious,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Jack said. “How was your night?”

“It was great,” Zoe replied, eyes flicking over them, trying to understand why the air felt taut. “We danced, we made friends, we got chased from the hotel garden, the usual.”

Jack's eyes creased with amusement. “Sounds like fun.”

“Sorry you missed it,” the Doctor said. “Now, what's going on?”

“Nothing serious,” he said. “Just potentially troublesome. Mickey called and he thinks there's a problem on Earth that's alien in origin. He's done some investigating on his own and is about 95% sure aliens are doing something to school children in West London.”

Zoe set her shoes down. “Does he say what?”

He shook his head. “No, only that he thinks we might want to have a look.”

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Aliens in a school? That's interesting. He could've called UNIT though, but I suppose if he wants to see Jack, who am I to say no?” Rose coughed to hide her laugh, ducking away from Jack's annoyed expression. “All right then, London it is. Guess it was time to pop in and see Jackie anyway. May as well stock up on milk as well.”

“In that case,” Zoe said, moving past them. “I'm going to soak my feet quickly. Don't have fun without me!”

The Doctor watched her go before he input the co-ordinates for the Powell Estate. “Right-o, home sweet home we go.”


	19. Chapter 19

Steam rose from the hot tea Mickey poured from his battered Thermos. The winter cold still had its icy hold on London, casting a fine frost on the surface of benches and car windows; his breath formed a white mist from where he sat on top of the bin outside the newsagents, shoulders hunched over in an effort to keep himself warm. The tip of his nose was red, and he curled his bare fingers around the tea as he waited for his friends to arrive. The usual worry that accompanied the Doctor's driving niggled at him and made him check his watch every few minutes, wondering if he was going to get there on time or be two days late with a careless apology on his lips. Mickey hoped they weren't late as, not only was he eager to see them all again, he was losing feeling to his lower limbs. Only been two and a half weeks had passed since the TARDIS wheezed itself off of the estate and Mickey had spoken to Jack every night since then, but he missed them – even the Doctor, which was the biggest surprise of all.

“Takin' up beggin' now, Mick?”

He raised his eyes from his tea and caught the scowl before it settled on his face, swallowing back the sharp retort that clawed its way up his throat.

“Mornin', Trisha,” he said, forcing politeness into his words. “Off to work?”

Trisha Delaney's lip curled. “What d'you care?”

He shrugged. “I don't really. Was just bein' polite.”

“Well, you can shove your manners up your fuckin' arse,” she spat, tugging her coat tighter around her, shivering. “Didn't do me much good when you broke it off with me now, did it? Thinkin' you're too good for us 'round here these days, don't think we ain't noticed.”

A year of being treated like a murderer, shunned and spat at, tempered the desire to rise to the bait and fall into the argument she clearly wanted; instead, he stopped banging his heels against the bin and stilled the nervous energy coursing through him.

“I'm sorry you're upset,” Mickey said. “But you know it wasn't workin' between us. You deserve better than someone who's only half interested.”

Her eyes rolled in a scoff, cheeks mottled red from the cold. “Fuck off, you twat.”

He watched her storm away from him, head bowed against the sharp wind that swept through the estate. The handful of weeks he had spent dating her before ending it had been an ill-advised attempt to get over Rose; he was sorry that Trisha felt badly used but he wasn't sorry for breaking things off with her before she started getting expectations of thing he wasn't able to deliver.

During the time spent on the TARDIS after Zoe's accident on Mondas and that awful period when no one was sure if she was going to live or die, he hadn't thought about Trisha once. The feeling of surprise that ripped through him the evening after his return when she knocked on his door and kissed him was something he wasn't going to forget as there had been a terrifying moment of pure blankness when he was unable to remember who she was, his head already full of Jack. She hadn't taken it well when he drew her inside and broke up with her over a cup of tea. Her anger at losing him – someone who had treated her well – made her lash out and spread vicious rumours that fell far short of the mark of hurting him considering how the people on the estate once believed him capable of murdering Rose and dumping her butchered body into the nearest river.

He drank a large mouthful of tea, nearly scalding the roof of his mouth, and forced his thoughts away from Trisha Delaney and onto the interminable wait for the TARDIS. Two cups of tea and twenty minutes later, cold wind swept up into his face and litter started to jostle on the ground moments before the air was filled with the wheezing and groaning that signalled the TARDIS's arrival. Checking his watch, Mickey nodded, impressed – only ten minutes late. As the TARDIS solidified before his eyes, a smile plucked at his lips; it was always good to see the Doctor's bluer-than-blue ship, but even better to see who tumbled out of it.

“Mickey,” Jack greeted, tripping over himself in his enthusiasm, Zoe barking a laugh at his expense as she emerged from the TARDIS. “Hey!”

Closing the distance, Mickey met him in a tight hug in the middle of the courtyard. Jack was warm and smelt wonderfully familiar: the natural soap he liked to use layered with his preferred cologne made a delicate scent of sunny warmth, light citrus scents, and a gentle brush of seawater over the top of it. His fingers tightened in the back of Jack's coat, focused on the beat of his heart and the warmth of Jack's breath against his ear, before they released each other. Having spoken to him every night for two and a half weeks, Mickey felt oddly nervous now that they were face to face again, but Jack's face opened in a smile and that nervousness drained away.

“Good to see you're still in one piece,” Mickey said, dropping his arms from him and stepping back. “Didn't interrupt anythin', did I?”

“Not really,” the Doctor said, startling him with his sudden appearance. His eyes went over Jack's shoulder and heat climbed into his skin at the sight of the girls standing side by side, arms looped together, amused expressions on their faces. The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder with a friendly grin. “Caught us on our day off actually.”

“You lot take days off?”

“Every now and then,” Zoe said, ducking around Jack and the Doctor to hug him. “We were just in Cairo, 1923.”

“ _They_ were in Cairo,” Rose corrected, and the hug between them no longer held the tension that had characterised their relationship after her return – it was warm, friendly, and familial. “Jack an' I were doin' a face mask an' watchin' EastEnders.”

Jack rubbed a hand over his cheek. “Got to stay looking good. Can't save the universe looking like hell.”

“Personal experience tells me you can,” the Doctor said, hands in his pockets, eyes roving over the estate. “Bit nippy, isn't it? What's the date?”

“20th January,” Mickey said. “A Monday.”

He pulled a face. “Mondays. I hate Mondays. Now, Tuesday! _That's_ a good day. Tuesdays are exciting.”

“Yep,” he grinned, pleased at having them back. Despite never planning on tell him it, life was more interesting when the Doctor was around. “C'mon, it's bloody freezin' out here, an' I've got lots to show you.”

The Doctor nodded as they all began to make their way to Bucknall House. “Something about aliens in schools, right?”

“A school, singular,” he said. “An' yeah, it's pretty –”

“Oi, you lot!” From high above them, Jackie hung over the concrete barrier. Her blonde hair hung loose over her shoulders, and her winter coat was slung haphazardly on her back. She waved at them and everyone raised their hand to wave back, frozen in place. “Get up here, kettle's on!”

“Blimey,” the Doctor blinked as she disappeared back inside. “She's got a powerful set of lungs on her. She could stop an army in its tracks with that bellow.”

Rose nudged him with her elbow. “Welcome to our world.”

“Flashbacks to childhood,” Zoe agreed with a nod. “But I'd love a cuppa. I'm still a bit drunk from the party.”

Mickey glanced at her. “What party's that then?”

Zoe launched into a detailed description of the New Year's Eve party in Cairo, 1923, Rose and Jack listening in as they hadn't heard it yet. By the time they reached Jackie's flat, having automatically taken the stairs instead of the recently-repaired lift, they were laughing at Zoe's re-enactment of the Doctor tripping over a flower bed in their haste to escape when Rose pushed open the door to the flat and called out for Jackie who came swiftly round the corner from the kitchen.

“There you lot are,” she beamed, sweeping in to take Rose into her arms and kissing Jack on the cheek before folding Zoe into an embrace. “Don't know why you bothered givin' me that nice new phone if you're never goin' to tell me when you're comin'.”

“Sorry, Mum,” she said, tucking hair behind her ear. “It was sort of a last minute trip. Besides, figured Mickey would tell you.”

“Didn't know you were goin' to be on time,” Mickey said over his shoulder, helping himself to the Jaffa cakes that Jackie had set out. “Didn't want to get her hopes up.”

“A Time Lord is late _one time_ ,” the Doctor complained, shutting the door behind him. “And he never hears the end of it.”

“One time my arse,” Jackie scoffed, grabbing the front of his coat when he stepped past her and dragging him to her, a look of sheer panic painting his face as her arms went around him. “C'mere, you daft sod.”

“This is hell,” he said, voice muffled by her shoulders and hair even as he hugged her back. “I'm in hell.”

“Shut up,” Jackie released him and gave him a push into the living room where everyone already had a cup of tea and were making themselves at home. “Go on then, how long has it been for you lot this time?”

“Only about three weeks,” Zoe said, tying her hair back with a hairband she plucked from the table. “Feels like longer though, we've done so much.”

“Yeah, what's this about Queen Victoria an' a werewolf?” Jackie sat down in a chair, tea held to her chest. “Mickey said you were all knighted an' exiled on the same day?”

“Bit of a misunderstanding,” the Doctor said, mouth full of Jaffa cakes. “Queen Vic took something of a dislike to us. No idea why.”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “I can think of one or two reasons.”

He made a rude gesture as he chewed.

On the sofa, Mickey and Jack sat with their thighs pressed together as Rose told her mother the about their time with Queen Victoria. Having heard the story from Jack the night after it had happened, Mickey let his mind drift to the heat pressed against his thigh and the way Jack's fingers brushed over his own every few minutes; the light touch was so distracting that the Doctor had to say his name three times before he realised that he was being spoken to. He jerked and looked around, faint amusement sketched around the Doctor's eyes.

“Sorry, mate, what?”

“Aliens in school,” the Doctor reminded him. “I was asking you what that was all about.”

“Right, sorry.” He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, trying to ignore how good Jack smelt. “Deffry Vale High over in Ealin', they're gettin' academic scores that are off the chart.”

“That's it?” The Doctor asked, unimpressed. “High academic scores?”

“Don't be daft,” he said. “Like I'd call you in for that.” From the corner of his eyes, he saw Zoe hide her smile behind her mug. “Nah, these scores are weird because three months ago the school was failin': OFSTED marked it as inadequate last year just before the change. Then in October, in the middle of the first term, a new headteacher came in an' the scores started goin' up _quickly_.”

The stretch of Jack's legs next to him sent awareness shooting through his body.

“Change in leadership might have instigated the change,” Jack suggested. “I've seen it before: get rid of piss-poor leaders, put someone who knows what they're doing in their place, and the changes speak for themselves.”

“Maybe,” Zoe said. “But if the teaching staff hasn't changed then it's unlikely the teaching methods have. Most teachers I know don't like being told that their methods aren't effective, and they'll drag their feet to implement changes.” Her eyes flicked to Mickey. “Have the teaching staff changed as well?”

He nodded. “Most of the maths department, the headteacher, an' the dinin' room staff.”

“The dining staff?” The Doctor asked, eyebrows raised. “That's odd. Why them?”

“No idea,” he shrugged. “I called down to ask about it an' pretended to be a concerned parent but the admin just said they'd switched contracts with staffin' agencies so they had to replace them. Thing is though, this happened at the same time that the headteacher came in – an' I mean _exactly_ the same time. On the same day that Mr Finch – that's the headteacher – started, the new dinin' staff started an' that's when the students started gettin' better results. The maths teachers have come in one by one over the last few months.”

“All right,” the Doctor said, slowly. “That is a bit weird. Still not seeing what makes it alien though.”

“Yeah, well, take a gander at this.” Mickey removed his phone and opened up the saved videos, tapping play. “Over the last three months there've been a number of reports of bright lights seen over the school. Some of the neighbours complained to the police thinkin' it was a prank or somethin', but I checked out some of the online boards that keep a tab on alien activity an' one of them posted this video. Here.”

The Doctor took his phone and watched the thirty-second video. It wasn't the best quality but it was the clearest that had been posted to the boards showing a black sky, the orange light from the street lamps making it difficult to see, before there was an extended burst of bright white lights over the school. He hit replay and watched it again before handing it to Jack to look at.

“That's looks like the exhaust burn of a small vessel,” Jack said after watching the clip in silence, passing the phone to Zoe. “The way it drags across the bottom of the screen is telling. If I had to guess, I'd say the ship's using a magnesium injection cycle.”

Rose looked at him. “A what now?”

“Basically an engine that uses magnesium and water to generate power,” he explained. “I've only seen those engines in short-range ships, so it may be a shuttle that's part of a larger ship in orbit, hard to tell.”

“There's nothin' in orbit,” Mickey said. “I called the Brigadier an' asked if UNIT would take a look. Reckoned they were humourin' me because I'm mates with you but they checked it out an' found nothin'.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I did get a recommendation for a therapist though. They think I've got PTSD from Christmas.”

The Doctor laughed. “Sorry. That's not funny, except it is. Good idea to call UNIT, Mickey, really good actually, but they weren't able to detect the Sycorax ship until it was directly on top of us. If there is a ship up there, it's probably hiding behind the moon to avoid the satellites.”

“Not another bloody invasion,” Jackie complained. “We've just got cleaned up.”

He sighed, annoyed. “Is that really the thing to worry about, Jackie? – _ow_!”

Zoe removed her hand from his side, ignoring the baleful glare he threw at her as he rubbed his pinched side, passing the phone to Rose who watched the video in turn.

“It doesn't sound like an invasion unless it's a really crap one. Who invades by going after kids?” Her body went perfectly still, a dark look passing over her face that made cold seep down Mickey's spine when she looked at him. “Have any of the kids been reported missing?”

“No, none,” he said. “If anythin' attendance has actually gone up. Why?”

She visibly relaxed. “Just a thought. I met some nasty aliens in France once who were taking children. I thought...” she shook her head. “It doesn't matter. It's not them.”

“But it's somethin', right?” He asked, looking around to the Doctor. “I'm not imaginin' that somethin' weird is happenin' here? I was right to call you back?”

“Reckon you were,” the Doctor said, tapping his knee. “This is definitely worth investigating because Jack's right, that did have the look of a small ship's energy burn. Although, why does this always happen in London? Why can't it happen somewhere else for a change? Sydney! I haven't been to Sydney in ages. What about Beijing? There's another option. But _no_ , aliens always want to mess around with London.”

Jackie sipped her tea. “Feel better with that off your chest, love?”

“A little, yeah.”

He rubbed his hands over his thighs. “All right, I need to think about this a little first. Mickey, can you come back to the TARDIS with me and show me everything you've got on this? Everyone else, this might take a couple of days so do everything you need to do in London now – and Rose, by that I mean buy your cow milk – because I don't want to be making two trips. Next time we come back will be for Jackie's birthday.”

She perked up. “Oh, that reminds me, there's a theme.”

The Doctor groaned. “Really? It's fancy dress?”

“No, I said a _theme_ ,” Jackie said, pointedly. “I don't want you comin' dressed as a flamingo or whatever –”

“I'd look cracking as a flamingo.”

“It's Hollywood glamour,” she told them, ignoring the Doctor. “An' I know you've got plenty of stuff in the TARDIS, just wear tuxedo or somethin'.”

“I'll make sure he dresses properly,” Jack promised her. “But can I have a look at your colour chart, I want to make sure I don't clash.”

Mickey met the Doctor's eyes as the living descended into the usual chaotic noise of their family gatherings. The Doctor inclined his head towards the door and Mickey nodded, casting one last glance at Jack before following the Doctor out of the flat.

“A theme,” the Doctor said, annoyed once they were outside. “Who's idea was that anyway? No, don't tell me. It was Bev.” He scowled before he cleared his expression and looked over at him. “All right then, Mickey. Show me what you've got.”

* * *

_ Number 10, Downing Street _

Everything was exactly as she remembered it.

Not having spent much time in Downing Street prior to its destruction in March 2006, Harriet Jones had left the reconstruction efforts to those who were determined to rebuild it exactly as it was. Any discussion of updating the street and its houses were swept away by a tide of nostalgia and desire for continuity from the Members of Parliament and general public who were still coming to terms with the new world they were living in. Her popularity was at an all-time high after the Christmas invasion – both at home and abroad – and she was loathe to misuse that popularity for something as unimportant as the colour of the walls in the prime minister's official residence. She was looking forward to moving in, quietly eager to move out of the cramped flat that she shared with her mother who had moved to London upon her election in order to be closer to her. She loved her mother but living together while also trying to run a country was more stress than she needed.

The paint was still wet on the walls and the carpet soft and comfortable beneath her feet. All around them people were putting the finishing touches to the house, bringing furniture in as young interns stood blow-drying the walls to help the paint dry quicker. She had hoped to be installed by the first of January but there had been the usual delays that came with building a house up from the rubble and it looked as though she would finally move in at the end of the month as the security features still needed to be installed. Her private apartments, modelled after her home in Flydale, were just waiting for her belongings to be unpacked by her nieces who had volunteered their time in exchange for a free place to stay in London. She wasn't entirely sure what Charlotte and Rebecca were planning to do in London but they were pleasant enough to have around the flat, even if Harriet was tripping over family members every morning.

“This is big,” Alex said next to her as she was shown into her office with its dark panelling and large, empty desk. He glanced out of the bullet-proof windows. “Shame about the view.”

Harriet bit back a smile. “I hope it'll be warmer when everything is unpacked.”

“The plumbing team are finishing up with the heating in the next couple of days,” Yuri Ivanavov, the project manager, told her in English faintly accented by his Ukrainian heritage. “They've had a bit of trouble with the environmental requirements you specified but they're on schedule again.”

“Good,” she nodded, pleased that Number 10 was going to be the first residence of a country's leader to be fully environmentally friendly. “This is lovely. You've done an excellent job.”

Yuri nodded his head, unconcerned with the praise as long as he was paid on time, a practicality that she appreciated as she and Alex followed him out and down the stairs where the portraits of the prime ministers who had come before her lined the wall again. Her eyes settled on the picture of Richard Chalmers, her predecessor who had fallen out of a cupboard dead on that awful day in March a year ago; it felt both like a lifetime and only yesterday that she had hidden in the cloak room of the Cabinet Room and watched as the Slitheen emerged from their stolen skin, changing everything about her life and her world. A shiver swept over her, and she turned away from the wall where her picture would one day hang and caught up with Yuri and Alex.

Her hand touched Alex's elbow. “I'll go in alone, thank you.”

His eyes showed his concern but he nodded his head. “Of course, prime minister.”

Over the last ten months she had spent more time in the Cabinet Room than anywhere else in the world. Every night she revisited the dark, historic room with its long, polished table, shuttered windows, and thin, faded carpet. Every night she remembered the fear and the terror of what had happened – sometimes she was alone in her dream, trapped and terrified with no understanding of what to do and how to save herself; sometimes the Slitheen emerged from Zoe's body, and other times she just watched in horror as her young friend was killed with a long, powerful sweep of the Slitheen's sharp claws, blood dripping onto the carpet before she woke in a cold sweat. Stepping into the room again was cold and terrifying, but the strength of the memories faded as she circled the table, fingers running over the surface, looking across the room to where the Doctor of her memory stood.

“Ghosts,” she murmured, eyes closing. “Nothing can hurt me in here. Not now.” She drew a deep breath in through her nose and exhaled, opening her eyes, feeling a little ridiculous. She smiled to herself. “I'm just being –”

The ping of her phone made her jump, heart slamming into her chest, catching the curse words that threatened to tumble free. Laughing at her overreaction, she removed her phone and looked at the screen, expecting a message from one of her nieces asking yet another question about where she wanted a particular ornament to go but, instead, a smile dawned over her face.

**I'm in London for a few days. Fancy lunch or dinner? X**

Glancing at the doors, aware that she was on a tight schedule, she lifted the phone to her ear and listened to it ring.

“Please tell me this isn't the precursor to another alien invasion,” Harriet said as soon as the call was picked up. “Because we've just finished cleaning up the mess from Christmas.”

Zoe's laugh was warm and welcome in her ear. “ _Funny, that's exactly what my mother said. And no, it's not an alien invasion. Well, it's an alien something, but we don't know what yet._ ”

She pulled a chair out and sat down, easing her shoes off her feet and flexing her toes in the soft carpet. “Should I be worried?”

“ _Too early to be worried_ ,” Zoe said. “ _The Doctor's in the TARDIS having a think on things with Mickey. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out what's going on but it is going to take a couple of days, which makes me hope that you're available for lunch or dinner either today or tomorrow._ ”

“I have dinner with the American ambassador tomorrow,” she said, already dreading it. “If it was anyone else, I'd reschedule, but you know what Americans are like. How about Wednesday? Will you still be here?”

“ _Almost definitely,”_ Zoe said. “ _It's a date, but let's go somewhere fancy. There's this red dress in the TARDIS that I've been dying to wear but the Doctor hasn't taken us anywhere nice enough to justify wearing it. Although, I have just been dancing in Cairo, 1923. Got to meet Howard Carter._ ”

“You and I lead two very different lives,” Harriet informed her. “But how are you? It's not been too dangerous, has it?”

“ _The usual_ ,” Zoe said. “ _Got chased through a hospital billions of years in the future because some cat nuns made a bad decision; Rose was briefly queen of a moon; we all met Queen Victoria – she did not like us; and, we helped liberate slaves from a ship in space. So, you know, normal stuff._ ”

“Normal, of course.” A fond smile touched her lips. “Rose is a queen now?”

“ _I think she technically abdicated halfway through the coronation_ ,” Zoe explained. “ _It was a whole thing_.”

It was Harriet's turn to laugh, and Alex popped his head into the room. He tapped his watch as a reminder, and she nodded. “Well, I'm glad that you're back home if even for just a few days but Alex is telling me I have to go.”

“ _Hello, Alex._ ”

She glanced over to her assistant. “Zoe Tyler says hello.”

“Hey, Zoe,” Alex called out, raising his voice so she was able to hear him.

“ _Nice guy, is he single_?”

“For you?”

“ _No, Rose_.”

She made sure Alex was on the other side of the door before she responded. “I'm afraid Rose isn't his type. Jack on the other hand –”

“ _Ah_ ,” she said. “ _Oh well, can't fault his taste. Jack's everyone's type. Anyway, I'll let you go and be prime minister. You choose the restaurant otherwise your security team will be wildly unhappy with whatever I choose_.”

“I'll send you the address,” Harriet promised. “See you on Wednesday.”

“ _Ciao-ciao for now_.”

Harriet was still smiling when she stepped out of the Cabinet Room, her week already looking brighter. She had a group of close and dear friends that she was grateful for, but she and Zoe had been through the same life-changing event together and it was difficult not to feel closer to her than she did to those friends. There was something incomprehensibly valuable at having someone in her life who knew exactly how an event had changed a person and who lived with those changes day after day as she did.

“Will you make reservations for two at a fancy restaurant for Wednesday at eight, please?” Harriet requested. “Somewhere with a dress code in Central London. Zoe wants to dress up.”

“You have an evening meeting with representatives from the Business Association then,” Alex reminded her. “But if you're okay with losing your private lunch, I can switch it to then?” She nodded her agreement. “If you don't mind me asking, ma'am, Zoe being back in London – there's not another alien invasion is there? We've just finished cleaning up.”

* * *

_ Peckham, South London _

Jack waited on the corner of the estate, hands buried deep in his pockets, shifting from foot to foot as he tried to ignore the chill that settled in as night fell over London. He always forgot how cold it got and remembered a coat only because the Doctor had shouted after him to take one. He longed for the warmth of the TARDIS but the thought of waiting for Mickey there with the knowing expressions on the faces of the Doctor, Jackie, and Zoe was too much for him. Rose had slipped away earlier in the evening, Shareen texting her to come over to her flat with a bottle of wine, and had grinned when he told her what his plans were. At some point he was going to have to talk to his friends and tell them what was going on between him and Mickey; he wanted to share it all but he wasn't actually sure what was happening: they spoke every night, flirted lightly via text during the day, were happy to see each other, _and_ Mickey had loved the gift he picked out on Shan Shen but Jack wasn't sure whether anything had changed from the last time they saw each other.

He thought that something had.

He didn't know if it was wishful thinking though.

Mickey seemed inclined to sit closer to him and stand in his personal space, only to jerk away as though suddenly conscious of what he was doing. It was both frustrating and charming in equal measure. Jack had never fallen for someone who was having to question their sexuality as where he came from, sexuality wasn't something that was thought about – people liked who they liked and that was that. The labels that the girls had taught him – straight, bisexual, gay, pan, asexual – were like a foreign language to him, sitting awkwardly on his tongue when he tried to use them. He knew that Rose only liked men and that made her straight; he knew that Zoe liked both men and women and that made her bisexual; what he didn't understand was why the labels mattered and why Mickey was struggling with his feelings towards Jack.

Unable to fully understand the turmoil that Mickey experienced every time they were alone together, Jack simply put it down to cultural differences and worked towards making him as comfortable as possible.

_It's just strange,_ he thought, slowly losing feeling to his fingers. _Why label what doesn't matter?_

Jiggling on the spot to keep warm, he looked around the dreary surroundings that his friends called home. London was still exotic and foreign to Jack in a way that the Boeshane Peninsula would be to the girls if they ever visited – and he hoped they didn't as there were too many ghosts for him there – but he was beginning to see past the glamour that new places held for him. He saw the dirt on the street, the overflowing bins; he smelt the pollution in the air and watched cars keep their engines going as they waited for the traffic lights to turn green. He was getting used to the fact that not everyone he met were like the Tylers and Mickey – some were nice, some weren't. He was learning that flirting with the wrong person in Peckham might earn him a punch to the jaw, rolling the word _homophobia_ around in his mouth, another new piece of vocabulary to add to his 21st century collection.

He liked London because it was the home of his friends, but he wasn't sure he _liked_ London.

“Jack!” He turned, drawn to the sound of Mickey's voice, and a grin stretched across his face as Mickey jogged towards him dressed in a pair of dark jeans and an olive green jumper under his coat. His blood heated at the thought that he had put a little thought into his appearance, mind turning over what that might mean for the evening. “What you doin' out here? Figured we'd meet in the TARDIS.”

“Jackie's there,” he explained, desperately wondering whether it was a date. He didn't think it was but he knew from Rose and Zoe that sometimes dates weren't always classed as dates in order to give people an easy out if they were horrible. “She and the Doctor are already arguing. Thought it'd be quieter out here, didn't think it'd be this cold.”

Mickey laughed, shaking his head. “Prat. C'mon then, before you freeze to death.”

Jack hesitated over offering his arm, deciding against it in the end when the word _homophobia_ fell to the front of his mind. Instead, he kept his hands in his pockets and followed Mickey along the streets of Peckham.

Since Rose was spending the night with Shareen and the Doctor was busy making fake documents for him and Zoe to use in the morning at the school, dinner had turned into a fractured affair. Seizing his opportunity for time alone with Mickey, Jack had asked him out to dinner, fully prepared for him to say no only to be elated and surprised when he had agreed as long as he was able to choose the restaurant – Mickey hadn't forgiven Jack for the restaurant in Massachusetts that served spiced eyeballs that, while delicious, were still eyeballs and were extremely spicy.

“Here it is,” Mickey said, pausing outside a dilapidated-looking building with fading yellow paint and bright interior lighting. “The best Caribbean food you're goin' to eat outside the actual Caribbean.”

“I've never had Caribbean food before but I'm up for anything,” Jack told him, stepping through the door only to be assailed by aromas that made his mouth water. “It smells amazing.”

“Right?” Mickey bumped him with his shoulder, waving to the woman behind the counter. “All right, Aunt Daphne?”

“Mickey Smith, come over here an' give me a kiss.” Jack watched, amused, as Mickey crossed the room and leaned over the counter to press a kiss to the woman's whiskery cheek, her eyes lingering on him over Mickey's shoulder. “An' who's this handsome man then?”

“This is Jack, he's a friend,” he introduced. “He's off travellin' with Rose an' Zoe.”

“Not the one who kidnapped Rose?”

“No, I came after that,” Jack said, taking her offered hand and bringing it to his lips. “A pleasure, ma'am.”

A blush rose to Daphne's cheeks, eyes sparkling. “My, my, ain't you somethin' different? American?”

“More or less,” Mickey said, tugging on his sleeves. “Thought I'd give him some proper food before he heads off again.”

“An' you brought him here; you're a good boy.” She patted his cheeks and came around the counter. Jack realised she had been standing on a raised ledge as she lost a foot in height and barely came up to his chest. “You call Daphne. If I like you, you then call me Aunt Daphne.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Her smile widened. “I'm startin' to like you.”

“I'm very likeable.”

She laughed. “An' a heartbreaker with those looks of yours. You single? I've got two lovely granddaughters.”

“I'm sure they're Aphrodite made flesh,” Jack said, smoothly. “However, I'm not available, but thank you.”

“Shame.” Her tongue clucked against the roof of her mouth before she took them by the elbows and pulled them over to a table away from the window, removing the menus. “Sit here an' I'll bring the food over.”

He watched her go, bemused. “Don't we need the menus?”

“It's your first time here,” Mickey said, shrugging out of his coat. “She's goin' feed you what she's goin' to feed you. Don't worry though, Aunt Daphne's the best cook in all of London. She's been runnin' this place since the 60s an' knows what she's doin'.”

“I'm in your hands; I trust you completely,” he said, removing his own coat. “But _Aunt_ Daphne?”

“She's an old friend of my nan's,” Mickey said. “I think they came over to Britain more or less at the same time. After Nan died a few years ago, she'd come an' check on me to make sure I was okay. She does it to everyone though. She likes takin' care of people.”

“I've noticed that about here – the estate, I suppose.” Jack rested his hands on the table. “You all look out for each other, it's nice.”

He bounced his knee and looked away. “Yeah.”

A coil of tension settled in the air between them. Jack was suddenly aware that he had blundered up against something that held lingering pain for Mickey.

“What did I say?” He asked quietly. “Just now, I said something that made you look – I don't know – uncomfortable?” Mickey opened his mouth to deny it, and he pushed forwards. “Please let me know. I don't want to say it again if I can avoid it.”

A small sigh filtered from his mouth. “It's not you. It's – I don't talk about it a lot, that's all.”

“Talk about what?” Jack watched as he shifted, uncomfortable by the conversation. “Mickey?”

“The year that Rose was with the Doctor,” he said, the words falling heavily from him. “It wasn't – she just disappeared, an' 'round here when a girl goes missin' it's normally the boyfriend or the husband. It wasn't too bad at first but then I was hauled in for questionin' an' I tried to tell Jackie about the Doctor an' what Rose was doin' but I couldn't get the words out right. She thought I was tryin' to lie about what happened to her an' she helped stir up trouble.” He shrugged as though trying to get rid of the memories. “When you said that everyone looks out for each other, I guess it just reminded me of that.”

“I don't understand,” Jack said. “You were questioned for what, by whom?”

“The police for Rose's murder,” he said, unable to meet his eyes, choosing to look at a point on the wall behind him. “Everyone thought she was dead an' no one was listenin' when I tried to explain about the Doctor. Wish I'd known about UNIT back then. Could've bloody kept sayin' that word again an' again until someone came down to help me out, but I didn't. All I knew was that this pain in the arse bloke with a stupid leather jacket took Rose away with him an' then didn't bring her back. For all I knew, she was really dead out there, wherever he took her.”

Jack stared, horrified. “Mickey...this is _awful_. What about Zoe? What was she doing in all of this? Wasn't she helping you?”

“Mate, Zoe was sixteen an' not what she is now,” Mickey said with a small, dry laugh. “Honestly, if you'd known her as a kid you'd be proper surprised by how she's turned out. She was this quiet, shy little thing who always had her nose stuck in a book. When Rose disappeared an' it was obvious that she wasn't comin' back any time soon, Zoe disappeared into herself. I'm not sure she was really aware of what was goin' on half the time; I reckon she was just tryin' to pretend it all wasn't happenin'.”

“But she must have done something,” he pressed, unable to conceive of a situation where Zoe wasn't in the thick of things trying to help. “Jackie, I get, we've all seen how she didn't like the Doctor and I can see her not listening when one of the girls is in danger, but Zoe? I can't imagine her doing nothing, even as a kid.”

“She did enough,” he said with an edge of finality that took Jack by surprise. “There was – one night – she helped when it mattered the most but she was a kid, she didn't know what was happenin' an' she was scared. Nothin' that happened was her fault.”

Aware that he had crossed an invisible line, Jack cleared his throat and pulled back. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring this all up again.”

“It's fine,” Mickey said, a small smile tinged with tiredness tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Things are better now. Most people have forgotten that it even happened.”

Jack looked at him critically. “Not you though.”

“No,” he sighed. “An' not Zoe either. Sometimes she'll look at me an' I know that she's feelin' guilty over not doin' more, even though it was – what? Ten years ago for her, more? I've lost track of how old she is now.”

“Comin' up for thirty,” Jack said. “In a week or so, I think. The Doctor's trying to work it so that her birthday is her actual birthday, not that I think she really cares. She's been clear that there are to be no celebrations.”

“She hates bein' the centre of attention,” Mickey said. “Always has.”

He leaned leaned back in his seat. “You know, I'm a little envious of you.” Mickey's eyebrows went up. “I'm serious. You've got all this history with Rose and Zoe, you knew them both when they were kids, all their lives really, and it feels like I'm playing catch up sometimes. I know they love me, but the way they talk about you makes me want that.”

Mickey laughed, surprised. “Have you ever felt jealous of anyone, _ever_?”

“Yes,” he nodded firmly. “My brother Gray when I was eight. For his birthday he got this small hoverboard that was all the rage at the time and I was sick with jealousy. I really wanted one but my parents were only able to afford one. Thankfully, Gray was good at sharing otherwise I'd have stolen it from him.”

The conversation shifted away from the lingering feelings of hurt and betrayal from a year that had faded from people's memories and onto other matters. They slipped from one topic to the other with perfect ease, barely breaking their conversation when Daphne came over with plates of food that tasted as delicious as they smelt, bottles of chilled beers filling the table between them. After making Mickey double over with laughter, his hand clutching at the table, over a story of his time in the Time Agency, the conversation eventually drifted to the plan for the next few days.

“I don't know,” Mickey said with a shake of his head. “The Doctor teachin'? Don't think he's patient enough for that.”

“More like he won't be able to focus enough,” Jack said. “He'll start teaching the kids physics and then end up doing an analysis of Shakespeare.” Mickey choked on his beer when laughter took him by surprise. “Reckon Zoe will do all right though. She can pay attention for longer than ten minutes.”

“What about you?” He asked, mopping up his spilt beer. “Ready to be a married man?”

_Yes,_ Jack thought, taking himself by surprise.

“Of course,” he replied, pushing through the unexpected certainty that swelled in his body. “Rose and I are parents to a delightful little girl named Lily who enjoys dancing, kick-boxing, and mathematics.”

“Lily Harkness or Lily Tyler?”

“We're thinking Harkness-Tyler.”

Mickey frowned. “Tyler-Harkness?”

“Bit of a mouthful,” Jack agreed. “I'm just hoping we can swing by the dining hall tomorrow to see you in your uniform.”

“I hate you,” he said, rubbing his eyes with a laugh. “I really, really do.”

“Liar,” Jack grinned. “You're the one who volunteered. The Doctor was going to have Rose do it but you stuck your hand up and volunteered.”

“I didn't realise there'd be a uniform!”

“A very fetching one that – _hey_!” He dodged a ball of beer-soaked tissues. “For what's it worth, I think you'll look – what's that word? Smashing?”

Mickey passed a hand across his mouth, cheeks aching from all the laughing and smiling he had been doing. “We're goin' to make a proper Londoner of you yet.”

It was Daphne who drew the evening to an end by cleaning the detritus from their table and pointedly clearing her throat, nodding at the clock on the wall that let them know hours had passed since they first stepped inside. Mickey paid for the meal after a brief wrestling match with Jack and, on their way out, Daphne took Jack's face between her soft, dry hands and looked into his eyes.

“You call me Aunt Daphne.”

The cold rush of air chased away some of the ease and mirth that had flowed between them. Orange light spilled over the street and cast them in an unhealthy glow, awkwardness threatening to seep in before Mickey pointed back the way they came, walking slowly back to the Powell Estate both to extend the evening and because they were full of food. Jack's mind worked overtime as he wondered what was going to happen next: his analysis of 21st century dating rituals – from a series of books he was surprised to find in the TARDIS, dog eared and with the Doctor's swirling languages in the notes that raised questions - indicated that a walk to the door was necessary along with the possibility of a goodnight kiss.

For the first time in his life, he found himself questioning whether or not it was appropriate to kiss someone. His mouth was dry and his palms were clammy when they turned onto the estate and saw that the TARDIS was missing.

“Guess they're off postin' the lottery tickets,” Mickey said, looking at the empty space. “Not a bad thing to wake up to in the mornin', I s'pose.”

“Definitely worse things to wake up too,” he agreed. “I've definitely had a few mornings where I wished I had woken up somewhere else.”

Mickey cleared his throat. “You – er – you want to come up? Knowin' the Doctor, he might not be back until mornin'.”

There was a rushing sound in Jack's ears. “If it's not a problem.”

Mickey's flat was as he remembered it from the start of the month, though much cleaner and warmer: the floors had been vacuumed, the skirting boards polished, and even the kitchen was in order. Jack hung his coat up on the back of the door and waited in the living room, sitting on the sofa and then standing up again, filled with a nervous energy that he wasn't able to put a name to. No one had ever made him feel so out of sorts before and he didn't know what to do about it. The things he would normally do – kiss and fuck – were off the table with Mickey for the time being, and he was left feeling as though ants were alive and crawling under his skin, searching for a satisfaction that was never going to come.

“Cup of tea, mate.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the steaming mug from him. The British were odd, using tea for any situation – death, happiness, boredom, everything in between; he had never actually drank tea before meeting Rose and Zoe and now it was a staple of his daily life. “You've had a clean.”

The room was dark enough that Jack wasn't able to see the colour seep into Mickey's cheeks. “Yeah, a bit of one.”

The conversation was stilted as they edged around the tension that sharpened between them. Slowly they began to circle back in on themselves, mentioning things, people, and events they had already discussed and Mickey's knee started bouncing. Jack thought the best thing to do was to excuse himself; if the TARDIS wasn't back then he could at least sleep on Jackie's sofa, she wouldn't mind. He opened his mouth to suggest that he do just that when Mickey set his mug down on the coffee table with a loud clatter. His hands took Jack's from his and their faces were illuminated by the single lamp in the room, casting a close, intimate setting around them.

“I just...”

Jack peered at him, concerned. “What is it? Was it the lamb thing? Because I didn't want to say anything but I swear it was a little under –”

Mickey kissed him.

His brain short circuited in a flurry of sparks and sensation and _finally_. Instructions that normally had him kissing back got tangled up in his delight and confusion, his eyes remaining wide open as he looked at Mickey. His skin formed a smooth, dark canvas up close, and the heat of his lips seared through him.

As soon as it began, it was over, and Jack's mouth slowly fell open into an unattractive gape that he wasn't able to wipe away. “Wha –?”

“The first kiss is the hardest,” Mickey said, words tumbling over each other in their haste to leave his mouth. “Always is, so I thought if I just went for it then it'd be easy, but it's just – now I feel stupid an' –”

“Don't feel stupid,” Jack interrupted, lips tingling and his body slowly unfreezing. “I wasn't prepared, you took me by surprise. None of that was my best work. Want to try again?”

Mickey slumped back into the sofa and laughed weakly. He ran a hand over his face and looked at him from between his fingers.

“I don't know what I'm doin' here, Jack.”

His mouth twisted, sympathetically. “I know.”

“But the thing is...” his tongue wet his bottom lip, and Jack followed it with his eyes. “I think about you all the time. I wake up in the mornin' an' I check my phone straight away to see if you've sent me a message; I'm workin' on a car an' I think about you for no reason; I'm down the pub with the boys an' I'm still thinkin' about you. I don't – I've never – not even with Rose –”

Jack swallowed, relieved it wasn't just him. “This is new for me too. I've never felt this way about anyone either.”

“You seem to be handlin' it better though.”

A rueful laugh slipped free. “I'm really not. The others have started making fun because of how obvious I am in my feelings for you. Rose and I even talked about it last week.”

“You an' Rose talked?” Mickey asked, sitting up sharply. “About this?”

“I needed someone to talk to,” he said. “And you want to try talking to the Doctor about this?”

“Good point,” he agreed. “I tried Zoe an' she was no help. Then again, I got her durin' her study period.”

“Surprised you made it out alive,” Jack said, making him snort. “We're a right pair, aren't we?”

Mickey slowly grasped hold of what little courage he was able to find. “That's what you want, isn't it? The two of us to...be a pair?”

“I want us to be together.” His heart thundered in his chest, feeling as though he was standing on the edge of a precipice, waiting for reassurance that he would be caught if he jumped. “Whatever form that takes. I just know that I've never felt this way before. I really, really like you, and I want to spend more time with you.”

Mickey swallowed. “I think I needed you to leave before I could figure how much I liked you. I just – I wanted you here an' you weren't, but now that you are – I don't want you to go.” Heat bloomed through Jack at the admission. “I still don't – I'm not ready for everythin' but I am ready for some things if – if that's what you want.”

His breath left him in a hot, rapid gush. “Mickey, _yes_.”

“An' when this is over, the alien school thing,” he continued, mouth dry from nerves. “I'm goin' to ask the Doctor if he minds me taggin' along. I should've come at New Year's but I wasn't ready for that _an_ ' you, but now I am.”

The smile that spread across Jack's face reminded Mickey of the rising sun.

“He's going to say yes,” Jack assured him. “He's been expecting you to join us for a while. Think he's a little upset that you kept saying no to him, but it's good for him to hear no every now and then.”

“So, we're doin' this?” He asked awkwardly, hand inching towards his only to stop halfway there.

Jack closed the distance and took his hand, revelling in the dry softness of the skin and the way their fingers slotted together.

“We're doing this,” he said, heart full. “But only at your speed. We're going to go as fast or as slow or as nothing as you want. Don't worry about me. I want you to be comfortable with everything.”

“Good, okay, _thank you_ ,” Mickey said, breath coming a little easier though he still felt as though he was drowning with the unknown, but he felt safe: Jack was a safe port in a storm, something steady and concrete. He laughed, shaking his head. “This is mad. I never thought – you're the only bloke that I – y'know.”

Jack's smile was soft and delighted. “I do know. Mickey?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if I kiss you again?” Hope lifted his voice and made him feel young again. “Because I really wasn't paying attention the first time and I'd quite like to actually remember it.”

A wave of dizziness passed through Mickey, nerves and excitement fluttering in his chest, chin dipping in a weak nod. “Go for it.”

Jack's smile stayed on his face as he leaned in. Gently, he brushed his lips over Mickey's and savoured every moment, glad that he had hold of Mickey's hand as he was shaking like a leaf caught in a storm. He pulled back an inch to drink him in – the dark eyelashes, the dark skin, the bow-shaped lips that softened in a small pout – and exhaled, terrified at how important it was to get it right, wondering if this was what love felt like. Mickey's eyelashes fluttered against his cheekbones, eyes beginning to open, when Jack pressed forward and kissed him harder, fingers curling around his, the ip of his tongue tasting the inside of his mouth for the first time, and Jack revelled in the fact that every decision in his life – good and bad – had led him to this moment.

He eased back to murmur against Mickey's mouth. “Good?”

He was tugged forward, falling on top of him as their bodies fell back onto the sofa. Beneath him, Mickey's eyes were shadowed.

“Good,” he said, tilting his mouth up, seeking another kiss.

Jack was thrilled to oblige.


	20. Chapter 20

_ Two Days Later _

Zoe bit into her sandwich and looked around the cafeteria. It was years since she was last in a school canteen, having once qualified for free school meals, but she didn't remember the teachers at Coal Hill having eaten with the students, mingling among them at tables as they ate. On her first day, Ms Henshaw – the headteacher's assistant – had shown her and the Doctor around before their first classes and told them that eating in the cafeteria was strongly encouraged and, since all the meals were free to everyone, the teachers were more often than not happy to sit with their students. Zoe found it strange but did find the food excellent if simplistic, typical for most secondary schools in her experience. With mouthful of beef on rye, the horseradish making her nasal cavities sing, she glanced towards the Doctor who was receiving a plate of chips from Mickey who, judging by the expression on his face, did not appreciate having to serve him.

Sliding into the seat opposite her, greeting the students who were also at the table, his plate piled high with perfectly cooked golden chips and nothing else, he popped a chip into his mouth, steam rising from the perfectly cooked potato.

She raised her eyebrows. “No vegetables?”

“Nah.” He shook far too much vinegar and not enough salt onto his chips and picked one up; Rose had turned him into something of a chip aficionado and Zoe watched him chew, a thoughtful look on his face. “They're a bit different.”

“Nice different, or weird different?”

“Nice different,” he said. “And a little weird different.”

Zoe reached across and took one, biting into it. Pleasure made her tastebuds tingle and the crook of her jaw ache in the way that good food always did. She caught the moan before it left her mouth and stole another one. “God, these are amazing. Don't let Rose get her hands on these or she'll never let go.”

A smile crinkled his eyes. “Don't eat too many. Mickey swears up and down that there's something wrong with them.” He looked over at the students who weren't paying them any attention and leaned closer. “He's trying to get his hands on some of the oil but it's kept under lock and key apparently.”

She wiped her fingers on her napkin. “You're joking.”

“Wish I was,” he said. “But doesn't that scream suspicious to you?”

“Keeping the cooking oil locked away? Yeah, course it does,” she said, foot resting against his ankle beneath the table. “Are you thinking perhaps a little midnight escapade into the kitchens? A bit of breaking and entering?”

His smile spread. “It might have crossed my mind.”

“Does it have to be tonight?” Zoe asked, annoyed at the possibility of missing out. “I'm having dinner with Harriet but I want to break and enter.”

“Bring Harriet along,” the Doctor said. “She's a good sport about these things.”

“Oh, yeah, that'll look great in the papers the next day if we're caught,” she said, spreading her hands in front of her. “ _Prime Minister Caught Breaking and Entering_. The Opposition would have a field day with that.”

“You know,” he said, conversationally. “I find it a little odd that you're so up to speed with the politics of the day. I'm having this awful sliding doors moment of you being a politician if I hadn't come along.”

“I'd make a cracking politician,” Zoe said. “I'd be firm but fair and pump a lot of money into the sciences and education – _ooo_ , and the arts! Got to fund the arts. Rose used to do a spot of drama down at the rec centre when it was government funded.”

“She mentioned something about a drama class,” he mused, chewing on a chip before a thought struck him that made him turn worried eyes in her direction. “Please don't leave me to become a politician.”

“No promises,” she said with a shrug. “Depends if Harriet offers me a job again tonight.”

“I don't think that's – what do you mean _again_?” He asked, startled. “When did she offer you a job?”

“At Christmas,” Zoe said, stealing another chip despite knowing that she shouldn't. “It's not important because I've been thinking, doesn't this place seem a little well-behaved to you?”

His eyes lingered on her, wondering what else she hadn't told him about her Christmas conversation with Harriet, before he glanced around. The students at their table were huddled over an analysis of Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_ , arguing good naturedly about the themes involved; at a table in the corner, a group of students were working on some mathematical problems that Zoe had set for homework just that morning. Nothing seemed hugely out of place to the Doctor, in fact it reminded him of lunches and breaks at the Academy on Gallifrey where he and his friends would come together and try and solve the various academic problems that had been set for them that day, and he told Zoe exactly that.

“Maybe that's right on – back home.” She caught herself before anything incriminating fell from her mouth. “But here, this is weird. It's not normal. A bunch of hormone-ridden teenagers in one room just happily sitting and eating? Where are the arguments? The tears? The romantic angst? Rose nearly yanked a chunk of Keisha's hair out once over an argument about a boy – it was this big fight on the playground. But this? It's too clean, too polite. One of them told me they liked my shirt.”

The Doctor, glad for an opportunity to openly admire her, took in at her white and blue pinstriped shirt that she had tucked into a pair of suit trousers. “It's a nice shirt.”

“Teenage girls should not be complimentary to adult women,” Zoe told him. “They should be little shits. God knows I was.”

“I don't believe that for a second,” he said. “Though I suppose I did think there would be happy slapping hoodies.” A spark of amused light filled his eyes. “Happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs. Happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs and ringtones. Huh? Huh?” His foot tapped hers beneath the table. “Oh, yeah. Don't tell me I don't fit in.”

“You really don't,” she said through a smile. “But that doesn't stop you being adorable.”

“You know what,” he said. “I'll take it.”

Spending the last two days on Earth had been nice. Zoe enjoyed the afternoon spent with her mother going over party plans and checking the guest list one more time while having a healthy argument about the sort of decorations that they should pin up in the recreation centre. Jack wanted large and gaudy items that represented the glamour of Hollywood, something that Jackie was attracted to, while Zoe had argued for a more understated approach, aware that she wasn't going to win the argument when she started. In the end, they compromised for the simple fact that a compromise was easier to set up than the extravaganza Jack and Jackie preferred. Even dinner with just her mother and the Doctor had been fun, the two of them slipping into their easy, light-hearted bickering that no longer took on the sharp edge of before _;_ the Doctor's regeneration had helped put to bed the anger and animosity between them as they found common ground with the love and affection they shared for Rose and Zoe.

Weeks spent in each others company had also helped both of them learn to view the other as a person with both faults and positive attributes, but Zoe still found it strange to come across the two of them discussing the latest book they were reading or going over the most recent happenings in EastEnders, which the Doctor only watched so he could chat with Jackie about it. It was odd but comforting in a warm, domestic way that made her hopeful for the future when she eventually got around to telling Jackie – and everyone else – about the change in her and the Doctor's relationship.

And she knew that she needed to do it sooner rather than later, but she was enjoying the friendly harmony on the TARDIS, aware that the second it became known she and the Doctor were a couple, things would change.

She didn't want anything to change.

At least not for her.

Jack and Mickey on the other hand was something different. Everyone was focused on what was happening between them ever since Rose had sprinted down to the TARDIS after spending a night at Shareen's, red in the face and out of breath, to tell them that Jack had been coming out of Mickey's shower when she went up to fetch them for breakfast the next morning. Neither of them indicated that anything was changed between them but Zoe was almost positive something had. Mickey's behaviour reminded her of the shy, eager way she had behaved around Reinette once she finally accepted that she loved her. If their suspicions were true, then Zoe was thrilled for her friends and wanted only the best for them, though it did add another layer of worry about coming out about her relationship.

Zoe and the Doctor.

Jack and Mickey.

That left Rose the odd one out and Zoe didn't want her to feel like that.

Her phone beeped, pulling her thoughts away from the love lives of her friends. She reached out and stole one final chip from the Doctor's plate before rolling her apple towards him. “I've got to go.”

“Lunch isn't over yet,” he complained, having hoped to spend the lunch hour with her. He caught the apple before it dropped off the table and shined it against his shoulder. “Where are you rushing off to?”

“I'm helping some kids with their coursework,” she said, slipping her suit jacket back on as she stood. “It's strange but not everyone in the class is doing well, only a small handful. It might be worth asking Jack to have a dig around in the student files and find out if there are any commonalities between them.”

“You want to text him or shall I?”

“I'll do it,” she said, twitching to lean in and give him a kiss before resting her hand on his shoulder instead. “But, since I'm here, I may as well actually see if I can help the kids that are struggling as I'm not sure the teachers in the department care.”

The Doctor took hold of her wrist, fingers encircling it lightly. “Have you been able to speak with the any of the others yet?”

“Mr Basset,” she said, immediate disdain dripping from her voice, conscious of the students sitting near them, she lowered her voice. “Remember Van Statten?”

He snorted. “Unfortunately.”

“Well, Basset is like Van Statten but without the genius intellect and obscene amount of money,” she told him. “He's a sexist, misogynistic ass who asked me who I had to fuck to get my degree.”

Anger pulsed through him. “He what?”

“He doesn't believe that women have roles outside the home,” she said, disparagingly. “And he doesn't seem to understand that people with two X chromosomes can actually know anything about maths.” Her fingers gave his shoulder, tense with anger on her behalf, a quick squeeze. “Nothing I can't handle, just a minor annoyance.”

“If you're sure,” he said, letting the tension fade from him, knowing she was more than capable of handling herself against foolish men. He released her wrist and smiled. “See you later then.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

“Cross my hearts.”

The Doctor watched her leave before he finished off his plate of chips, attempting to analyse them with his tongue, certain that whatever the oil contained wasn't going to harm him. It didn't look as though it was meant to harm, which was curious, and the Doctor hoped Mickey was able to get his hands on some oil – as much as he loved breaking and entering, it would be easier simply to have him collect a sample.

On his way out, he nodded at Mickey and made his way towards the teacher's lounge. He had had more luck making friends with the teachers in his department than Zoe had, pumping them for information about any changes in their students over the last three months; they were all perfectly nice people, if a little boring. Most of their complaints centred around the amount of paperwork they had to do, and the Doctor thought it was a massive waste of resources. On Gallifrey, there had been a specific department at every school that dealt with the administrative side of teaching so all the teachers had to do was fill in a form every now and then and the rest was taken care of. It made no sense to him to have teachers so snowed under with paperwork that they didn't have time to learn how to be better teachers.

Still, despite the inadequacies he found, it was nice to be teaching again. He hadn't taught properly in years. The closest he had come was when Zoe was young and eager to learn about the TARDIS and the fourth dimension, peppering him with questions as she followed him around the console – W _hat does this do? What's that? Why do you use this?._ He liked what he had with Zoe now but he did find himself reminiscing on those days with a rush of fondness. Stepping into the teacher's lounge, he was immediately sprinkled with greetings.

“Hey, John.”

“Afternoon, John.”

“Hi, John.”

He smiled around at the room, returning the greetings with a nod and a smile, making a beeline for the kettle. Not willing to enter into the strange mug politics that Zoe had accidentally encountered the previous day, he chose a plain white mug and waited as the kettle boiled, turning over the information they had been able to collect. Rose and Jack's undercover work as parents hadn't raised any concerns – Mr Finch knew what he was talking about, though Rose said that he reminded her of a toad: slimy and difficult to grab – but they both said that there was something slightly off about the whole affair that was difficult to put their finger on. Jackie, in a burst of helpfulness and initiative that took the Doctor by surprise, had taken a stroll past the school when the children left and chatted with the parents at the gates and found that all of them were thrilled with the improvements.

The Doctor wanted to believe that perhaps whichever species had taken root in the school was there simply to improve the lot of the children and provide them with a sterling education, but experience had taught him that altruism was rarely the source of covert actions. His thoughts were torn from the matter when someone bumped into him, the milk slopping from the bottle and missing his mug.

“Oops, sorry,” Tim Parsons, one of the biology teachers, apologised, grabbing a tea cloth from the cutlery drawer. “Here let me.”

“It's no problem,” the Doctor said, leaning back to let him clean the mess up. “Need the milk?”

“Thanks very much,” he said, hair curling messily around his eyes, glasses sliding down his nose. “I wish we could have kettles in the classroom. It'd definitely help.”

“Should put it in a suggestion box,” the Doctor said. “Having a tough day?”

“Tough few months.” He rolled his shoulders and blinked, attempting to keep the exhaustion at bay. Eyeing the Doctor curiously, weighing up his trustworthiness, he lowered his voice. “The kids are upping their game, and it's difficult to keep up with them what with all the extra work this bloody Labour government has us doing.”

The Doctor wondered if he should ask Zoe to mention the state of the schools and working conditions when she met Harriet for dinner later that day before deciding against it as it felt too much like interference of the minute kind that he generally tried to stay away from – he was more of a big events, sweeping interference type of Time Lord.

“The children are unusually smart,” he agreed. “Some of them, at least, which is a bit strange. Both Zoe and I've noticed it.”

“Zoe?” Tim asked, momentarily blank. “That's the sub for maths, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Smart girl,” he said, absently, stirring sugar into his tea. “Heard she went to MIT.”

“She did,” the Doctor said, pride creeping into his words. “But we like to travel so we just teach for a bit when we're back visiting her mother. She says they're answering questions she struggled with on her final exams and she's the smartest person I know, which is saying something.”

“Yesterday,” Tim confided, “I had a twelve-year-old girl give me the exact height of the walls of Troy in cubits.”

That was odd: the only reason the Doctor knew the answer to that was because he had helped build the wall.

“And it's been ever since the new headteacher arrived?”

“Finch arrived three months ago,” Parsons explained. “Then over the next few months, half the staff started getting replaced. Some got jobs, others fell sick, a few were sacked, it's had us all a bit on edge. Especially since he replaced them with that lot –” he nodded at the quiet, sombre looking group in the corner. “Except for the teachers you and Zoe replaced. That was just plain weird, both of them winning the lottery like that.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “How's that weird?”

  
“Maggie never played and she said the ticket was posted through her door at midnight,” he said. “Although Rob had a bit of a gambling problem, nothing too serious mind, but he did like a bit of a flutter on the Gee-Gees, you know?”

  
“Hmm.” The Doctor sipped his tea non-committally – Jackie had mentioned that it might not be the best idea as too many questions would be raised, but he dismissed her concerns as he poked the ticket through the door. “Lucky them, I suppose.”

Mr Finch entered the room with a woman half-shadowed behind him, disappearing behind the breadth of his chest as he turned.

“Excuse me, colleagues,” he called out, attracting their attention, and the Doctor turned away from Tim, searching for a biscuit as he knew there were some custard creams somewhere. “A moment of your time, please. May I introduce Miss Sarah Jane Smith?” Hand halfway into the biscuit tine, the Doctor froze and stared at the wall – _no, it can't be,_ he thought. “Miss Smith is a journalist who's writing a profile about me for the Sunday Times. I thought it might be useful for her to get a view from the trenches, so to speak. Don't spare my blushes.”

As Finch's words faded out, the Doctor turned.

The air was punched from his lungs.

Standing next to Mr Finch, dressed in jeans and a brown leather jacket, natural sunlight falling across her, was Sarah Jane.

Automatically raising a hand to catch her attention before he remembered the centuries that stood between them. He forced his hand into his pocket, hearts thundering painfully in his chest, and panic started to sink into him. He wasn't ready for this. He needed time to prepare, to think of something to say, but as he stared at her and took in what the passage of time had done to her – _still beautiful_ – his mind turned blank. The last time he had seen her was centuries ago when he had been summoned back to Gallifrey, not wanting to go and not wanting to say goodbye to her, their stupid argument ringing in his ears as he listened to the message from home. He couldn't even remember what they had been fighting about that time, something silly and nonsensical knowing them, but he remembered the look on her face when he told her he was taking her home: that soft, shattered look of heartbreak that had made him want to weep.

His last image of her was her dressed in her pink and red stripped jumpsuit, the one he had joked made her look like a candy cane, with her suitcase in hand and her odd stuffed monkey clutched to her chest as she tried not to cry.

He wondered if she had cried later as he had done, weeping bitter tears of regret over the console as the TARDIS idled in the Time Vortex, delaying his return home. The tears had dried tracks on his face by the time he reached Gallifrey, already sealing his time with Sarah Jane into a box to try and contain the hurt. Looking at her now, he saw the girl she had been with the woman that she had become, the two overlaid on top of each other until they settled. Her rich brown hair was styled the same but there were threads of grey lacing their way through it, catching the sunlight and making her look as though she had strands of beautiful silver threaded through; there were a few new wrinkles and her skin had lost some of elasticity but she was still Sarah Jane Smith: brilliant and devastatingly beautiful.

He couldn't breathe. Light-headed and dizzy as she glanced around the room and caught sight of him; panic flared like a supernova, tempered only by the belated realisation that she wouldn't recognise him, and he was trying to calm himself down when she approached him.

“Hello,” Sarah Jane said.

_I miss you_ , the Doctor thought.

“Oh, I should think so,” he said, babbling, secondary bypass kicking in and oxygen flooded back into his body but not before he sounded like an idiot. “That is, it's a lovely day – _nice_ – good day for educating young minds and things like that – which is really...what I mean to say – hello.”

Next to him, Tim stared in bewilderment at the word soup that spilled from his mouth before he picked up his mug and went somewhere the Doctor wasn't, which, the Doctor considered, he wished he was able to do.

A small frown rippled across Sarah Jane's forehead before her polite look of interest returned, eyes broadcasting her thoughts on his intelligence. “And you are?”

“Oh – er –” his mind remained stubbornly unhelpful and he couldn't remember his human name for one long, shivering second before it slammed into him. “Smith, John Smith.”

“John Smith,” Sarah Jane repeated, a faint smile creeping in around the lines of her eyes and his blood rushed through his ears like a tidal wave, threatening to deafen him, because Sarah Jane Smith was in front of him and he wanted to reach out and touch her, feel the warmth of her skin and the solidity of her body under his palm, reassuring himself that she wasn't a dream. “I used to have a friend who sometimes went by that name.”

His hearts leapt in delight.

  
“Well, it's a very common name,” he said, words spilling out of him without his permission.

  
“He was a very uncommon man,” she said, and his smile stretched across his face. “It's nice to meet you.”

  
“Nice to meet you too,” he said, eagerly. “Yes, very nice. More than nice. _Brilliant_ , in fact. Fantastic some might say. Not me though, at least not any more. Not that it's not fantastic to meet you, it's just – hello.”

She stared at him, the certainty she was talking to a mad man settling into her marrow, but she was too much of a professional to let it distract her. “So, have you worked here long?”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “It's only my second day. I'm a substitute.”

“Oh, you're new then,” Sarah Jane said, her interest in him rocketing. She stepped a little closer and he caught notes of bergamot and citrus, the familiar fragrance sending him tumbling into his memories of when he had bought the perfume for her on a lazy trip to Italy one quiet afternoon. “So, what do you think of the school? I mean, this new curriculum? So many children suddenly getting top marks after barely scrapping by? Doesn't that strike you as odd?”

The delight that spread through the Doctor at the realisation she was _investigating_ just as he was made his vision blur. “You don't sound like someone just doing a profile.”

“Well, no harm in a little investigation while I'm here,” she said, a gleam in her eyes that he recognised, unable to do anything but remember the first time they met when she had walked onto the UNIT base with false credentials and a thirst to prove herself.

“No,” he agreed. “Absolutely not. Good for you.”

She seemed almost amused by him, a small hesitance pulling at her as she looked at him, before she fell back and excused herself. The Doctor wanted to curl his fingers around her elbow and pull her into his arms, press his face into her hair, and just hold her for as long as he could – _I love you, I'm sorry, forgive me_. Instead, he watched as she effortlessly slipped into a group of teachers and introduced herself, gently prying information from them with a touch so delicate that no one realised she was asking questions she shouldn't.

“Sarah Jane,” he murmured, emotion clogging his throat. “Look at you.”

* * *

_ Later that evening _

Zoe sat at the table in the restaurant that was as fancy as she hoped waiting for Harriet to arrive, sipping her glass of wine as she let her mind wander. A little tired from her day of teaching, she was grateful to have a few minute to herself. Years had passed since she last taught for any continuous amount of time and it was taking her a little longer than she liked to get back into the swing of it. The children were much less taxing than those she remembered from France – her grubby, dirty child with rotten teeth and lice-ridden clothes whom she adored and had taught to read and write and do their numbers. It was equally satisfying though, something which surprised her, but, during her lunchtime tuition, she had felt that same surge of delight and triumph when it clicked for her students, the light of understanding flooding into their faces and how proud and delighted they looked.

Teaching wasn't a profession that crossed her mind when she was younger and contemplating her future. She always intended to enter a well-paid profession so that she was able to look after Jackie and Rose – her biggest goal, one that she kept close to her chest, was to earn enough money to buy her mother a house somewhere nice and give her the security that she deserved. Now that she was older and had more life experience tucked away inside of her, she realised that even if Jackie won the lottery tomorrow, she wouldn't want to leave the estate as it was her home.

When the time came for her to leave the Doctor, she thought that teaching might be for her. There were plenty of schools in London that needed patient, educated teachers for whom the job was a vocation, and Zoe felt it was a career where she could truly make a difference and be proud of herself at the same time. The idea of being the type of teacher that students remembered fondly decades later was something that struck her as a worthwhile use of her time, even if the thought of leaving the Doctor did make her stomach churn and her heart clench.

“Oh, dear, that's a serious look,” Harriet said as she approached the table exactly on time. Zoe wiped the look from her face and rose to her feet, smiling. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Just the way my face falls unfortunately,” she joked, hugging her friend in greeting. “Hello. Long time no see.”

“For you, maybe, I saw you a month ago.” Harriet smiled, beautiful in a rich green dress, her hair pinned back in her usual style. “How long has it been this time?”

“Since Christmas?” She did the maths quickly. “Just over two months.”

“An improvement on last time,” Harriet said as they took their seats. While Zoe poured her a glass of wine, a man having dinner with his wife looking over at them in interest. “You look lovely by the way. That dress is gorgeous, I can see why you wanted an opportunity to wear it.”

Zoe beamed. “Thanks. It rendered both the Doctor and Jack speechless, which is actually really hard to do with Jack. He doesn't gape a lot.”

“And the Doctor does?”

“On occasion,” she said with a slow smile, gently tapping her glass against Harriet's. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Harriet sighed after her first sip of wine, shoulders easing back. “Oh, that's better. I've been looking forward to this all day.”

“Bit of a nightmare?”

“Not the best day I've had since becoming PM,” she admitted, rubbing briefly at the bridge of her nose. “But you don't want to hear me complain about work.”

“No, I do, complain away,” Zoe urged, eager for the gossip. “What happened? Was it the American ambassador?”

Harriet laughed. “No, he was actually pleasant for a change, it's the American president that's causing problems. He thinks he should be taking lead on drafting planetary procedure for contact with extraterrestrials and resents that I'm the one invited to all of the meetings, but he's not the reason I've had a trying day.” She took a fortifying sip of wine, her body bearing the lingering marks of the humiliation that had been delivered on her earlier. “I was thoroughly torn apart at PMQs today.”

She was gratified by the surprise that settled on Zoe's face. “You did? How? The leader of the Opposition is a wet fish.”

“There's a new one,” she explained. “Very tough, very intelligent, very quick on his feet. I wasn't expecting it.”

The conversation paused briefly for them to order their food before Zoe settled back and listened to Harriet's recounting of the political difficulties she had faced since Christmas – in-party fighting, an Opposition rapidly uniting under a new leader only a week old, international relations difficulties with big personalities and bigger egos. Often Zoe thought that her life was more interesting for the way she lived it with the Doctor but listening to Harriet reminded her that life on Earth was as equally fascinating. It wasn't something Zoe thought she would have the patience to do, and she admired her friend who did it and seemed to relish the times she got to argue her point and garner agreement for her policies.

“But enough about me,” Harriet said, cutting into her duck at the end of her retelling of how the Latvian prime minster cornered her coming out of the bathroom to argue about visa restrictions on Latvians trying to enter the UK. “I'm more interested in you. How was your graduation?”

Zoe smiled. “Wonderful. Perfect weather, everyone was there, the only downside was the massive robot that tried to squash us beneath it's feet.”

“I'm sorry?”

“One of my classmates lost control of a giant robot,” she said with a small shrug. “Bit of a shock when it emerged from the earth and started stomping about the place. It took a while to get it under control but the Doctor managed. I was furious at the idiot that did it because a few years ago he didn't contain some bio-products properly and it was an unpleasant time until the CDC were able to clean it up.” Harriet stared at her. “Aside from that though, it was a really nice day, and I am now, officially, a graduate of MIT, albeit in the 32nd century.”

“It still counts,” Harriet decided, lifting her wine glass, pride warming her. “To you, my dear.”

“To me,” she agreed.

“And your travel since then has been peaceful?” She asked. “Although, considering what you said on the phone...”

“It's been more or less peaceful,” Zoe assured her. “About normal for us actually – most days are good, some are a little chaotic. The only really dark bit of the travel was the slave ship we came across.” She pushed her asparagus on the plate, appetite briefly lost. “We caught a distress signal, which is actually kind of rare if you think about how we travel, so when we pick them up we go after them. We thought it was just a typical ship in distress at first but a bit of investigation showed us that the crew were transporting slaves to another planet. It was – it was really ugly. Put the Doctor in a foul mood for days. None of us felt right after it.”

Shock showed on Harriet's face. “Was this in the future?”

“Not _our_ future,” she said, “but the future, yes. It took place in the Grifari Empire sometime in the 40th century, I think – I can't remember the exact year. It was at a time when they hadn't made contact with humans.”

“When I think of you out there, travelling,” Harriet said, turning the new information over in her mind. “I must admit that I imagine more enjoyable scenarios – beaches and markets and odd but wonderful locations – not slavery.”

“The universe is a big place, not all of it good,” she said, chewing on her asparagus. “But there's a lot of really fun stuff too. Not too long ago we went to Drana for a picnic – it's this place with purple oceans and lovely seafood. Normally quite peaceful but Jack accidentally disturbed a nest of water nymphs and we had to get out of there pretty quickly: very territorial and anti-man. I think Jack took it personally.”

Harriet shook her head, mouth soft with laughter. “The things that come out of your mouth. But what was it you said the other day? Something about Queen Victoria?”

“I'm glad you brought that up because I wasn't sure how to,” Zoe said, setting her knife and fork down, wondering how to say what she wanted to. It was important to her not to ruin her friendship with Harriet, but it was also important that she receive reassurance. “So, we ended up in Scotland in 1879 where we came across Queen Victoria on the road while she was transporting the Koh-I-Noor to be recut. The usual nonsense happened and we ended up going along with her to a house that was called Torchwood.”

Harriet slowly lowered her fork. “Torchwood?”

“The Torchwood Estate,” she said. “Owned by Sir Robert MacLeish who died that same night.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I mentioned our conversation about Torchwood to the others – the Doctor's heard of it only once from our old friend Margaret Blaine, but Jack's heard of it too, which is weird when you remember he's from the 51st century. He says that it's a huge research institute that funds a lot of the more unusual projects that don't get funding. Apparently, it was founded by Queen Victoria, so I imagine we accidentally had something to do with its creation.”

“Zoe.” A cold, unpleasant suspicious dripped through Harriet's mind. “Was this the reason for you asking me to dinner? To question me about Torchwood?”

She shook her head, passing a hand over her mouth.

“Of course it wasn't. You're my friend and I wanted to see you again.” Harriet nodded, eyes still wary. “But it won't surprise you that I've been thinking about what happened at Christmas a lot – or what nearly happened. Torchwood, what it is and what it does, really worries me, and I don't think it's a coincidence that we ended up in 1879. Sometimes, the TARDIS takes us places that we need to go and she took us there. I don't know why, but we ended up there on a night that a werewolf was meant to kill Victoria.”

“A werewolf?”

“There's an official alien name but I don't remember it, something about waves and lupin forms or something, no clue. Basically, it was a werewolf with very sharp claws.” A small shiver rolled through her at the memory of pain ripping across her back. “But I'm not trying to start an argument. You have your reasons for trusting Torchwood, and I'm woman enough to admit that I don't like them simply because of that conversation about the weapon they were preparing, it's definitely turned me against them, but I like you. I trust you. So, I'm going to ask you a question and I'd like you to be honest so I can put this to rest.”

Harriet set her knife and fork down. “Ask me your question.”

“Is Torchwood dangerous to me, my friends, or the Doctor?”

Harriet breathed out, relieved it was a question she could answer. “It's not dangerous to you or to anyone. I promise you, Torchwood isn't a threat. It's just an organisation to protect Britain. It's nothing like what you're imagining.”

Tension eased from her as the weight that had settled on her shoulders at Christmas lifted, her trust in Harriet absolute. “Thank you. You've no idea how much this has been bothering me.”

“My dear girl,” Harriet said, eyes crinkling in fond amusement. “You shouldn't worry so much.”

Her smile was crooked and self-aware. “If I knew how to stop worrying, I'd have done it a long time ago. The Doctor and Jack get into so much trouble that I'm surprised I don't have an ulcer. The only reason Rose doesn't drive me insane is because I'm immune to her troublemaking abilities.”

Harriet laughed and picked up her cutlery again. “How are they, the others?”

“Oh, you'll like this,” Zoe said, easily switching topics, pleased to sweep Torchwood from her mind. “I think Mickey and Jack are together.”

“Really?” Delighted surprise flashed across Harriet's face. “When did that happen?”

“The night before last, I think,” she said. “Something definitely happened but they haven't said anything yet but the way they're acting with each other, I'm pretty sure Micks is going to come along with us.”

By the time dessert had arrived, they had covered a lot of topics – Harriet's UN speech the week before, Zoe's time in Jamaica, the renovations on Number 10, the new flowers Zoe had planted in her garden, Harriet's nieces who she worried were directionless, and Zoe's concerns over Jackie being left behind alone. They were laughing over a story Zoe recounted of Mr Basset's sexism from the school when a shadow fell over their table. Expecting the waiter, Zoe looked up and found herself looking into the face of a man she didn't recognise, a beautiful blonde woman at his side.

“Prime Minister, do forgive the interruption.” Assuming that such interruptions happened all the time for Harriet, Zoe leaned back in her chair to give space for the conversation. “I just thought I'd come over and say I hope there are no hard feelings for today.”

“None at all,” Harriet said with a smile that tightened imperceptibly around her eyes. “You were only doing your job. I do appreciate thoroughness in the Opposition.”

“And I'm happy to provide it,” he said with an incline of his head. “I don't believe you've met my wife Lucy.”

Lucy's blonde hair shimmered when she nodded her head, a small smile on her red lips, hand tucked into her husband's arm. “Prime Minister.”

“Hello,” Harriet said pleasantly before looking to Zoe. “This is a dear friend of mine, Zoe Tyler.”

“Hi there,” she smiled, leaning forwards and extending her hand. “Member of the Tories, are you?”

His dark eyes looked at her, interest sparking in their depths, his hand taking hers, slightly cool to the touch. “Leader of the Opposition, a new appointment.”

“So I hear,” she said, unable to tear her eyes away from him – he wasn't as handsome as Jack was but he reminded her of the Doctor a little with his dark eyes and dark brown hair. “Congratulations on the appointment. Although, I'm not sure I should congratulate you considering I'm a Labour voter.”

“Well,” he said, genially, “we all have our flaws.”

She laughed. “And what are your flaws, Mr –?”

“Saxon,” he said. “Harold Saxon, but please, call me Harry.”

“Harry,” she repeated, his name filling her mouth pleasantly. “I imagine a politician such as yourself must have a defect here or there, or would you consider your greatest flaw to be your association with the Conservative Party?”

When he laughed, she felt a rush of heat shoot through her, startling her. It was strange to feel the pulse of attraction for someone who wasn't the Doctor yet it surged through her, physical and visceral, her hand still within his.

“I don't consider that a flaw, Ms Tyler.”

“I suppose you wouldn't,” she agreed. “And it's Zoe, please.”

“Zoe.” Her name was warm and honeyed on his tongue. “If I must confess to a flaw, then I suppose my desire for power must be it. After all, is it not said that those who seek power and inherently unsuited for it?”

“A sentiment I agree with, to be sure,” Zoe said. “However, it depends on what you want the power for that I think determines if there's a lack of character to be found. Tell me, Harry, do you want to do good and change the world for the better, or do you simply want power for power's sake?”

“Changing the world seems like a fine goal indeed,” Harry replied, eyes sliding to Harriet who was attending to the conversation with sharp interest even as Lucy looked away, bored. “And our friend here has begun that arduous task already.”

“And is doing a fine job of it,” Zoe said with a smile. “Though I'm sure you disagree with the manner in which she's doing it.”

“Such is my job as the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition,” he said, leaning in so that she was able to catch the subtle whiff of cologne. “And I do take my work seriously.”

“An attractive quality in a man,” she conceded. “So long as it doesn't tip over into workaholism.”

“Fortunately, I have my beloved wife to stop me from losing myself too deeply in my work,” Harry replied, smiling at Lucy whose face lit up under his regard. “And I'm afraid I promised her an evening without any work talk and, here I am, breaking that promise. Do you forgive me, darling?”

“Always,” Lucy replied, fingers lightly touching his chest.

He turned his smile onto Zoe and Harriet. “My apologies again, Prime Minister, for the interruption. And it was lovely to meet you, Zoe. I'm sure we'll see each other again at some point.”

“I'll look forward to it,” she said, drawing her hand back at last, eyes following Harry and Lucy as they left the restaurant to reclaim their coats. She turned her eyes onto Harriet and exhaled. “That man is incredibly attractive.”

“Oh, really.” Harriet tossed her napkin onto her plate. “I wouldn't have thought you'd have your head turned by him.”

Zoe laughed. “I have eyes, don't I? And he has magnetism, Harriet. It falls off him in waves. God, no wonder he steamrolled you today. I'm not sure I'd be able to handle a debate with him under PMQs' conditions.”

“You seemed to be holding your own,” she replied. “Although, I think you were just flirting.”

“I was _not_!” Harriet laughed and signalled to the waiter for their bill. “Harriet Jones, you take that back.”

As Zoe slipped her card under Harriet's to pay while her friend was distracted by the way her dress was caught on her chair, she cast a quick glance over her phone to make sure that everything was okay with her friends. She knew that they were breaking into Deffry Vale and hoped that she wouldn't need to bail them out of the local police station. There were only two messages waiting for her, both from Jack.

**on the tube now. jackie's brought a Thermos and jaffa cakes. i love your mum.**

…

**say hi to Harriet for me.**

Having freed herself from her chair, Harriet stood by the table, leaving the tip since she wasn't paying. “Something the matter?”

“Just an update on things,” she said, dashing off a quick reply to Jack to get their location. “Jack says hello, by the way.”

“What is it they're doing tonight?” They left their table and made their way to the attendant's station for their coats. “You didn't say.”

“Best if we keep it that way,” Zoe said, arms sliding back into her coat. “Plausible deniability and all that.”

Harriet looked pained. “Is it something illegal?”

“Again, I'd prefer not to say.”

She sighed. “Fine, but please don't blow up any more buildings. Do you know how difficult it is to release funding for new infrastructure?”

“I'm going to assume very.”

“You'd be correct.”

“I solemnly swear I'll do my very best not to blow anything up,” Zoe said, raising her hand in a mockery of the scout's promise before she found herself in Harriet's arms. She hugged her back enthusiastically. “Thanks for tonight. It was great seeing you again.”

“You too, my dear,” Harriet said, kissing her cheek. “Do stay in touch. I enjoy receiving those messages of yours, particularly the strange pictures.”

“Then they'll keep coming,” she smiled. “And don't let Harry Saxon get you down. He might be charming and handsome with a silver tongue but you know as well as I do that Opposition leaders are ephemeral, you're the one who's here to stay.”

“I hope so,” Harriet said, looking around the busy street. “It's not something I ever wanted but now that I'm here, I want to do well.”

“And you're doing it,” Zoe assured her, squeezing her hands. “Just keep doing what you're doing and people like Harry won't be around for long. Man like him? He'll probably end up on the lecture circuit or as some big CEO-type who has inappropriate affairs with his secretaries and golfs every Thursday.”

Harriet laughed. “There's an idea. Stay safe out there.”

“Stay safe down here,” Zoe said, seeing her into the car waiting for her. She grinned through the crack in the door. “Prime Minister.”

* * *

_ Earlier the same evening _

“You're in an odd mood.”

The Doctor twisted to look at Jackie who had abandoned her seat on the tube and risen to stand next to him, fingers curled around the sticky support pole. With nothing better to do that evening, she had decided to accompany them on their late evening trip to break into the school to get the oil that Mickey hadn't been able to take a sample of, and to have a deeper look around with no one looking over their shoulders. He had long since given up on complaining about Jackie accompanying them as she was actually useful to have around – her work yesterday on asking parents at the school gates about their thoughts had been inspired and since the team was one person down with Zoe having dinner with Harriet, the Doctor had acquiesced. He should have figured that Jackie would pick up on his mood though. She was more closely attuned to his temperament as she kept a close eye on him, wondering whether he was keeping her daughters safe and if he had crossed a line with Zoe.

He wasn't looking forward to _that_ conversation when it eventually came about.

“Am I?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don't play stupid, it doesn't suit you.”

“That's one of the nicest things you've ever said to me,” he told her, earning a roll of her eyes, Rose and Mickey's laughter filling the air at something Jack was telling them as he tapped a message out on his phone. “Sometimes, Jackie, I think you and I are friends.”

“We are,” she said with such firmness that he blinked. “An' don't change the subject. What's got your knickers in a twist?”

His face grimaced. “That's an awful expression. Where did that even –?”

“ _Doctor_.”

He sighed. “I'm fine.”

“You're not,” she said. “An' I don't think it's because Zoe's off havin' dinner with Harriet.”

“You know,” the Doctor said, an air of grievance around him. “I can function perfectly well without Zoe around.”

Her eyes flickered over him. “I know, you just don't want to.”

“Can you stop knowing me quite so well, please? It's annoying.” A grin that made her look like Rose flashed across her face, and his shoulders slumped a little. “I'm just – I saw someone today, someone I haven't seen in a really long time. She didn't know it was me because of, you know –” he gestured at his face. “It's made me feel a little strange.”

Jackie nodded slowly, and he had forgotten what a good sympathetic ear she was. “An ex?”

“No,” he said, quickly, skin heating. “Well – not really, kind of. She and I – we never – it was different back then but, the thing is –”

“Lord spare me.” Jackie's eyes turned towards the map of the underground that was peeling from the side of the carriage, seeking strength from a god he was fairly certain she didn't believe in. “So, you saw this mate of yours an' what? Got hit with an uncomfortable feelin' since you haven't seen her in God knows how long?”

He shifted, uncomfortable with how close to the truth she had struck. “Something like that, yeah.”

“An' you think you're goin' to see her again?”

“Knowing her, I'd be surprised if I didn't,” he said, uncomfortably. “Thing is, Jackie, I travel with people – I always have. I didn't mean to, not at first, but Susan – you remember Susan, right?”

“Your granddaughter,” she said. “I remember.”

“Well, she liked humans a lot and two of her teachers ended up coming along for the ride and even after Susan left, I sort of kept inviting people to travel with me because it's fun and I like the company,” the Doctor admitted. “Sarah Jane – that's her name – she was one of them. We travelled together for a long time, longer than normal, but I had to go home and she couldn't come with me so I left her in Croydon and never saw her again.”

Jackie stared at him. “You didn't go back? Not once?”

“You live as long as I do,” he said, heavily, “going back isn't really an option.”

The look on her face told him that there was a lot she wanted to say about that but, for a change, she kept her opinions to herself. Despite what he had told her, he wanted Zoe there if only to soothe his nerves. He hadn't had a chance to tell her about meeting Sarah Jane again as the journey back to Peckham had been awful – cramped tube cars, someone's elbow in the small of his back, and Zoe nearly breaking a man's wrist for touching her inappropriately that required them to get off a stop earlier than intended. He was going to tell her when she was getting ready for dinner with Harriet but she had put on a distractingly wonderful red dress and every other thought except peeling her out of it fled his mind. He intended to tell her when he next saw her – be that later tonight or in the morning, depending how late her evening with Harriet went – but he found himself desperately wanting her advice.

“D'you even want to see her again?” Jackie asked, body swaying as the tube rattled on the tracks.

“Yes,” he said, emphatically. “No. I don't know. I've missed her, course I have, I miss all of them, it's just rare that I see them again, and it's always a little awkward – we both will've changed and it won't be the same.”

“Course it won't,” she said. “Nothin's ever the same, but you an' Zoe picked up, didn't you? After France? Then after that station thing in the future?”

“Game Station,” he corrected. “And yeah, we did. I suppose.”

“Look,” Jackie said finally as they neared their stop. “If the two of you were such great mates then she'll be happy to see you too. Yeah, it'll probably be awkward but once you get past that, maybe it'll be great.”

Hope flared to life inside the Doctor. “You think?”

“I don't know,” she shrugged. “Maybe. It's a possibility, right?”

“Yeah.” A small, hopeful smile started to pull at his mouth. “Yeah, it's a possibility. Thanks, Jackie.”

She shook her head fondly, muttering about daft aliens as they exited the tube and left North Ealing Station.

It was a cold, cloudless night and they were wrapped up in coats as they made their way down the quiet residential street and turned into the school compound. A chain was looped across the front gate but Jack had the lock picked before the Doctor had even twitched his fingers at his screwdriver, grinning up at Mickey from his knees. The smell of tea hit the Doctor's nostrils and he looked around to find Jackie sipping from the cup of a Thermos, and he paused.

“You brought a Thermos?”

“It's cold an' I fancied a cuppa,” she said. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

The Doctor wondered if Jackie was ever going to stop surprising him, but he doubted it when he considered that Rose and Zoe constantly surprised him despite all the time they spent together.

“It's weird seeing school at night,” Rose said once they were inside, pitching her voice low. “It just feels wrong. When I was a kid, I used to think all the teachers slept in school.”

Jackie glanced at her. “You did?”

“I used to think there were bedrooms where they slept until I asked a teacher at primary school an' they put me straight,” she explained. “Didn't realise they were actual people, y'know.”

Jack grinned at her, teeth white in the darkness. “That's really cute.”

“All right, team,” the Doctor said, drawing their attention to him before grimacing, stretching his mouth. “Oh, I hate people who say team. Er – gang? No. Comrades? Definitely not.”

“Focus,” Mickey said.

“Right, yeah.” He shook the words from his head. “Jackie, Rose, go to the classroom where they hold the extra lessons – computer lab three. See if there's anything strange there. They wouldn't let Zoe or me close earlier.”

Rose nodded and looked at her mother who screwed the lid back on her Thermos. “Sure.”

“Jack, Mickey, the new staff are mainly all maths teachers,” the Doctor reminded them. “Go and check out their department. Zoe says there's nothing strange there but she also hasn't had a chance to look around properly. While you're doing that, I'm going to look in Finch's office. Everyone, be back here in thirty minutes.”

“C'mon, Mum,” Rose said, trying to remember the way to the computer lab as Mickey and Jack headed towards the mathematics department. “I think it's this way.”

The Doctor listened to the sounds of their footsteps fade as they walked off to fulfil their tasks before he started to make his way to Finch's office, wondering if Zoe would mind if he called her. His hand was in his pocket, searching for his phone, when he paused in the middle of the hallway, moonlight poking through the small window slats on the door, casting a small shadow behind him.

Against the back of his mind, the TARDIS gave him a small poke, pressing a little harder than normal as she passed along a warning. There was no danger to her as he had left her tucked away in a gym supply closet that morning, but she was alerting him to the fact that something was happening needed his attention. Releasing his phone, he turned on his heels and rerouted himself, hurrying towards where she was parked. It wasn't often that she nudged him like that as she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and so worry started to climb up his chest before he caught sight of a flick of rich brown hair as it disappeared around a corner.

_Sarah Jane._

He slowed down before drawing to a stop, listening as she opened the storeroom door and slipped inside, nerves crawling over him. Maybe Jackie was wrong, maybe too much time had gone by for her to be happy to see her again. He wanted to see her, to speak to her, to find out what her life had been like since they had last seen each other, and he desperately wanted to introduce her to Zoe who would be thrilled to meet her – the thought of Zoe meeting Sarah Jane was one that excited him, eager to see Zoe's face when she realised who she was being introduced to. Yet, he was also hesitant because so much had happened to him that he didn't know how to explain it to her.

The door opened under a jerk, and Sarah Jane stumbled out, panicked and partially frozen from the shock of seeing the TARDIS again. He could hear her broken, heavy breathing before she turned.

The Doctor breathed out.

“Hello, Sarah Jane.”

  
“It's you,” she whispered, tears making her eyes glisten in the moonlight that filtered through the sky light. “Oh, Doctor. It's you, isn't it?” Her eyes flicked over him as she took a few steps towards him only to pause. “You've regenerated.”

“Half a dozen times since we last met,” he said, drinking in the changes, eyes moving rapidly over her.

She swallowed hard, shaking. “You look incredible.”

“So do you.”

She gave a wet, dismissive laugh.

“I got old,” Sarah Jane said, and his hearts ached for her because while she was still so very beautiful, she was older than she had been and a painful reminder of the fleeting existence of humans. “What are you even doing here?”

“Well, UFO sighting, school gets record results,” the Doctor said with a small smile, awkwardly keeping his distance. “I couldn't resist. What about you?”

  
“The same.” They shared a brief moment of amusement before she spoke again, her voice thick with emotion: grief and an undercurrent of anger. “I thought you'd _died_. I waited for you and you didn't come back and I thought you must have died.”

Guilt pressed in against him, suffocating him under its weight, and he looked down at his feet.

“Not me,” he said, quietly. “I lived. It was everyone else who died.”

Her soft, rapid breaths filled the air. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone died, Sarah.” He looked up, ageless in his grief. “There was a war – I'm the only Time Lord left now. Gallifrey's gone. It burnt.”

Horror sank into her face. “The Daleks?”

“The Daleks,” he confirmed.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered, lifting a hand to brush away her tears. She took a step towards him, hand stretched out to touch him. “Doctor...is it really you? Am I –? Is this really happening?”

Gathering his courage to him, the Doctor lifted his hand from her side and curled his fingers around hers. She shuddered at his touch and they moved at the same time, coming together in the middle of the room, arms embracing each other. She shuddered against his chest, soft, choked sobs pressing into his jacket, and the Doctor's throat was tight and thick, his face pressing into her hair as his arms tightened around her. She felt just as he remembered – strong, soft, and _alive_.

“I can't believe it's you,” she breathed, face shiny with tears that he brushed lightly with his thumb before they both flinched when a loud, piercing scream ripped through the silence. His hand froze on her face, her eyes wide. “Okay. Now I believe it!”

A stunned laugh slipped from his throat, their hands automatically twining together as they took off running, the doors to the gym swinging shut behind them, rattling on their hinges. Exhilaration pounded through him at running with her again, the rhythm they once had falling back into place as though no time had passed, though his free hand kept searching for the ends of a long scarf, trying to gather it up so he didn't trip and fall as he had on Alcar when they were running from angry natives who thought Sarah Jane was their goddess and didn't appreciate the Doctor taking off with her. As one, they skidded around a corner and nearly slammed into Jackie and Rose who appeared from around the corner, chasing after the scream as they were; though, judging by the look on Jackie's face, she was being dragged more than she was running.

“Did you hear that?” Rose asked, breathlessly, as the Doctor released Sarah Jane's hand to catch Jackie before she went head first through a glass window, her feet pin-wheeling beneath her, hands clutching at him. “Who's she?”

He set Jackie back on her feet. “Rose, Jackie, Sarah Jane Smith; Sarah, Rose and Jackie Tyler.”

“Hello, love,” Jackie said, tugging her jumper down. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Sarah Jane said, politely, eyes moving back and forth between Rose and Jackie in confusion. “Are you two related?”

She jerked a thumb at a silent, confused Rose. “My eldest.”

Sarah Jane's eyebrows soared up her forehead. “Haven't you changed? Travelling with people's mothers now, are we?”

“No, no, no, no, no.” The Doctor shook his head urgently, gesturing between him and Jackie. “We don't travel together. She just – every now and then – comes along for a ride. Sometimes. Not often. Right, Jackie? Not often at all?”

She swept her hair from her eyes. “I only come along to make sure I get to see my daughters. They're infatuated with this idiot, y'see.”

“Daughters?” Sarah Jane repeated, eyes lingering on the smooth stretch of Rose's unblemished skin, her youth evident in every movement. She rapped the back of her hand against the Doctor's stomach. “You can tell you're getting older, your assistants are getting younger.”

Rose blinked, unsure if she was being insulted. “I'm not his assistant.”

“No?” She replied, bumping the Doctor with her shoulder as she walked forward, heart thundering in her chest and a sick feeling settling in her stomach. “Get you, tiger.”

“No, that's not –” he tried but she was already around a corner. He met Jackie's eyes and studiously avoided Rose's. “Never mind. Come on, you two.”

He ignored both them and their questioning looks as they hurried towards the source of the scream. Heat inched through him, making him feel clammy, as his nerves at his past and present colliding reached a crescendo in his chest. Of all the times for Zoe to take the night off, it had to be tonight; he resisted the urge to check his phone, having promised her that the night was hers as she had been looking forward to catching up with Harriet for the past two days. At least there was Jack to smooth away any rocky patches that might crop up, desperate again for Zoe.

Sarah Jane reached the classroom first, pushing the door open and sweeping inside, ready to deal with whatever was there. He hurried in after her, Jackie and Rose on his heels, and found small plastic bags littered across the floor with Mickey in the centre of them and Jack leaning against a wall, hand clamped to his stomach, laughing so hard that tears rolled down his cheeks and no sound emerged from his throat. Realising that neither of them were in any danger, the Doctor relaxed.

“Sorry, sorry, it was only me,” Mickey apologised, embarrassed and a little annoyed at Jack's mirth. “You told us to investigate so I started lookin' through some of these cupboards an' all of these fell on me.”

“Oh my god,” Rose said, carefully stepping around the items splayed across the floor. “They're rats. Dozens of rats. Vacuum packed rats.”

The Doctor looked at Mickey. “And you decided to scream.”

Jack started laughing again.

“It took me by surprise!”

“Like a little girl?”

The darkness covered the flush of embarrassment that rose to his cheeks. “It was dark! I was covered in rats!”

“Nine, maybe ten years old,” the Doctor said. “I'm seeing pigtails, frilly skirt.”

“Mickey,” Jack said through his laughter, wiping his eyes. “I'm sorry, that was just really funny. I didn't know people could scream like that.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, reluctantly amused. “I hate you.”

“Hello, can we focus?” Rose asked, annoyed; Jackie kicked one of the packaged rats away from her with the toe of her boot, nose wrinkling in distaste. “Does anyone notice anythin' strange about this? Rats in school?”

“Well, obviously they use them in biology lessons,” Sarah Jane said, words turning sharp and jagged. When it was clear he wasn't coming back for her, she had assumed the Doctor travelled with other people but to be faced with her replacement who was young and beautiful hurt. _He'll leave you too,_ she thought, bitterly, _and you'll spend your life wondering what you should have done differently._ “They dissect them, or maybe you haven't reached that bit yet. How old are you?”

Jack finally stopped laughing. He and Mickey looked over at Sarah Jane in surprise, recognising that there was someone new and unknown with them, and Rose bristled at the tone and the words, jaw aching where she clenched it.

“No one dissects rats in school any more,” Rose replied, eyes flashing. “They haven't done that for years. Where are you from, the dark ages?”

“Rose,” Jackie warned, looking at Sarah Jane with a small frown. “Manners.”

She bit her tongue and turned away from Sarah Jane, mortification welling up inside of her, fingers flexing at her side. There was a moment where the silence was awkward and uncomfortable before the Doctor bent down and scooped a packaged rat up into his hand and held the tip of the screwdriver to it, checking the readings.

“Normal rat,” he said. “This is the maths department. Biology, I get, but maths? Why are they kept here?” He tossed the package to Jack who set it down on the side. “Whatever the reason, everything started when Mr Finch arrived. We should go and check his office.”

“I thought you were doing that just now,” Jack said. “What have you been doing all this time?”

“I got sidetracked,” he said, heading out the door. “Come on, you lot.”

He strode from the room, long legs leaving them behind, and there was another moment of awkward silence as the five of them left in the classroom stared at each other. Jack was the one who took the first step, a smile sweeping onto his face, hand extended in friendship and greeting.

“Jack Harkness,” he introduced. “This is Mickey Smith. Nice to meet you.”

Sarah Jane looked into the face of the most handsome man she had ever met and felt tired, taking his hand. “Sarah Jane Smith.”

Jack pointed to the door. “Shall we? He won't wait for us but he'll get annoyed if we fall too far behind.”

She longed for the comfort of her bed and a large glass of wine – peace and quiet as she tried to wrestle her emotions under control. She felt old and tossed aside in the face of the Doctor's new friends.

“Look, I don't mean to be rude or anythin',” Rose said in a tone of voice that implied the exact opposite as they hurried after the Doctor. “But who exactly are you?”

“I used to travel with the Doctor,” Sarah Jane said. “We're old friends.”

“Oh,” Rose said, surprised, hurt, and a little interested, glancing at her from the corner of her eye, wondering if she was catching a glimpse of her future. She was struck by the fact that she had never heard Sarah Jane's name once; searching through her memories, she tried to find a time when the Doctor had mentioned anyone else who had travelled with him but she drew a blank. Confused and uncertain, she delivered an unintentionally cruel barb. “He's never mentioned you.”

Sarah Jane's hair whipped in her face with the speed she turned to face them. “What? Not even once? He didn't mention me even _once_?”

“Sorry,” Jack apologised with a small grimace. “But the Doctor doesn't really talk about his past a lot. I wouldn't take it personally.”

“He mentioned you earlier,” Jackie said in an effort to be helpful. Rose stared at her, and she shrugged. “He did, on the tube. Said he'd run into an old mate.”

“Jacks, it's proper weird that you an' the Doctor _talk_ ,” Mickey said, an odd expression on his face. He glanced at Sarah Jane who was looking troubled and upset, wanting to say something to take the look from her face but unable to think of anything helpful. “We nearly there?”

They came upon the Doctor outside Finch's office. His back was curved downwards as he tried to shut the door quietly but when Jack placed his hand on his back, letting him know they were there, he jumped, startled, and the door snapped shut with a loud _click_. His nostrils flared when he threw a glare at Jack who held his hands up in apology, sinking to his knees to thread a spool of camera cable through the crack beneath the door. Rather like the Doctor, his pockets tended to carry the strange and the useful, and he plugged the end of the cable into his phone, pulling the feed up onto his screen. He paused and looked up at the Doctor who nodded rapidly, gesturing with his hands; Jack nodded and returned a complicated gesture that had the Doctor tilting his head to one side, confusion making his brow crinkle.

“What are they doin'?” Jackie asked, bewildered.

“No idea,” Rose said, tapping the Doctor to get his attention. “What is it?”

“You know you used to think all the teachers slept in the school?” He asked, turning Jack's phone around so that they were able to see the giant bats that hung from the ceiling. Mickey breathed in sharply and Jackie clamped a hand over her mouth while Rose and Sarah Jane leaned in closer, fascinated. “Well, they do.”

Retrieving the cable, Jack wound it around his fist as they made their way out of the school in silence, moving with more care than they had shown before. Mickey kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to find the bats soaring down the corridors towards them, and he was relieved when they stepped out into the cold. He paused and waited for Jack who relocked the school doors, a small barrier between them and the bats, before they rejoined the others that had congregated in the car park. They stood in a loose circle by an empty space, and Mickey walked a little closer to Jack than he might normally have done, the sight of the giant bats a sobering sight.

“Since Finch arrived, he's brought in seven new teachers, four dinner ladies and a nurse,” the Doctor said with a frown. “Thirteen. Thirteen big bat people. That's ridiculous and, well, it's just ridiculous.”

Sarah Jane buttoned her jacket up and shoved her hands into her pockets. “Did you recognise the species?”

“No,” he said, annoyed. “There are a large number of species that look like that out there but none that have ever been to Earth before. Not that _that's_ an eliminating factor as this planet does attract trouble. It really could be anyone.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, let's go back in.”

“Are you crazy?” Mickey asked, breath crystallising in front of him. “I'm not going back in there. There are giant bat things hangin' from the ceilin', an' last time I got up close an' personal with aliens intendin' to hurt Earth, my flat didn't smell right for months.”

“It's true,” Jackie nodded, fresh cup of tea in her hands. “That vinegar smell wouldn't disappear.”

“I need the TARDIS,” he explained, ignoring their complaints. “I want to run a scan and see if I can find where their ship is. They must have one and I can't do that from out here.”

Sarah Jane nudged his arm with her elbow, light but tangible through the sleeve of his coat. “I might be able to help you there. Come on, I've got something to show you.”

Curious, the Doctor followed her over to her parked car – a small compact thing that made him think of Bessie despite the startling lack of similarities – and she reached into her pocket for her keys. She popped the boot and lifted a grey throw to reveal –

“K9!” Delight suffused him, and he grasped Sarah Jane's shoulder in excitement before bending over his old friend. “Oh, hey boy. Look at you, you gorgeous thing, I've missed you, did you miss me? I bet you did.” He glanced over his shoulder at his friends, a grin slicing dimples down his cheeks. “Guys, allow me to introduce K9. Well, K9 Mark Three to be precise.”

“He's gorgeous,” Jack said, leaning over the dog eagerly and running a hand down its flank, appreciative in the way that only Jack was able to be. “I always wanted one of these when I was a kid.”

“A metal dog,” Jackie said with a sigh. “Why am I not surprised?”

Rose kept her distance, sleeves pulled down over her fingers. “Why does he look so disco?”

  
“Hey,” the Doctor protested, making to cover K9's ears. “Listen, in the year 5000 this is cutting edge.” He scratched behind an ear, disappointed that he didn't respond. “What happened to him? He was working just fine when I sent him to your aunt's.”

“Yeah, over twenty years ago,” Sarah Jane reminded him. “And he was working just fine until one day – nothing.”

  
“Didn't you try and get him repaired?”

She rolled her eyes. “It's not like getting parts for a Mini Metro, is it? Besides, the technology inside him could rewrite human science. I couldn't show him to anyone, and I worried that if I took him to UNIT they might keep him.”

“Right, good point,” the Doctor said, screwdriver running over K9's body. “I might be able to fix him but not here. Is there a café around here or something? I need a table and proper light.”

“There's a chip shop about a five-minute walk,” Sarah Jane said, and he lifted K9 into his arms. She watched him, hand resting on the boot of her car. “I'll lead the way then, I suppose.”


	21. Chapter 21

Having his fingers inside K9's inner workings wasn't enough to distract the Doctor from the weight of awkwardness that pressed in on him in the brightly lit, greasy chip shop that Sarah Jane had brought them to. The floor was sticky beneath his feet, and the young girl behind the counter paid them no attention as she flicked through one of the trashy magazines that the Doctor always found in Jackie's flat – _it's for my clients,_ she protested when he teased her about them, _get your stupid alien hands off them._ Sat off to one side and crammed into a booth in the corner, his friends were sharing some chips between them, ostensibly to give him and Sarah Jane time to catch up.

Jack's eyes kept sliding curiously towards them, an arm around the back of Mickey's chair as he popped a chip into his mouth. Clearly eager to speak with Sarah Jane to discover more about her shared past with the Doctor, he seemed content to wait until the right time, which the Doctor appreciated. Jack's reaction to meeting Sarah Jane was not something he had been worried about as he never seemed to have any expectations of him, though the Doctor was pleased to find that was slowly changing; it was taking a while to shake off his conman past and truly understand that he had a place in the TARDIS that wasn't subject to doing and saying the right thing. Rose, on the other hand, troubled him. She had withdrawn into herself on the walk over, arms tucked tightly around herself, an air of hurt radiating from her.

He didn't look at her, not liking to see the hurt on her face and not understand why she was in pain but certain he had something to do with it; so, he kept his attention steadfastly focused on K9, not wanting to see the same hurt on Sarah Jane's face either.

Tegan's face flashed into his mind – the sharp cut of her jaw and the sweeping fire in her eyes – _it's not fun anymore_. Those words had haunted him over the years, coming and going, slamming into him when he caught a glimpse on the faces of his friends that made him worry they were going to see through the thin facade he presented and realise that he really was just a lonely old man with a box, desperate for the company of the young. He tried to leave them behind before that happened, before they hated him as Tegan had when she left. It was a sharp, painful lesson – one he hadn't learnt yet when he was with Sarah Jane – and he wondered if his careless handling of her departure had driven her to hatred yet.

“I thought of you on Christmas Day,” Sarah Jane said, making his hands jerk inside K9, a spark flying between two wires. She was sat at the table, fingers absently toying with the stiff tail that was actually a scanner. “This Christmas just gone? Great big spaceship overhead, and I thought to myself, I bet he's up there trying to make this better – or, knowing you, making it worse before you make it better.”

The Doctor snorted lightly. “It's not like I plan on making things worse.”

“You never need to plan, it just happens,” she reminded him. “The world turns, the sun burns, and the Doctor makes a mess of things before he cleans it all up.”

His lips twitched, eyes glancing at her briefly, _shyly_ , before he looked back down at K9. “I was there that day. Right on top of it, actually. It's when I regenerated this time just gone. I sort of challenged the leader to a duel for the planet and got a broadsword through the chest for me troubles, and let me just say, I thoroughly do not recommend the experience.”

Her eyes watched him. “It was radiation poisoning last time, if I remember.”

“Yeah,” he said with a grimace. “Neither are a particularly nice way to die.”

Sarah Jane swallowed, fingers dropping from K9's tail. “And your friends, Rose and the others? They were with you? You weren't...alone?”

“I wasn't alone,” he assured her, eyes flicking to hers. “They were with me. Alistair was there too, actually, and the prime minister. It was quite the crowd.”

“Well,” she said, trying to find the right thing to say. “You've always enjoyed an audience.”

Her words startled a laugh from him, and her mouth curved into a smile that he recognised. “You're not wrong there, Sarah.”

And for one shining moment, it was as though the years between them fell away and it was as it used to be – the two of them sitting around chatting and joking. The lines on her face faded and her youthful beautiful with soft pink skin and rich brown hair was all he could see; he felt taller, a bit broader, the weight of a scarf around his throat, curls brushing against his cheek. The urge to offer her a jelly baby made his fingers twitch, but then the warm, amused expression in her eyes melted and they were themselves again. She looked at him – older, confused, _hurt_ – and his stomach seized as ice ran through him.

“Did I do something wrong?” Sarah Jane asked, her words broken and tumbling into desperate, her hand shifting towards him only to pull back at the last moment. “Because you never came back for me. You just dumped me and never came back.”

He looked back down at K9, cowardice keeping his eyes from her. “I told you, I was called back home, and in those days humans weren't allowed to go there.”

“I waited for you,” she whispered, ashamed and embarrassed, colour rising to her cheeks at the thought of how she had never really stopped looking for him, eyes searching crevices and corners for the TARDIS, _hoping._ “I missed you.”

The shame her words created in him burned through him like the radiation that had once killed him. His features froze before he looked up and plastered a smile on his face that he hated because it felt false and it must have looked unfeeling because she glanced away from him, out of the dark window, her reflection twitching as her fingers passed over her mouth.

“You didn't need me,” he said, deliberately jovial and positive because it was true, she hadn't needed him and he wasn't sure if that was the thing that hurt the most. “You were getting on with your life.”

  
“You were my life,” Sarah Jane said, turning to face him, braver than he was capable of being as he looked down at K9 again. For the first time that night, he was pleased Zoe wasn't there so she didn't have to see what a coward he was. “You know what the most difficult thing was after leaving you? Coping with what happens next, or with what doesn't happen next to be precise. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and then you just dropped me back on Earth like it was nothing. How could anything here compare to that?”

The Doctor frowned, fixing a frayed wire, her words resonating. “All those things you saw, do you want me to apologise for that?”

“No.” The immediacy of her answer loosened some of the tension in him. “But we get a taste of that splendour and then we have to go back. I don't think you can even begin to understand how difficult that is.”

“But look at you.” He finally looked up at her, meeting her gaze head on, desperate to hear that something of the last few decades had been good for her. “You're investigating. You found that school. You're doing what we always did. Hell, you're doing what you did before you even met me.”

The disappointment that passed over her face made his chest itch with annoyance, _anger_ , not knowing what she wanted from him.

“You could have come back,” Sarah Jane whispered, finally. “You just...you could have come back, Doctor.”

As quickly as they appeared, his anger and annoyance faded, leaving him hollow. “No, I couldn't have.”

“But why not?” He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. She had to know – all those years with him, she had to know why he couldn't see her again, watch time slowly claim her while he was impossible to do anything to stem her fleeting mortality. She sighed and sat back “It wasn't Croydon, by the way. Where you dropped me off? That wasn't Croydon.”

“Where was it?”

“Aberdeen.”

He pulled a face, _shit_. “Ah, right, well – well, that's next to Croydon, isn't it?”

The Doctor watched her open her mouth, presumably to tell him where he could shove that remark, when K9 spluttered to life. His ears and tail lit up and the Doctor quickly replaced the plating on his flank, dropping to his knees in front of his old friend, cooing in delight. Behind him, the sound of chairs being pushed back told him that the others had noticed.

“Master,” K9 said in a bright, robotic voice, tail twitching at the sight of him.

A smile stretched across his face. “He recognises me!”

“Affirmative.”

“He's so cute,” Jack smiled, hand reaching over the Doctor's shoulder to pet K9. “Hello, K9, I'm Jack.” K9 waggled his tail. “Oh, I want one.”

“No pets,” the Doctor said, reaching into his pocket for the small vial of oil he had secreted out of the kitchens. “K9, buddy, I need you to run a scan for me. Think you can do that?”

“Affirmative, master.”

“Good boy,” he said, using a swab he always kept on his person to rub the oil over K9's nose. “Here we go. Have a look at that, yeah. Tell us what it is.”

K9's internal systems whirred, tail going. “Oil. Ex-ex-ex-extract. Ana-ana-analysing.”

Mickey laughed. “Listen to him. He's got a voice an' everythin'.”

“Careful,” Sarah Jane said, warning softened by the smile on her face, pleasure at K9's reactivation soothing some of her frayed feelings away. “That's my dog.”

It took K9 a long minute that they spent waiting in silence as he whirred and gurgled before pinging like a microwave. “Confirmation of analysis. Substance is Krillitane oil.”

The Doctor sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead. “Krillitanes.”

“Is that bad?” Rose asked.

“It's not great,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Think of how bad things could possibly be, subtract the Dalek, and then add another slice of bad.”

Jack did the maths. “So bad, but could only be worse if a Dalek was involved?”

“Yep.”

“That's pretty bad,” he said. “But what exactly are the Krillitanes? I've never heard of them.”

“You wouldn't have,” the Doctor said. “I'd be surprised if the Time Agency ever came across them and lived to tell the tale.” He ran a hand over his face, the sharp prickle of his stubble reminding him he needed to shave. “They're a composite race. Just like British culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries from people you've invaded or been invaded by – you've got bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever – the Krillitanes are the same but they take physical aspects as well. They select the very best bits from the people they destroy, which is why I didn't recognise them. Last time I saw Krillitanes, they looked just like us except they had really, _really_ long necks.”

“Mr Potato Head,” Jackie nodded.

He stared at her. “I'm sorry, what?”

“They're like alien Mr Potato Heads,” she said. “Y'know, those toys that you stick bits an' pieces on to – an ear where the mouth should be, an eye where the ear should be.”

“No, except a little bit, yes,” he said. “Their appearance changes over the generations more dramatically than humans because of the genetic selection.”

“That sounds horrific,” Sarah Jane said. “What are they doing here then?”

“It's the children,” Mickey answered, a frown on his face. “They're doin' somethin' with the kids. There's this oil that they cook the food in an' it's making them smarter.”

“Why?”

“We don't know yet,” the Doctor said, “but we're going to find out.”

“How?” Rose asked. “We goin' back tonight?”

He thought about barging into the school and waking the Krillitanes up to demand an answer but it was too dangerous. His mind ran through possible scenarios, peaceful options, before he settled on one that was the least worst of them all.

“No,” he decided. “Tomorrow, we'll go in tomorrow. There's something else at play here and that's the kids. I want to find out why they're using them, and until I know exactly what's being done to them, I won't risk the Krillitanes advancing their plans and possibly harming them. I'll speak with Finch directly in the morning, let him know there's a Time Lord on the scene. I'll need all of you there though to help evacuate the school if things go bad. Sarah, you in?”

Her eyes looked up at him. “Of course.”

Relief spread through him and he nodded. “There's nothing we can do tonight. Best if we all get some rest and come at it in the morning. Let's meet outside the school when it starts. We'll look less suspicious walking in with the rest of the faculty and students.”

“Good idea,” Jack said before turning to Sarah Jane. “Mind if I carry K9? I've always wanted one of these but we could never afford one. Had a robotic fish once, but it's not quite the same, is it?”

“A robotic fish?” She asked, confused. “And sure, thanks. I'll open the boot for you.”

“Yeah, did you say a robotic fish?” Mickey asked, hurrying after them.

Jackie turned back to collect the forgotten coats, leaving the Doctor and Rose alone together. He wiped a bit of K9's grease from the table, dirtying his sleeve, and flashed her a small smile before making his way out of the chip shop. The night's air was cool and refreshing against his skin, and he closed his eyes against the breeze, breathing in deeply – the smell of London was comforting, his home away from home for a long time. A feeling of homesickness swept through him as the desire to stand with his trousers rolled up and feet bare in the red fields outside his childhood home hit him hard, tears pressing against the backs of his eyes. The desperate longing for _home_ had never really faded, even when he left Gallifrey that first time by choice; not being able to return to his home with skies that made sense and a feeling of being rooted in a place made his homesickness that much worse.

_This is what happens when you look back,_ he chastised himself, before clearing his throat.

“I wonder how Zoe's night is going,” the Doctor said, hoping she would be at the TARDIS when they returned as all he wanted in that moment was to curl up in bed with her and hear about her night. “Want to bet on how drunk she'll be when she gets –?”

“How many of us have there been travelling with you?”

His interrupted question remained framed on his mouth as he turned slowly, her words pouring salt on the wounds Sarah Jane had opened. Rose stood in the doorway of the chip shop, the unflattering light casting her in a sickly halo, and he recognised the look on her face; it was the same one she had worn their first trip together as the sight of the dying Earth rendered her sad and small, guilt slicing through him at the memory. It felt so long ago that they had stood on Platform One, her hand tucked into his, the two of them still strangers to each other, Jack and Zoe and Jackie unknown to him then. At the time, the aching loneliness was his constant companion since waking up in his broken TARDIS in Foreman's junkyard had ebbed in the hours after meeting her, hope beginning to flicker to life inside him again, the feeling making him drunk. He missed the signs then – the blank fear of not knowing who he was or what she had done, the panic that rose up in her at being surrounding by things and people she hadn't had the imagination to dream of – but he didn't miss them now.

She was looking at him as though he was a stranger.

His stomach sank. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does,” Rose said, seriously. “Especially if you're just goin' to dump me off somewhere when you get bored of me.”

He recoiled, wishing she had struck him instead as it would have hurt less. “Rose, how can you say that?”

“All this time we've been travellin' together, everythin' we've seen an' done, an' not one have you mentioned Sarah Jane, not once.” The accusation made his hearts clench. “You were that close to her once an' now you never even mention her. Why not?”

He swallowed, mouth dry. “I've mentioned her to Zoe.”

“Zoe,” Rose breathed. “Course you did because you an' Zoe are best mates. I get that the two of you have this weird history together because you keep leavin' her behind –” he flinched, “but you've never made me feel like a third wheel, not until right now. Why did you never mention Sarah Jane to me?”

“I just...” he floundered. “It never came up. Zoe asked me about it, that's all. Early on she realised that there had been other people, my other friends, and she just asked me about it. It's nothing nefarious or secretive.”

“Feels like it,” she shot back, glaring before her expression wavered and hurt seeped back in. “Is this what you're goin' to do? Are you just goin' to leave us all behind one day? Me, Zoe, Jack? You'll get bored of us an' leave us somewhere an' never come back?”

“I don't age,” he bit out, taking a step towards her, angry. Panic flashed in her eyes, and she took a small, instinctive step back, guilt swirling in his stomach. “Do you get that? I don't age. You've seen what happens to me instead. I stay young and healthy until it's time to regenerate and then I get another young and healthy body. But you, Zoe, and Jack? You're human, you get old, you _decay_. If I stay –” he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “Rose, if I stay, I'll have to watch you wither and die while not being able to stop it. I can't do that. I can't – haven't I had enough pain? Haven't I watched enough of my family die? Would you have me do that for you?”

“It won't change if you're not there,” she said, wiping her tears away. “We're still goin' to get old an' die if you're there or not.”

“But I won't have to see it,” he said, desperate for her to understand. “If I leave you behind then I won't have to see it and I can pretend that you're exactly as you are now.”

She stared at him. “That's selfish.”

“I'm a selfish coward,” he said, honestly. “Because you can spend the rest of your life with me but I can't spend the rest of mine with you.” He thought of Zoe and all the days they weren't going to be able to share because of her limited lifespan. “I have to live on, _alone_. That's the curse of the Time Lords.”

A scream cracked through the air.

Jack instinctively ducked, knocking Mickey's legs from under him and dragging Sarah Jane to the ground, shielding them from the source of the scream with his body as the Doctor stepped in front of Rose and turned around. High above them, standing on the edge of a building that housed a corner ship, Mr Finch jumped from the edge and stretched his arms out, body rippling as his human form gave way and skeletal wings spread into existence. The Doctor dragged Rose into the protection of his arms, bending them over as Finch swooped low, screaming again, before he took off into the sky and disappeared. Around them, lights flicked on in the neighbouring houses, and the girl from the chip shop peered out of the window, hand curled over her heart.

“Holy shit.” The Doctor released Rose and looked towards the shadows. “Was that Mr Finch?”

Heels clicking against the ground, Zoe stepped out from underneath the trees that lined the road, leafy shadows falling across her. She was looking up into the sky as she walked, not looking where she was going as she tried to track Finch's movements, and was taken by surprise when the Doctor closed the distance between them and swept her up into his arms. She stumbled and clutched at his upper arms for fear of falling, startled by the desperation that rolled through him; tense and stiff against her, he only relaxed when she smoothed a hand down his back.

“Hey,” she said, pulling back to look up at him, a small crease of concern around her eyes. “I wasn't gone that long, was I?”

“Long enough,” he said, taking note of the slight pink hue to her cheeks, a tell tale sign that she had been drinking. “Good night?”

“A great one,” she smiled, taking a step back from him but keeping hold of his hand. “Harriet sends her love and all that jazz. Have I been missing out here?”

“Little bit,” Jack said, approaching from the side. “Giant bat things.”

“Also known as Krillitanes,” the Doctor said, smoothing the front of his jacket out, more centred with Zoe next to him. “Or, as your mother so descriptively put it, the Mr Potato Head of species.”

“Oh, I loved that toy when I was little,” she said, eyes slipping towards her mother with a grin. “You hated it though. Kept stepping on the pieces.”

“Was better than Lego,” Jackie said, remembering the sharp pain of pieces digging into the soft flesh of her bare feet. “But not by much.”

“So our esteemed headteacher is an alien,” she said. “Coloured me not at all surprised. What's the –” she stopped and stared, abruptly realising that there was someone there she didn't know. “I'm sorry, I'm being rude. Hello.”

The Doctor shifted, wanting to see her face, hand squeezing hers. “Sarah, this is Zoe Tyler. Zo,” a smile picked up his lips, “this is Sarah Jane Smith.”

The polite expression on her face shifted into surprise, delight, confusion, before settling on awe and admiration. A huge smile swept across her face, and she pulled her hand from his to grasp Sarah Jane's, shaking it enthusiastically.

“Are you really?” She asked, thrilled. “He's told me so much about you it feels like I know you already.”

Sarah Jane stared at her, taken aback. “He – he what?”

“I should really thank you though,” she continued, unaware of the bewildering effect she was having. “He dug out that list of resorts you put together and I've been ticking them off my list. That one in France is superb. I stayed there a while when I was seventeen and recovering from a knee injury – had the time of my life.”

“I remember that one,” Sarah Jane said, glancing at the Doctor who was watching Zoe with a small smile. “Did you try the cocktails?”

“Worked my way through the menu,” she grinned. “And, I have to ask, the Loch Ness monster, did that really happen? Because sometimes I think he's making it up just to have me on and I can't tell.”

Sarah Jane laughed, her fingers slowly turning numb from Zoe's enthusiasm. “No, that really happened.”

“Brilliant,” she said, thrilled. “This is brilliant. _You're_ brilliant. I loved your exposé on the problems in campaign financing by the by; the way it revolutionised the system was incredible. Not to mention your interview with President Clinton. Did you really call him a licentious blowhard whose accented charm helped cover up his myriad of sexual misconduct?”

“Well...not to his face,” Sarah Jane said, drawing a laugh from her. “But that was certainly the tone of the article.” She stared at her curiously. “You've read my work.”

“Huge fan of your work,” Zoe said. “Admittedly, I hadn't heard of you before I met the Doctor as most of your investigations happened when I was still in school. When he mentioned you were a journalist, I had a look through the articles he'd collected and then I read your books. Your biography on your aunt was incredible moving. I'm so sorry that she passed away.”

A tidal wave of emotion crashed over Sarah Jane. _He didn't forget me,_ she thought, tears threatening to make an appearance. When she spoke, she was relieved to find her voice remained steady. “Thank you. I didn't realise the Doctor spoke about me.”

“Getting him to shut up about you is the problem sometimes,” Zoe said with a smile. “It's so nice to meet you, Sarah Jane. You're something of a personal hero of mine.”

A blush dusted her cheeks. “You're very kind, but if I could have my hand back, please? I'm starting to lose circulation.”

“What?” Zoe looked at their hands and released her quickly. “Sorry, I haven't really met my heroes before. Well, I met Winston Churchill once but that's neither here nor there. What are you doing here?”

“Same thing as you,” she said, discreetly flexing her fingers. “Investigating the high academic marks and reports of alien sightings.”

“Brilliant,” Zoe said again, turning to the Doctor and poking him in the stomach. “It's Sarah Jane Smith.”

He smiled. “I see that.”

Jack looked between them all, amusement growing, before he cleared his throat. “Since we're done for the night, does anyone want to grab a drink? Sarah Jane, I'd love it if you'd come. I want to hear everything and anything about your time with the Doctor. We can compare notes.”

The smile dropped from the Doctor's face. “How about we don't do that?”

“No,” Rose said, forcefully, hands in her pockets. “I think it's a great idea. You up for it, Sarah Jane? Drinks are on him.” She jerked her thumb at the Doctor, and Sarah Jane hesitated. “Because he does some stuff that I don't know is normal or not, like the TARDIS – he strokes the TARDIS.”

She laughed. “He used to do that with me as well. I always felt like I was intruding.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, eyes bright. “An' he'll do that thing where he talks at you at like a hundred miles an' hour an' then you don't get it an' he just looks at you like you've dribbled on your shirt.”

The Doctor looked between them, hearts sinking. “I don't do that.”

“Does he ever just hand you the sonic screwdriver and expect you to know exactly what to do with it and then get annoyed when he has to explain himself?”

“Yes,” Rose and Jack said at once.

“You know, it's going to be a busy day tomorrow,” the Doctor tried. “We should all get some shut eye, some rest.”

Jackie patted his arm. “Sorry, love. I think you're outvoted.”

“Jacks, you comin'?” Mickey asked.

“I'm not missin' embarrassin' Doctor stories,” she said. “Tell me, did he ever kidnap anyone you loved?”

“It wasn't kidnap!”

“Zo, you comin'?” Rose asked.

Every part of her body screamed _yes_ in answer to her sister's question. There was nothing she wanted more than to spend time with Sarah Jane Smith, a woman that she had wanted to meet since the Doctor first told her about her. Over the years, she had built Sarah Jane up in her head a little – the Doctor's stories and her own articles and writing helping her to create an image of this woman who had once done what she was doing – and she was desperate to sit down with her and pick her brain; yet, she hesitated. There was nothing to indicate that the Doctor wouldn't be happy to trail along with them and put up with the rubbing and embarrassment what was sure to come with his usual good humour, but there was something about the way he had hugged her and the way he stood just a little too close that stopped her from enthusiastically joining the others.

“As much as I'd love to, I'm a little bit drunk already,” she said, apologetically, and the Doctor's head turned, surprised at her refusal. “Harriet and I put the wine away a little too successfully. But take notes for me though – bullet points if you can.”

“I'll just record the conversation,” Jack grinned.

Resigned to his fate as the butt of their jokes, the Doctor sighed. “Don't forget, if you don't come home, we'll meet at the gates when school starts. Don't be late or hungover.”

Jack gave him a wink that Mickey followed up with a small salute before the five of them walked off, presumably to find the nearest establishment that sold alcohol; his stomach churned unpleasantly as laughter drifted back to him.

“Hey.” Zoe took his hand within hers and squeezed, drawing his eyes to her. “You okay?”

He opened his mouth only to shut it again, exhaustion settling in his bones. “I just want to go home.”

“Okay.” She brought his hand up to her mouth, pressing a kiss against his knuckles. “We're going to need a taxi though, the tube isn't running any more. Wait here, I'll rustle us one up.”

* * *

_ The Vino Lounge, Ealing _

“...and I think, this is it, I'm dead.” Jack's hand gestured wildly, nearly knocking Jackie's rum and coke over that Mickey rescued at the last second, the thrum of music less noticeable due to the sound dampener that Jack placed under their table when they had sat down forty minutes earlier. “And I've made peace with it, you know. Figured I'd lived enough for ten people –”

“Shagged enough, he means,” Rose said, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol, causing Sarah Jane to choke on her wine. “You watch out or he'll be after you next.”

“Gorgeous as you are, I'm taking a step back from such things,” Jack said, an appreciative look sweeping over Sarah Jane who felt hot beneath his eyes while Rose and Jackie stared at Mickey curiously who ignored them and the burning in his face by drinking his beer quickly. “But there I was listening to the Doctor talk shit to the Emperor of the Dalek when this awful screaming started, and I look around and the Daleks are just dying. They're literally leaking goo out of their armour, and I'm thinking _what the hell_ , right? Because Daleks don't just die like that. I'm beginning to feel that I might have crossed into another universe when I hear the Doctor speak – and it's like he's setting eyes on his god or whatever because he's confused but in awe but mainly completely confused – and then there's Zoe, calm as you please, come to save the day.”

Sarah Jane set her drink down, fascinated. “You mean that that woman from earlier defeated an entire army of Daleks by herself?”

“That's my girl,” Jackie said, proud. “Graduated from MIT recently. She's a smart one.”

“It wasn't exactly as easy as Jack's made it sound,” Rose admitted, drunk enough to feel friendly towards Sarah Jane even if there was still tension running as an undercurrent between them, but she was aware enough to know that the Doctor was the cause of it and not anything Sarah Jane had done. “Zo spent about four years tryin' to figure out a way to save those two idiots –”

“Hey,” Jack protested around his straw.

“She's got a point, mate,” Mickey said. “Who volunteers for a suicide mission?”

“The Japanese.” All eyes turned to Jackie who shrugged. “Kamikaze missions.”

“Stop watchin' documentaries in the day,” Rose said. “It's weird when you come out with this stuff.” Jackie rolled her eyes and sipped her drink while Rose turned back to Sarah Jane. “Zoe had to go to uni for four years to find a way to save them, so it wasn't exactly easy.”

Jack pierced an olive and popped it in his mouth. “But much appreciated.”

Sarah Jane toyed with the stem of her glass. “So you've met Cybermen, Slitheen, Zygons, a werewolf, and the Daleks?”

“That about sums it up,” Jack nodded.

She sighed, reluctantly amused. “He hasn't changed a bit, has he? His face might change but he's still the same old Doctor, finding trouble no matter where he goes.”

“I think he goes lookin' for it myself,” Jackie said. “No one can just find that much trouble lyin' around. Even at Zoe's graduation he got into trouble with a giant killer robot.”

“Technically, it wasn't a _killer_ robot,” Jack said, “but it was definitely giant.”

“What about you?” Rose asked, sneaking a glance at Sarah Jane who had relaxed the more Jack plied her with stories, his easy charm putting her at ease and the wine helping the shock of seeing the Doctor again wear off. “You must have some stories. What was that about the Loch Ness monster?”

“Oh,” Sarah Jane said before she laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. “That was the fault of the Zygons, actually. They'd brought this creature with them when they came to Earth in the 12th century – I can't remember the name: Skaroseck, Skaarsgard –”

Jackie rattled her ice. “Think that's an actor, love.”

“Not a Skarasen?” Jack asked, surprised.

“That's it,” she said, the name clicking into place in her mind. “You've seen one before?”

“Came across one once when I was skinny dipping in Lake Como, early 48th century,” he said. “Thought I'd wash the grime off me and get a little colour to my skin – nearly drowned when one dragged me under. Some zoologists were studying their mating habits at the time and were really pissed that I'd interfered with the results.”

“I can see why the Doctor likes you,” Sarah Jane said, Jack's answering smile stole the breath from her lungs.

“Go on then,” Rose encouraged. “There was a Skaro – Skarasen and some Zygons?”

“Well, the Zygons wanted to take over the Earth, of course.” They all nodded, now familiar with alien takeover attempts. “And the Skarasen was their tool in doing that. It's what gave rise to the myths of the Loch Ness monster, although I don't know if it's still there. The Doctor said it was going to return there as it was the only home it knew, but if it has then it's kept to itself.”

“Then again,” Mickey said, thoughtfully, “all those mysterious sightings of the monster, wouldn't be the weirdest thing on this planet.”

“No, that'd be the Doctor,” Jackie said, looking up from her empty glass to find them staring at her. “Oh, don't look at me like that. You know he's odd.”

“He is,” Sarah Jane agreed, her fondness beginning to overtake her shock and disappointment, anger having faded long ago. She sipped her wine, thumb running through the condensation on her glass. “It's been so long since I've spoken about this with anyone. It's difficult to find people who have the same life experiences you do when you've travelled with the Doctor.”

“I'm just thrilled to finally meet a friend of his,” Jack told her. “He's a bit private and doesn't talk all that much about himself, so it's nice to see that he does actually have other people. Do you know any of the others he's travelled with?”

“I've met one or two,” she said. “There's Dorothy who travelled with him after I did; she's working on indigenous rights in Australia now and doesn't come back to Britain a lot. There's Harry, of course, Harry Sullivan – he was actually there with the Zygons and Loch Ness. Do you know of Alistair?”

“The Brigadier,” Mickey said. “We've met him.”

“Right, he was with you at Christmas, the Doctor mentioned,” she remembered. “There are more, of course: Ian and Barbara Chesterton, Tegan Jovanka, Jo Grant's another. I have all their names somewhere at home. Alistair helped me compile them a few years back when UNIT approached me to write profiles on the Doctor's companions. The project never got off the ground but I have their names.”

“That's a lot of people,” Rose said, surprised.

“The Doctor likes company,” she shrugged before she found herself admitting to something she had only thought about in private. “Sometimes it feels like I dreamt it all and everything I saw and did was a figment of my imagination. Seeing him again tonight, so many years later, it's...difficult.”

Rose stared at the Doctor's friend and took in the soft, wounded expression, wondering if this was a glimpse into her immediate future. _No_ , she thought to herself, _Sarah Jane didn't know the Doctor wasn't coming back, I know that now_. She was angry at the Doctor still, hated him a little for having planned to do that to her and Zoe and Jack, but she refused to spend her years waiting for him to come home like she had once waited, pathetic and desperate on the edge of the bed, for Jimmy only to have him come home smelling of drugs, alcohol, and another woman's perfume. Her self-esteem had taken enough of a hit for one lifetime. She had already let one man define her, shape her into what he wanted only to toss her aside when something better came along, and she knew the Doctor never wanted her to feel like that, but she refused to let another man determine her life for her.

She loved him but she wasn't going to wait for him, not like Sarah Jane, not when she saw the damage it had done.

She deserved better.

“I'm sorry,” Rose said, softly. “This isn't easy for you. You think he's replaced you with me.”

Sarah Jane's face went blank before she nodded. “It's hard not to feel as though I've been traded in for a younger model.”

She swallowed, fingers falling to rub at her wrists. “If it helps, I feel like shit too. He had this time with you, an' you were so close to him an' he's just never mentioned you. It makes me think about what he's goin' to do to me, an' Zoe, an' Jack when it's time.”

Jack tilted his head to one side, slightly pained. “Rose.”

“You tellin' me you haven't been thinkin' about it?” She asked him. “He might've told Zoe about her but those two have always been close like that, ever since Reinette died, but he didn't tell us. He never told us Jack. He doesn't talk about any of them. Ian an' Barbara? Who are they? How did he meet them? How long were they with him? What about Tegan an' Jo?” She swallowed hard and gave voice to what worried her. “Do we mean so little to him that he's just never goin' to talk about us again?”

Silence hung like a heavy shroud over the table, and Jack dragged a hand over his sombre face. “He loves us, Rosie.”

“He loved Sarah Jane once too.”

Sarah Jane leaned back in her chair and exhaled slowly. Her day hadn't gone at all the way she expected when she woke up that morning, eager to get stuck into an investigation again. There wasn't a promise of aliens but the reports of alien ships in the sky did set her heart racing in excitement as she showered and dressed. She had thought she would go in, ask some questions, get a lay of the school, and then simply break in later – easy, and something she had done a hundred times before. Finding the TARDIS had been a shock, the aftermath of which was still thrumming through her, and then turning to find the Doctor behind her – the fact that she hadn't recognised him in the teacher's lounge earlier pained her. She knew about regeneration, knew that he wore different bodies, but she always thought she would know him when she saw him, that she would take one look, smile, and say _hello, Doctor, it's been a while_.

Except, she hadn't recognised him.

He had let her talk and talk without revealing himself, letting her think that he was a little simple, rather than taking her hand and telling her the truth.

Her head spun from the way her life had been upended. Seeing him again wasn't at all like she had imagined and feeling the pain spread out from Rose, who, despite how sharp and cutting Sarah Jane had been earlier as she lashed out to cope with the ground shifting beneath her feet, was a nice woman who was also hurting at the unexpected turned of events, reminded her of how careless the Doctor was sometimes. He didn't mean to do it but he took the hearts of those he travelled with and treated them without the care he should, not realising how desperately in love they all were with him.

“He still loves me,” Sarah Jane said, drawing their attention to her. “He does. The Doctor – sometimes I think he loves so much because he's got that extra heart and he's just got love to spare, but it also means he gets hurt twice as much. What he did – leaving me behind, not coming back – I do understand it. I don't like it, but I understand it.”

“But he left you,” Rose said, plaintively, “an' he never came back.”

“That's the Doctor for you,” she said. “He's not like us, Rose. He might look human and occasionally act it, but he's not one of us. He keeps moving and looking forward because if he doesn't then he's going to see everything that he's left behind, and I honestly think the weight of it might just kill him.” She shook her head, running a finger over the sore edges of her once-broken heart. “I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, in the TARDIS – time and space, watch out.” She laughed softly, rueful at her naivety. “But if I had, he would've buried me a long time ago. It's a cruel thing, mortality, and a crueller thing to love those not touched by it.”

Jack looked around, frowning at the wall as his hand sought out Mickey's while Rose sniffed and wiped at her eyes with a napkin Jackie handed her. “What do we do? Please, tell me, what do we do?”

“I've spent a long time thinking about whether or not I would do my time with the Doctor over again, knowing how it ends, knowing how it broke my heart,” she said, carefully, aware of the weight of what she was saying. “And the truth is, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Even though it hurts?” Jack asked.

Sarah Jane smiled, beautiful in her sadness. “Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.”

* * *

_ Powell Estate, Peckham _

Zoe opened the door to her mother's flat and drew the Doctor inside, troubled by his quietness as he was someone for whom silence was not a natural fit. There were moments when he read in bed or lounged while she gardened but he was never silent like he was now. There was always an energy about him that crackled, screaming life and vibrancy; nor had he felt shut off to her before either, locked away behind doors that he hadn't given her keys to, and worry slipped through her. He had been solicitous, pausing when she got the heel of her shoe stuck in some grating, rubbing his hands over her arms in the chill air as they waited for the taxi, but his mind wasn't on her, forgetting to ask her about her evening with Harriet.

“Here we go,” she said, flipping on the light. “Why don't you get comfortable and I'll pop the kettle on.”

“I'll make the tea,” he said, hand skimming her waist to still her movements. “You'll want to take your make up off. I know it's driving you crazy.”

“I do want to itch,” she admitted, a shadow of a smile ghosting his cheeks.

He brushed a kiss over her forehead. “Go, I'll see if I can scrounge up Jaffa cakes as well, if Jack hasn't eaten them all that is.”

The shadows of the living room claimed him as he walked deeper into the flat, worry gnawing at her stomach as she watched him go. Quickly busying herself with removing her make up, rooting through her mother's belongings to find some wipes, she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, the good humour that spending time with Harriet had put her in fading away. She worked the mascara from her eyes and scrubbed her face clean, stealing some of the moisturiser on the side of the sink before brushing her teeth. She left the bathroom and joined him in the kitchen, the light from the outside casting a solemn glow over him, his jacket and coat over the back of a chair, tie loosened.

“No Jaffa cakes, sorry.”

“It's all right,” Zoe said. “I've already eaten.”

He drained the teabag, stirring the smallest splash of milk into her cup. “How was dinner?”

“It was lovely,” she said, staring at his reflection, taking in the sharp lines of conflicted emotions cutting into him. He turned to hand her the cup of tea, the heat of it warming her palm. “Harriet's doing well, though she's having a spot of trouble with the Leader of the Opposition who seems like he may actually give her a run for her money. I don't think it's anything she can't handle though.” She sipped the tea – _perfect._ “She'll be moving into Number 10 soon as the rebuild is almost finished. I think she's relieved at having more space. Her mother's living with her and she has two nieces staying at the moment. It's a little crowded apparently.”

“I can imagine,” the Doctor said, valiantly trying to have a normal conversation with her. “Did she tell you anything about Torchwood?”

“Nothing new,” she said. “But she's given me her word that it's not a danger to us, and, since it's Harriet, I trust her.” She rubbed her thumb over the ceramic rim, relieved to have the weight of Torchwood off her shoulders. “You may have been right. I think I was worrying about it because I needed something to focus my attention on. My hands tend to do the devil's work if I'm idle for too long.”

“I like your hands.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

“And you look beautiful in that dress.” His gaze sharpened its focus, sweeping over her, and she felt a familiar heat build as well as the certainty that he was trying to distract her. She doubted he was aware of what he was doing, but he was using sex as a means to distract her and himself – it was almost _human_ of him. “Why haven't I seen you in it before?”

“You haven't taken me anywhere nice enough to wear it,” she said, his hands reaching for her. They were cool and familiar on her waist, a gentle tug bringing her closer to him. She wanted to give him what he wanted but there was a niggling edge in the back of her mind that told her _this_ wasn't what he actually wanted. “So, that was Sarah Jane.”

The reaction she was expecting – a wry smile and a small laugh – didn't come. Instead, he stared at her before his face crumbled and a sob broke free of his mouth. Tea splashed over her hands in her hurry to set her cup down, catching his shoulders when his knees buckled, arms seeking her body, wrapping them around her waist; he pressed his face into her stomach and the cracked, deep sound of _pain_ was muffled by her stomach. She remembered crying like that the first few weeks after Rose's disappearance and then again in the weeks and months that followed Reinette's death, and she knew how much it hurt.

She smoothed her hands over his shoulder and held him to her as his body shook. The Doctor crying was a rare enough occasion that she was only able to think of one moment where he had done so – years ago, before they had even met Jack, when she was recovering from her torture on Tolandra and he had told her about his role in ending the Last Great Time War. His shoulders heaved and the skirt of her dress was soaked with his tears, her fingers carding through his hair, trying her best to comfort him even as her own hot tears burnt at her eyes, pulled apart by his distress.

It took a long time for the tension to fade from him, his sobs disappearing until he was simply breathing heavily into her stomach. Only when his grip on her loosened, his body slumping in on itself, did she wipe the tears from her eyes. He slowly rolled back from her, sitting with his back against the fridge, hand curled lightly around her ankle; she stroked his hair from his miserable, red face and moved, his fingers tightening around her.

“I'm just getting the tea,” she said, finding the screwdriver and heating his untouched cup, handing it to him before she removed her shoes, letting them clatter to the floor as she sat next to him. “Drink. You've dehydrated yourself. The tea will help, trust me.”

He brought the cup to his lips and sipped, feeling miserable and pathetic but too exhausted to feel embarrassed. “I'm sorry.”

“You've got nothing to be sorry for,” Zoe said, hand on his thigh. “But I won't lie and say I'm not worried. What the hell happened tonight?”

“My past came crashing into my present,” he said, head dropping back against the cupboard with a dull thud. “I saw her earlier, Sarah Jane. She was at the school during the day, apparently doing a profile on Finch. We met in the teacher's lounge while you were off tutoring.”

“You never said.”

“I was going to but you were busy getting ready and I thought it could wait until tomorrow.” He removed his handkerchief and blew his nose. “I didn't want to get you all excited and then not be able to have you meet her until I'd actually told her who I was.”

She squeezed his thigh. “And seeing her again, it's made you feel...out of sorts?”

“A little,” he admitted. “And Rose – she's not happy.”

“Rose knows you've travelled with others before us,” she said before frowning. “Or at least I'm sure she does. It's not as though you've been hiding it.”

“It's more the fact I don't talk about it,” the Doctor said, eyes hot and dry, face feeling swollen. “She asked if I was going to leave you lot behind when I got bored of you.”

She winced, _oh Rose_. “Doctor –”

“I'm a coward, Zoe, I'm a selfish coward,” he said, self-hatred rushing out of him. “I don't go back and visit my friends even though I'd love to see them again because I'm afraid of what that might mean for me. I don't think about how they feel, but listening to Sarah Jane – she waited for me, spent her life looking out for me, and I just never went back to her. Not even for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Maybe – maybe that would've helped. Maybe she wouldn't feel like she's wasted her life after I brought her back, not moving on because she thinks I'm going to be right around the corner.”

“You're not a coward,” Zoe told him, turning so that her knee pressed into his thigh. “And you're only occasionally selfish. You're protecting yourself from hurt, that's all.”

“That's what I told Rose,” he murmured, guilt hitting him again as he remembered the sharp look of panic – feral and terrified – in her eyes when he moved. “I scared her. I was annoyed, _angry_ , and I stepped towards her. I didn't mean to frighten her.”

“She knows you won't hurt her,” she assured him. “But you're a tall man and Rose isn't. It's an instinctive reaction for women, even around men they love, and Rose has reason enough to flinch when people move towards her quickly.” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “You've heard enough about Jimmy Stone to put two and two together. She came home in debt and with a black eye and was flinching at shadows for weeks. It's nothing personal, I promise.”

He swallowed, the confirmation of what he had always suspected of Rose's ex-boyfriend burning through him. “I know.”

“And she just needs time,” Zoe said. “In the morning I'm sure she's going to regret what she said to you.”

Slowly, he finished his tea, the tannins helping as she promised, and he set the mug down, mind whirring, Sarah Jane's wrinkles and grey hair, beautiful as they were, terrifying him.

“I don't want to watch you die.”

Her eyelids fluttered with pain, her only reaction to his words. “You're not going to.”

“I'm going to watch you grow older, your hair turn grey, lines coming into your face – this face.” The tips of his fingers settled on her cheek, thumb curving over her chin before tracking a ghostly path across her mouth. “And I'm going to love you every single moment but I'm going to be watching you die in front of me for decades, and there's nothing I'm going to be able to do about it. I'm scared, Zo.”

A hot tear slid down her cheek, his distress sinking into her. She reached up and covered his hand with hers as his free hand curled into her dress, wrinkling the delicate material. “We have time. Before any of that happens, we have time, I promise you. And I'm not going to hold you to your promise. All I ask is that you say goodbye to me before you leave.”

“I'm not –”

“It's easy to make the promise now when I'm young and I have years ahead of me,” she told him, swallowing hard. “But you think I want to look at you every day and see your pain and grief? When it gets too much, you're going to tell me that you love me and you're going to say the word _goodbye_ to me. You're going to spend the night, and then you're going to leave before I wake up in the morning.”

His shoulders shook, face hot and wet against her neck. “I'm sorry. Zoe, I'm so sorry. I thought I was braver than this.”

“It's okay,” she said softly, forgiving him with every stroke of her fingers through his hair. “We have time. We have so much time.”

“It's not enough.”

“If we had eternity, it still wouldn't be enough,” she murmured into his scalp, his hand sliding up her side, mouth against her neck. “I love you, and we have time.”

“Time,” he repeated, nosing along her jaw, hot breath warming her skin as he went. “ _Time_.”

He tasted like salt when he kissed her, fingers drawing her close, desperate to keep her with him for as long as he could.


	22. Chapter 22

“That'll be one-eighty, love.”

The Doctor pulled out a handful of coins and searched through the mess of human and alien money before he found two one pound coins and dropped them into the woman's outstretched hand. He tapped the top of the charity box, telling her to drop the change in there, before picking up Zoe's black coffee and the doughnut he thought she might like. They had already had breakfast – toast with some peanut butter and a quick stop at Costa for more coffee – but he knew that she was never likely to refuse extra food, particularly when she was trying to keep herself awake. He stepped out of the busy café and greeted Tim Parsons in passing, not stopping to chat. Pausing at the traffic lights, waiting for the little green man to tell him it was safe to cross, he searched the opposite side of the road for Zoe.

He found her sat on a low wall, legs folded beneath her, yawning as she entertained herself with her phone. It was rare that he got to observe her simply existing in the universe but there were moments when he saw her in a crowd or browsing the shelves of the library; it struck him that she had her own life and thoughts and dreams that he wasn't always privy to. He watched her tug the collar of her coat higher up her neck, protecting her bare skin from the cold, and he found himself dizzy with amazement that she was choosing to share her life with him. He wondered if she ever looked at him and felt the same: of all the people in all the universe, they had found each other. Neither of them believed in fate but the Doctor toyed with the idea that something had brought them together, foolish though the notion ultimately was. But he liked it – liked the thought that they were so important together that the universe conspired to make it happen.

The green man made his appearance, and he pushed the thought from his mind as he crossed the road, knowing that if he told her she would laugh and call him an idiot in a way that made him feel loved rather than stupid.

“Here,” he said, hand cupped over the lid as he held it out to her. “It's not as strong as you like it but I think they thought I was having them on when I placed the order, something about it being medically inadvisable.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” she mocked, her hair pulled back from her face, phone slipping away. She took the styrofoam cup from him, cracking the plastic lid back to blow the heat away before taking a sip. Her nose wrinkled, unimpressed with the weak taste, but her eyes were soft. “It's great, thank you.”

“Got you this as well,” he said, holding out the doughnut concealed in a napkin, enjoying the way her eyes lit up. “Jam, of course.”

“There's a time and a place for custard, but this is not it,” she said. “Thanks very much.”

Not one to let food sit around uneaten for long, she bit into it and smiled around her sugary mouthful, quickly sweeping the napkin in to save her T-shirt from the dribble of jam that squirted out the other end. An expert on Zoe's face, the Doctor saw the carefully smoothed concealer beneath her eyes to hide the marks of a restless night from the world at large, dabs of brightening lotion around her eyes and mouth helping to make her look like she normally did. It was unlikely anyone else was going to notice – perhaps Jack if he was paying attention – but she kept trying to hide a yawn every ten minutes or so, operating on over twenty-four hours without sleep as she was, and someone was sure to comment if she didn't find some more energy.

While long days weren't unusual for her, it was never normally his fault. He had kept her awake the night before with his tossing and turning, tangling the covers of her childhood bed around his legs, keeping her cold and uncomfortable as his subconscious plagued him with images of his friends – withered and decayed, old and dying. They had turned their backs on him, crumbling to dust when he grabbed them, shouting their names, before waking up in a cold sweat to find Zoe leaning over him, worried but present. He gave up on sleep around four in the morning, preparing to leave her in bed alone as he walked the streets to shake his troubled state from his shoulders but she went with him, dressed in some of her mother's clothes, hand tucked into his, stopping at the McDonald's she used to work at for coffee and an early morning snack.

_Breakfast,_ he corrected.

_Snack,_ she said around a mouthful of sausage McMuffin.

Propping himself against the wall next to her, she automatically rested her temple against his arm, happy to sit and chew in silence as they waited for the others to join them. None of them had come back to the flat or Mickey's, which led the Doctor to believe they had stayed at Sarah Jane's house; he didn't know how he felt about that but there were worse things in the world than all of his friends getting on. Perhaps, he considered with hope that was tinged by only the slightest shiver of panic, if it worked well, he might see about introducing them to Ace. He would love to see Ace again as they had left everything on a positive note when he brought her back to Earth after her time studying at the Academy on Gallifrey, the stirrings of war pushing him to visit her and heavily encourage her to return home. He knew that she was running a charity now – A Charitable Earth – and the thought of swinging by to say hello wasn't as terrifying as it had been twenty-four hours earlier.

He still felt disoriented but he felt more grounded than he had. With dawn, the desire to hide himself in Zoe's arms, face pressed into her chest to keep the world at bay, had lessened. Their agreement the night before, hammered out during his spasms of fear and pre-emptive grief, sat awkwardly on his shoulders. No matter what hope was slipping through him the more he analysed the results of her physical, comparing her brain scan from now to her brain scan from before, struggling to make sense of what was before him, he knew he was going to have to say goodbye to her one day and the thought of never seeing her again made him want to curl into a ball and hide. It was impossible for him to imagine his day-to-day life without her; hundreds of years he had lived before meeting her but she had undone in him a few short years, like the magic she always hoped advanced science was.

“You'd have been burned as a witch,” the Doctor said aloud, and she stopped absently humming Bach, a piece she was trying to get right on the piano.

“Beg pardon?”

“Although most executed of witchcraft weren't actually burned, that's a historical inaccuracy,” he told her. “It was either a drowning or a hanging that you'd be look forward to. The idea of witch burning actually came from Queen Mary's reign when she burnt protestants at the stake.”

“That's fascinatingly ghoulish,” Zoe said, mouth twitching. “But is there a reason you're imagining me being executed for witchcraft?”

“I've been thinking about how fundamental you are to me,” he said, using his thumb to wipe away the small remnants of sugar on her lips, causing a group of passing students to giggle, shooting them embarrassed, curious looks. “How you're in every part of my life, and I thought that some might take it for magic.”

The expression on her face made him grateful that they were alone as it was private and deeply intimate: a tender, romantic side that only he got to see.

“You've caught me,” she said, emotion turning her voice a little husky. “I've been trying to hide it but you're just too quick for me. I'm really a witch. I left the Wizarding World and hid myself in the Muggle one. Mum and Rose? They're under spells to make them think I'm their daughter and sister. Tell no one.”

His mouth curved. “And you've never taken me to visit Hogwarts? Shame on you.”

She grinned. “Didn't you tell me a while back that there's a Harry Potter world in America?”

“Opening in about four years, more or less,” he nodded. “If only we had a time machine.”

“Think of all the things we could do,” she teased, leaning into him, tucking her hand into his and turning her mouth into his arm, breath warm through his coat. “So, me being a witch, is this a good thing or a bad thing?”

“A very, very good thing,” he assured her, unable to keep his fingers off her, brushing stray hairs back from her face. “I wouldn't be without you.”

Her expression flickered, a small glimpse at the chasm of future pain waiting for her, and it knocked the breath from him. There wasn't a chance for him to say anything because it was swept away by a lovely smile and a squeeze of his hand.

“I'm a little fond of you too, you know,” Zoe said.

“Just a little?”

She showed him a small distance between her thumb and forefinger. “About this much.”

“Is that to scale?” He played with her fingers, stretching the space wider. “Or is it on a ratio?”

“A ratio, maybe.” He shifted a little closer to her and her eyes slipped away from him, scanning the area, her knee pressing into his thigh. When she returned her gaze to him, she looked delighted and shy, an expression he adored on her. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” He asked, innocently, her hand cradled against his chest, their other joined hands swinging at their sides. “We're just talking.”

“You're going to kiss me,” she accused.

“You like it when I kiss you.”

“I'm something of a fan, yes,” Zoe admitted, unable to stop smiling, which did nothing to discourage him. He leaned in closer, and she turned her head, a blush crawling into her cheeks. Sometimes she was so delightfully proper that it made him want to take her apart piece by piece just for the fun of it. “ _Doctor_ , we're in public, and this isn't France.”

He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “Lots of public displays of affection in France, was there?”

“Well, _no_ ,” she said. “Though there were the occasional parties that I went to once or twice, purely from an anthropological point of view.” His eyebrows climbed his forehead, surprise passing through him, briefly forgetting his desire to kiss the sugar from her mouth. “Louis invited me and it seemed rude to say no to the king when I was living on his money and generally making a nuisance of myself. I didn't know what they were at the time.”

“Zoe Tyler.” Her name fell from his mouth in a rumble of delighted amusement. “You went to an orgy.”

“For science!”

He shook his head with a deep laugh. “Don't give me that. Your scientific credentials started four years ago, not before.” She scowled. “You had an orgy at Versailles like a proper little Frenchwoman.”

“I didn't have an orgy,” she insisted, half a heartbeat away from kicking him in the shin. “I went with Reinette – and, yes, in hindsight, she did politely try to tell me what was going on but I wasn't listening and my French then wasn't that great – and it looked normal, although there were a few more soft furnishings than you'd expect –” he laughed, _loudly_. Her nostrils flared and eyes narrowed but she pressed on. “I headed off to get some wine and food and there I am chatting to Madame du Barry – except she was only Jeanne Bécu at the time – and next thing I know I've got her hand on my breast and people are becoming... _déshabillé_.”

The Doctor pressed his fist to his mouth, shaking with laughter. “Zoe...you complete idiot.”

“I was seventeen!” He tipped his head back and laughed. She freed her hand and gave him a slap on the stomach. “Stop it, I was a child!”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he apologised, knuckles brushing over her shoulder even as the mirth stayed painted on his face. “But I've got this image of the look of polite horror on your face when you realise what's going on. How did you get out of there?”

“Reinette, of course,” Zoe said. “She swept in, knocked Jeanne's hand from me and said that she was feeling overly heated, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. She didn't laugh at me, unlike you.” He grinned. “Lessons were learnt that day.”

“Wait,” he said, her earlier words striking him. “You said _once or twice_. You went to another one despite knowing what it was?”

Heat climbed into her skin, embarrassment complete. “I was curious.”

“Zo,” he laughed. “That's brilliant.”

“Who among us hasn't been to an orgy?”

“Now _that's_ a question,” Jack said from the side, startling them with his approach. “What's this about orgies now?”

Despite what the Doctor and Zoe assumed was a long night of drinking, Jack looked as fresh and put together as he always did. He wore the same clothes from the day before but unlike Mickey, who was squinting against the thin grey sunlight that broke through the cloud cover, he wasn't creased and dishevelled. Hair neat and wearing his usual light touch of mascara, hands tucked in the pockets of his coat, he smiled at them; Mickey, on the other hand, sank against the wall that Zoe was sat on, head dropping between his knees, fingers looped over the back of his head.

“Never you mind,” she said, embarrassed, hand rubbing Mickey's back. “Good night?”

“A great one,” Jack said cheerfully, white teeth flashing through his smile as he looked at the Doctor. “Sarah Jane's a laugh, I can see why you're friends with her.”

“Please, lower your voice,” Mickey begged. “Some of us aren't augmented.”

The Doctor sighed, searching his pockets for the hangover pills he had taken to keeping on his person – having the friends that he did, they were useful more often than they weren't, unable to recall if the others he travelled with drank as much as they did. Popping the pill from the blister pack, he handed it to Mickey. “I believe I asked you _not_ to be hungover. Have you even slept?”

“A couple of hours,” Jack replied, rocking back on his heels. Mickey shoved the pill between dry lips and swallowed. “What did you two get up to last night?”

“Just went back to the flat and slept,” Zoe lied. “Harriet sends her love.”

“How is she?”

“Good, busy, but good,” she replied. “She's hoping that we're not going to make a huge to-do about what we need to do here. She said they've only just finished cleaning up from Christmas.”

“No promises about the mess,” the Doctor said, eyeing Rose, Sarah Jane, and Jackie as they approached. “You three look awful.”

“You still haven't learnt human manners, I see,” Sarah Jane said, eyes peering at him from over the top of her sunglasses. “I thought for sure someone would've punched you for it by now.”

“Someone did, her name was Peri.” She coughed to hide her amusement, and he held out a tablet. “Here, one for each of you. For the hangovers I told you not to get.”

“Oh, I've missed this,” Sarah Jane said, swallowing the tablet, blinking as her hangover started to ebb. “The medical care was always next to none.”

“Right?” Rose agreed, rubbing her eyes. “That's better. Mornin'.”

“Hello,” the Doctor said, smiling hesitantly at her. The hesitance faded when she smiled back, unreserved in her affections, the sharp words from last night turning to dust between them. “Now that you're all here and more or less sober, we should get started. Everyone feeling up to it?”

“I'm goin' to stay out here,” Jackie said, pale, less make up on than usual – he would never tell her but he thought she looked quite pretty as she was, never really understanding the need of humans to decorate their faces. “Last time I went with you lot on one of these things, you got yourself stabbed in the chest an' killed.”

“Unlikely to happen again but suit yourself,” he said. “Keep an eye on the front. Give us a call if anything comes in or out that shouldn't.”

“Here.” Sarah Jane handed her the keys to her car. “So you don't have to freeze.”

“Ta, love.”

After a moment of awkward manoeuvring, the presence of Mickey and Sarah Jane briefly confusing their normal easy pace, the group split up. The Doctor took Mickey and Jack with him to speak with Finch, having been shouted down when he said that he was going alone; he wasn't sure what role Mickey and Jack were going to play should Finch prove to be as deadly as the Krillitanes usually were but he appreciated the company. His eyes followed Zoe walking off with Rose and Sarah Jane, sweeping through the empty corridors of the school, the children safely tucked away in the tutor groups for registration to be taken, before he turned his attention back to Mickey and Jack who were standing much closer together than normal. He opened his mouth to ask them about it but his teeth clicked together, changing his mind at the last minute, deciding it was none of his business.

“What are we walking into?” Jack asked, falling into step with him, casual but focused.

“I don't know,” he said. “It's been centuries since I last encountered the Krillitane but they're not friendly, I can tell you that much. I'm hoping to resolve this with communication but you know how it goes.”

“I do,” Jack nodded. “Understood.”

Mickey looked between them. “What are we goin' to do then?”

“What we always do,” the Doctor said, “keep this world and its people safe.”

“Right,” he said, mouth dry. “That sounds... _easy_.”

“You'll get used to it,” the Doctor assured him, turning down a hallway and found a child walking slowly through the halls, clearly idling. “Poppy, you should be in your tutor room now.”

“Sorry, Mr Smith,” Poppy said, her plaited hair resting in ribbons against her chest, a cheeky grin creeping onto her face. “Ladies problems, y'know?”

“Get on with you,” he said, earning a frown at his lack of reaction. “And don't lollygag.”

“But –”

“No lollygagging.” She sighed and dragged her feet against the floor but she hastened away. “Students, they're the same everywhere.”

“If you're about to tell us that you were the most studious in your class, I'm about to call you a liar,” Jack said pointedly, and the Doctor grinned. “Thought so.”

It took a few minutes to actually find Finch. Not in his office, they had to stop and ask at reception to discover that he was in the sports wing, presumably having been sniffing around the TARDIS to try and gain access. The Doctor reached out and brushed up against the section of his mind that was devoted entirely to his ship and received soft waves of reassurance in return along with a hint of boredom at having spent the night in a closet. His mouth twitched with amusement, a promise of excitement drifting back to her, before he entered the swimming pool where the smell of chlorine sank into his nose and made Jack sneeze.

Mr Finch stood with his back against the wall, hands behind him, a dark glower on his face, clearly waiting for him. In his two days of teaching at Deffry Vale, the Doctor had only seen him from a distance and Zoe hadn't seen him at all; he was a presence in the school but only in the way that something shadowy and insidious was a presence. His entire look appeared as though it was carefully copied from a magazine, right down to the chequered pink and red handkerchief correctly positioned in his pocket. Flanked on either side by Mickey and Jack, the Doctor walked further into the room, slipping his hands into his pockets as their eyes met across the pool.

His voice echoed around the room when he spoke. “Who are you?”

“My name is Brother Lassa,” Finch said. “And you?”

“The Doctor,” he replied, gesturing to his friends. “My friends, Jack and Mickey.” Finch's eyes swept over them, dismissing them almost instantly. “Tell me, since when do Krillitanes have wings?”

He pushed away from the wall and strolled down the side of the pool as though the conversation was nothing more than a pleasant chat between friends. The Doctor kept the distance between them, matching his movements on the other side, watching the way he moved – it looked as though he had carefully studied human movement. It was all correct but a little too perfect, too polished, none of the oddities that humans collected like the way Rose took steps that were too long to avoid cracks in the ground, the small shuffle Zoe did when she fell out of step and needed to correct herself, and the careful, measured strides of Jack that he forgot when he was distracted.

“It's been our form for nearly ten generations now,” Finch informed him, a small smile playing on his lips. “My ancestors invaded Bessan. The people there had some rather lovely wings. They made nearly a million widows in one day, just imagine.”

The reverential tone for slaughter would have made the Doctor furious when he was younger; now, it simply solidified into a cold, burning anger that he kept tightly under control.

“I've been to Bessan,” he said, remembering coral pink skies and Susan's thrilled excitement. “They're peaceful people.”

“They _were_.”

The muscle in his jaw flickered. “But you're human shaped now.”

“A personal favourite.” Finch's hands slid down the front of his body before falling to his side. “That's all.”

“And the others?”

“My brothers remain in bat form,” he said. “What you see is a simple morphic illusion – scratch the surface and the true Krillitane lies beneath.” Behind him, the Doctor felt Mickey shudder at the image. “And what of the Time Lords? I always thought of you as such a pompous race – ancient, dusty senators, so frightened of change and chaos.” The Doctor almost snorted. _If only we'd remained so_ drifted through his mind. “They're all but extinct now, of course. Only you. The last.”

He ignored the way the words hurt, sharp pain blooming between his hearts at the reminder. He and Finch finally met at the side of the pool, Mickey and Jack close enough behind that if anything went wrong, they were right there.

“This plan of yours,” he said, “what is it?”

The attention to detail on Finch's face was remarkable: folds of skin creased over the corners of his eyes, small blemishes scattered like dust over the surface, warmth exuding from him even though the Krillitanes – and the Bessan – were reptilian species. Faint surprise and deepening amusement flickered to life in his dark eyes, and the Doctor's stomach clenched in warning.

“You don't know.”

“That's why I'm asking.”

“Show me how clever you are,” he baited.

The Doctor turned dark, heavy eyes onto Finch. “If I don't like it, then it will stop.”

“Fascinating,” he breathed. “Your people were peaceful to the point of indolence, but you seem to be something new.” The Doctor held his gaze, unblinking. “Would you declare war on us, Doctor?”

The thought of another war made him want to retreat to the TARDIS and lie in Zoe's garden, breathing in the scent of her newly planted flowers and the citrus trees that were beginning to blossom under her attentive care. He wasn't the type to live his life quietly but, occasionally, the thought of one day having a quiet retirement with Zoe, away from the heavy weight of decisions that needed to be made and the lives of the innocents that always ended up in his hands, was a tempting one. He knew himself well enough to know that even if he did settle down, it wouldn't be forever; it wasn't who he was, and that was why he didn't back down from Finch.

“You get one warning,” he said, quietly. “That was it.”

“But we're not even enemies,” Finch said with the air of someone trying to figure out a puzzle. “Soon, Doctor, you will embrace us. The next time we meet, you will join me, that I promise you.”

Finch walked past him, the sleeve of his suit jacket brushing lightly against the Doctor's coat, a faint hint of cologne remaining behind. Jack made a slight movement as though to restrain Finch but the Doctor shook his head and he fell back, hands back in his pockets. The doors swung shut behind him and the Doctor let the tension fall from his shoulders, rubbing his hand across his jaw, another reminder that he needed to shave, the stubble making him itch.

Mickey looked at him. “You all right, boss?”

“Fine,” he lied. “But that didn't answer any of my questions about what they're doing. He seems to be very confident that I'm going to like what he's doing.”

“Don't the bad guys always think they're right?” Mickey asked.

“Well, yeah, I suppose they do.”

“What now?” Jack asked. “You want me to follow him?”

“No,” he said. “I want us all together. Let's go meet up with the girls and hope they've had more luck with the computers.”

* * *

Silence filled the computer room, broken only by the rapid clicking sounds of Zoe typing on a keyboard. Sarah Jane ran her finger over the back of a chair as she and Rose waited for her to do what she needed to do. It was hard not to feel surplus to requirements in the face of Zoe's competence but Rose didn't appear to find anything unusual with having to wait so Sarah Jane drifted around the room, searching for anything obviously abnormal, ducking her head beneath the desks to look at the hard drives but there was nothing that screamed alien to her. It was well hidden, whatever it was, and she straightened with a soft sigh, unwilling to admit that she was more than a little bored; she had forgotten these moments – the quiet moments before the storm where everything was slowly slotting into place and the pieces were being positioned. In her memories, all she remembered was the burst of activity and the pulse of adrenaline when they had to run for their lives or work to avert a disaster.

“You're good with computers,” Sarah Jane said, deciding to stop ambling and to fill the silence with more than the hum of the computers and the click-clack of the keyboard. “Did you know this before meeting the Doctor?”

“Nope,” Zoe said, smiling at her. “I was only seventeen when I met the Doctor, still studying for my A Levels. I learnt about computers at university – my degree's partially in computer science – but I've found it a useful skill for life with the Doctor.”

She pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down, back to the computer so she was able to keep an eye on the door along. “Your mother said you recently graduated. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Zoe glanced at her, eyes pulling from the computer screen, her fingers typing quickly. “I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk properly last night, I'd have sold Rose to have drinks with you.”

“Hey,” Rose protested. “I'm worth more than a few drinks.”

“At least dinner,” she agreed, Sarah Jane's eyes creasing in amusement at their easy back and forth. “I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it but any more wine in me would have been unpleasant for everyone.”

“That's all right,” Sarah Jane said. “Last night was...unexpected.”

“I bet.” Her eyes shifted back to the screen, offering her privacy if she wanted it. “How are you doing with all of this? I can't imagine it's easy seeing the Doctor again after all this time.”

A thick knot of emotion in her throat made it difficult to swallow, and Sarah Jane felt a fine tremor run through her hands that she curled into loose fists on her thighs. _It isn't, it's awful, it's nothing like I expected but it's everything like I dreaded,_ she thought desperately, the reality of seeing the Doctor again falling far short of her hopes and dreams. Thirty years had twisted her expectations, inflating them and colouring them with things that she realised were never going to happen, and the shock of finding him again, living the life they had lived but with new and younger people, it was hard. Much harder than she expected it would be. Not for a moment had she thought she was the last person to travel with him, but she also hadn't thought he would simply leave her behind as he had.

“It has been difficult,” she heard herself say, the words falling from her mouth without permission. “I don't know if it's because I wasn't expecting to see him again or if it's everything, but, yes, it's been hard. _Good_ but hard.”

“I'm sorry this was sprung on you,” Zoe said, kindly. “If it was me...” she sighed, fingers pausing on the keyboard. “I don't know, I might've reacted a little more violently than you did.”

“She's not kiddin',” Rose said. “First time she met the Doctor, she threatened to run him over with a car.”

“Only after I pushed him off the top of our building, remember?” Rose snorted, and Zoe looked back to Sarah Jane. “He really has missed you though. He doesn't say it because that would make it real, but it's obvious he has. You know what the Doctor's like, he keeps his hurts to himself most of the time, pretending he's not feeling it, but he has missed you. He's just –”

“A coward?”

“I was going to say _afraid_ ,” she said, swallowing the low flash of anger that accompanied Sarah Jane's choice of noun. The Doctor was the first to admit he was a coward but she didn't like hearing other people call him one. “Afraid of opening himself up to hurt. Our limited lifespan bothers him more than he lets on.”

Although her tone was mild, Sarah Jane caught the rebuke buried in her words and regret heated her skin.

“I'm sorry, that was badly done of me.” She rubbed her fingers against her thigh. “Last night I was glad when he didn't come for drinks – I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold it together – but now I'm sorry he didn't come. I wouldn't mind sitting down and just talking with him. I want to hear about what he's been doing, and I want to tell him what I've been doing as well.”

“Oh, he knows about you,” Zoe grinned. “He's got a whole binder full of your articles, and all your books.”

“Books?” She asked, blankly. “Plural?”

Panic shot through her. “Er – spoilers?”

“I write another book?”

“Can you forget I said that, please?” Zoe asked, hopefully. “I shouldn't have told you that, thought you'd already – never mind. Erase it from your memory. Books, what books?”

Rose coughed. “Smooth.”

Unable to do anything else but laugh, she did just that. “Time travel.”

“Time travel,” Zoe agreed. “And as for catching up with the Doctor, just invite him out for coffee or something. He'll say yes.”

“Coffee with the Doctor,” Sarah Jane said, bewilderment pulling at her mouth. “All those things we did together, I don't think we ever did anything as mundane as just going out for a coffee. What would that even look like?”

“Just make sure he has plenty of milk,” Rose suggested, looking over her shoulder. “If he has an espresso then he'll be bouncin' off the walls for hours an' it's _exhaustin'_. He took a sip of Zoe's coffee by mistake once, took him ten minutes to calm down.”

“You can find out if you ask him,” Zoe said. “He's not the same person you knew back then because a lot of stuff has happened between then and now, but he's still the Doctor and I know he'd love to speak with you properly.” Shyness crept over her that she forced away, refusing to be embarrassed by her admiration. “And, on a personal note, I'd love to speak with you as well, get to know you properly. I wasn't exaggerating last night when I said you were a personal hero of mine. I know people say you should never meet them but I'd like to take the chance.”

A blush swept into Sarah Jane's cheeks. “That's very flattering, though I feel like I know you already. Your friends speak highly of you.”

“Well, Jack has to, I saved his life,” she said. “And the others are my family, I think it's the law or something to be nice about me.”

“I can be horrible if you want,” Rose offered, laughing when Zoe raised a solitary middle finger at her.

Sarah Jane watched them, the old desire to have a sister filling her again, before she cleared her throat and looked at the screen. “What is it that you're actually doing?”

“Hacking, mainly,” she said. “The Doctor and I had a poke around here the other day during our break and found that the system has a deadlock seal on it, so the only way to get inside is to break through the layers of encryption, which is fine except this one is more complex than anything I've ever seen before.” Her nose scrunched in annoyance. “Even the bloody Dalek on Skaro wasn't as well protected as this.”

“I'm sorry, what?” She asked, startled. “You were on Skaro?”

“For a few traumatic hours, yes,” Zoe said with a nod. “Had to go there to get something to help me save the Doctor and Jack. I don't know what it was like when you were there but my visit to the planet makes me give it a low score on Trip Advisor – do not recommend, will probably get radiation poisoning.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Don't mind her. The amount of time she spends around the Doctor, she ends up soundin' like him sometimes.”

“Worse people to sound like,” Zoe said.

“Can you break it?” Sarah Jane asked. “The security system, that is.”

“I'm trying,” she said with a small frown before looking up at her, apologetic. “Although I'm not sure I'll be good for conversation from this point on, I've hit a few snags.”

Sarah Jane nodded. “I'll just watch.”

She flashed her a grateful look and got back to work. There was a security system protecting the network, hidden it beneath the school's normal network with homework assignments, teacher reports, internal emails, and scheduling; it was like a palimpsest and anyone who didn't have a deep understanding of computers would have missed it. With fourteen separate layers of encryption before she was even able to scratch the surface, it was extremely complicated. Wishing she had another cup of coffee to hand, she got to work on peeling the first layer of encryption away from the surface, tuning out the conversation between Rose and Sarah Jane.

“What are you goin' to do after this?” Rose asked.

“Back to my normal life, I suppose,” Sarah Jane said, and the thought of what normal life meant – work, bills, dinner every third Thursday with her friends – didn't fill her with as much dread and resentment as it used to.

“What about comin' with us,” she suggested, picking at her thumb nervously. “Y'know, in the TARDIS. I'm pretty sure Mickey's comin' when we leave an' you know there's loads of room. It'll be fun.”

Warmth bloomed through Sarah Jane at the invitation, feeling that it meant more coming from Rose than it did had it come from the Doctor.

“It's tempting,” she admitted. “Very tempting, but I'm not a young woman any more.”

“The Doctor's not exactly _young_ ,” Rose pointed out. “An' it'd be nice to have another woman, 'specially if Mickey's comin' along. We can't be outnumbered.”

She laughed. “You seem to hold you're own just fine.”

“I've had trainin',” Rose said, an eager expression on her face. “C'mon, come with us.”

Sarah Jane was saved from answering by the Doctor stepping through the door, his hurry making it feel as though he was carried in on the wind, Mickey and Jack right behind him. His eyes swept the room, assessing and cautious, brushing over Rose, lips curving up slightly at the sight of Sarah Jane, before he settled on Zoe who hadn't turned at the sound of entrance. Easing around the tables, he stood behind her as she peeled away the fifth layer of encryption, falling into the sixth, fingers beginning to get stiff.

“How's it going?”

“Slowly and frustratingly,” she said. “Whatever's behind this firewall better be worth the effort. I'm about halfway through though. How did it go with our esteemed headmaster? Are we going to join hands and sing kumbaya?”

“He wasn't amenable to my offer,” the Doctor said, lightly.

Sarah Jane stood. “Did you figure out what they're doing here?”

He shook his head. “No, but I think they'll be true to form and this is some form of invasion that won't end well for the human race. But I don't understand why they haven't invaded already. This – none of this – is the Krillitane way.”

“Well, I just need a few more minutes and then we can find out,” Zoe said, not looking away from the screen. “This is really quite complicated but there is a pattern to it in a way: an ever shifting, _hateful_ pattern but one nonetheless. This system is way beyond anything I've ever seen before and there's that bloody deadlock seal on the hardware. I'm trying to override it from here.”

“You've got this,” the Doctor said, squeezing her shoulder encouragingly.

Silence fell as Zoe worked, and Rose broke it. “What d'you think to Sarah Jane comin' along with us if she wants?”

He turned his head and stared. “I'm sorry?”

“Sarah Jane,” Rose repeated, something pointed and demanding in her expression; she looked the way she did when she was making the argument for Jack to come onboard, fully confident in the righteousness of her position but uncertain whether he would agree. “Wouldn't it be nice if she came with us when we leave?”

“I fully support this idea,” Jack said, enthusiastically.

“I mean...well... _yes_ , if that's what she wants – if that's what you want,” the Doctor fumbled awkwardly, turning to Sarah Jane. “I'd – I'd like that, if you would. I know that it's been a while but your room's still the same and –”

“Oh, I'm in!” He nearly swore, relief overwhelming him at Zoe's exclamation. “I didn't actually expect that. Those last few layers were like tissue paper – bit shit, really.” She smiled around at them. “But I did it. Go, me.”

Everyone crowded around her, jostling for space to look at the screen, but before they were able to begin their search the tannoy system sputtered to life; the the voice of one of the school's administrative assistants came from the speakers, sounding in every classroom.

“ _All pupils to class immediately. All members of staff to congregate in the staff room_.”

“Stop the kids coming in here,” the Doctor said, quickly, and Mickey and Jack hurried to the classroom door, reaching it just in time to slap their hands against it and push it shut as the first students tried to enter.

“No, no. This classroom's out of bounds,” Mickey said to the students behind the door. “You've all got to go to the South Hall. Off you go. South Hall!”

Jack leaned his weight against the door. “Is there a South Hall?”

“No idea.”

“Zoe, any time now,” the Doctor urged.

“Rushing me is only going to help me to make mistakes,” she reminded him, hands moving as fast as they could as she ran a search through the system. She chewed her bottom lip, eyes scanning the screen, before she hit three separate keys and then enter – the computer screen filled with alien symbols. “Voilà. Access as promised, but whatever this is, it's being accessed by computers in another room. The changes we're seeing are coming from there. It's not doing it itself, someone's putting this information in.”

“But what is it?” Sarah Jane asked, Mickey and Jack making their way back to them, the children diverted to the South Hall, which was actually just a sports hall used for indoor games when the weather was bad and with a floor that made rubber soled shoes squeak. “Do you know?”

“Some sort of code,” Zoe shrugged. “I've never seen anything like it before, and I realise I said that just last week, but this – this is all Greek to me. Doctor, Jack? You guys ever see anything like this?”

The Doctor was suddenly leaning over her, his arms bracketing her in place, cheek pressed against her temple where his stubble scratched at her skin. She smelt the faint traces of his cologne that was warmed into his skin from a full day's wear and her blood thickened with a low-level arousal that made her shift in her seat. She wanted to press her nose into the soft flesh of his neck and taste it with her tongue but she remained still, facing forward, afraid to move in case she gave into her temptations.

“No,” he breathed, warm breath against her skin. “No, that can't be.”

“What?” She asked, twitching her head a little. “What is it? You know I hate it when you do this.”

“The Skasis Paradigm,” he said, eyes not moving from the screen as he took in the information that sped rapidly across it. “They're trying to crack the Skasis Paradigm.”

“What?” She said, sharply, looking back at the computer screen. What had been incomprehensible symbols before now made sense; the symbols were just numbers that were building upon each other, something she had only seen in simulations – hypotheses that were laughed at by any reasonable academic, jokes that students told each other when they bounced theories off each other – _as ambitious as the God Maker,_ they laughed _._ “But that's – it's a myth, something students make fun of.”

“The Skasis what?” Sarah Jane asked.

“The God Maker,” the Doctor explained, quickly, straightening up. _“The_ universal theory. Crack that equation and you've got control of the building blocks of the universe: time and space and matter, yours to control.”

“What?” Rose frowned. “An' the kids are like a giant computer?”

“The oil.” Jack clicked his fingers. “The oil's making them smarter. I bet it's acting as some sort of conductive agent. We used something similar in my time for short term missions when we needed to acquire information and quickly as it improves memory retention, but we stopped using it as it was too damaging to use it too often.”

“Kids' brains are malleable and self healing in a way that adults' aren't,” the Doctor told him. “Three months exposure shouldn't do them any harm.”

“But why use children?” Sarah Jane asked. “Can't they use adults?”

“No, it's got to be children,” he said, disgusted. “The God Maker needs imagination to crack it. They're not just using the children's brains to break the code, they're using their souls.”

“And so the lesson begins,” a new voice said from the doorway. Zoe rose swiftly to her feet and saw Mr Finch standing just inside the classroom. His eyes passed over all of them, lingering briefly on her, recognising her as the substitute teacher, before settling on the Doctor. “Think of it, Doctor, with the Paradigm solved, reality becomes clay in our hands. We can shape the universe and improve it.”

  
“Oh yeah?” He scoffed, disdain dripping from him. “The whole of creation with the face of Mr Finch? Call me old fashioned but I like things as they are.”

“You act like such a radical, and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order,” Finch said, his soft tones sending waves of discomfort through the group. “Think of the changes that could be made if this power was used for good.”

“What, by someone like you?”

“No, someone like you,” he replied, and Zoe sucked in a sharp breath, aware of what such a temptation would be like to the Doctor. “The Paradigm gives us power, but you could give us wisdom. Become a God at my side, and imagine what you could do. Think of the civilisations you could save: Perganon, Assinta...your own people, Doctor, standing tall: the Time Lords reborn.”

Anger burnt inside Zoe, wanting to snatch the words out of the air and grind them to dust beneath her heel, stopping the temptation before it had a chance to infect the Doctor. He was vulnerable after a restless night, his emotions still close to the surface, and her fingers twitched at her side, wanting to wrap them around Finch's throat and choke the temptation from him.

“Shut your mouth,” she snapped, ice cracking in her voice. “If you knew anything about the Doctor, you'd know he'd never accept this. He's not a god.”

Finch's eyes flickered over her, tilting his head with curiosity. “What an odd creature you are, neither this nor entirely that. How curious.”

She paused, anger freezing within her. “What does that mean?”

His attention left her but his words twisted inside her, snatching her focus away.

“What do you say, Doctor?” Finch asked. “All those that you've lost, brought back to life with the snap of your fingers. The city of Arcadia tall and magnificent again – the shining seas of Gallifrey with its waters of silver – your home beneath your feet again, no longer needing to sprint through the universe in search of something lost.”

“Doctor, don't listen to him,” Sarah Jane urged from his side, voice low and serious.

“And you could be with him throughout eternity,” he said eyes on Sarah Jane but the Doctor looked to Zoe instead, torn. “Young and fresh: never withering, never ageing, never dying. Their lives are so fleeting. So many goodbyes.” His eyes flicked knowingly onto the Doctor. “How lonely you must be, Doctor. Join us and never be lonely again.”

Everything the Doctor wanted for him and Zoe – an eternity together where he never had to say goodbye to her, never had to watch her age, secure in the knowledge that if harm befell her then he could fix her. He closed his eyes and imagined them living through the entire lifespan of the universe and beyond, his skin crackled with the want of it.

“We'd never have to say goodbye,” he murmured.

“Doctor...” Rose whispered, suddenly afraid, and even Jack looked uncertain.

  
“I could stop the war,” he said, eyes still closed as he imagined all the good he could do with the power of the Skasis Paradigm at his fingertips. “Walk on the plains of Gallifrey again. See Susan again – Romana, Brax, The Master...every single one of them, they could be reborn.”

He saw it all.

Gallifrey strong and safe, its burnt orange skies sheltering those that lived on its surface, the Citadel shining as a centre of learning and advancement and goodness as it was suppose to have been. He thought of his home by the Lethe River with the red fields shivering in the breeze, his children alive and well again, their children also; he saw Susan picking her child up and making him laugh, eyes shining as she looked towards him, _Grandfather, come and play_. There was the Master, happy and healthy and sane; Romana as she used to be before the war had sharpened her edges, hardness where there used to be softness. And then there was Zoe, the red fields sweeping around her thighs, Gallifreyan cloth fashioned into a dress for her, forever ageless as she walked to join him at the river's edge, their home on the plains behind them, her hand tucked into his.

“No,” Sarah Jane said, her voice was filled with such strength of conviction that the Doctor's eyes opened, his dreams fading from him. “The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world...or a relationship,” his eyes softened at the hitch in her words. “Everything has its time, and everything ends.”

Looking into her eyes, he was humbled by her as he always was by his friends who were, and always would be, the best of him. Zoe's hand was warm and real in his, and it was the final, most painful temptation – the weight of her hand in his, the warmth of her skin, and the strength of her grip that would one day become nothing more than a memory. He nearly wavered, nearly tipped over the precipice that he was standing on and had stood on before – his commitment to being the Doctor a constant work in progress – before he yanked himself back, breathless.

She would never stay with him if he crossed the line into becoming a god.

He knew that.

It didn't stop him from wanting what was being offered to him though.

Instead of answering Finch, who deserved no answer, he dropped Zoe's hand and grabbed the nearest chair, hurling it into the computer as a distraction.

“Run!”

  
Finch opened his mouth and an unearthly scream emerged from deep within his chest; the powerful flapping of wings soared towards them as the maths teachers threw off their disguises and raced to meet their leader. Zoe grabbed the closest hand to her – Rose's – and started running. Their feet pounded through the school corridors and down the steps that led out of the maths lab until they reached the entrance hall where Sarah Jane's car was parked in the lobby, shattered glass doors surrounding it, Jackie talking urgently to Kenny.

Sarah Jane made a sound of surprise, unhappy at finding that her car had been used as a battering ram.

“What's goin' on?” Jackie asked, concerned, her eyes widening at the sight of the Krillitanes soaring down the hallway towards them, screeching all the time. “Oh, god.”

“Explain later, run now,” Jack said, quickly, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her away from the car. “Move it, Jacks!”

Horror stretched across Kenny's face. “Are those my teachers?”

Zoe dropped Rose's hand so that she could take his to make sure that he didn't get left behind, pulling him along with her. “Kind of, sorry.”

“Are you like that?” He asked, red in the face as he tried to keep up with her.

She looked at him strangely. “Why would I be like?”

“You're a teacher.”

“Yeah, but I'm a sub,” she said. “Down the stairs we go, Kenny. Pick up your feet!”

He stumbled after her but the tight grip on his hand meant he was in no danger of falling behind. He huffed and puffed on her heels and wondered how much stranger his day could get but he figured that it was still better than drama.

“Everyone in,” Jack ordered holding open the door of a large hall that was set up for a student council meeting. He slammed the door shut behind them but it wasn't enough as the Krillitanes burst through seconds later, sending splinters of wood flying outwards. “ _Shit_!”

“Language,” Zoe chastised.

“I've heard worse,” Kenny assured her before he was flung beneath a table, Zoe sliding in next to him. “We're trapped!”

“A little bit, yeah,” the Doctor agreed, peeking over the top of his table only to duck back down again. “This doesn't look good. Zoe, I'm pinned down. Can you make a run for the TARDIS?”

“Not from this side,” she said, pulling her head sharply back in when a Krillitane swooped at her. Jackie screamed and kicked out, wildly flailing her legs, when one came for her but Sarah Jane was able to drag her to safety. “Does anyone have anything potentially flammable on them that we could set on fire?”

“There's the oil in the kitchen,” Mickey yelled, hands over his head as the Krillitanes screeched and attacked his table. “Barrels of it!”

“Everybody grab a chair,” Jack instructed. “We'll have to fight our way –”

A laser beam from the doorway interrupted him, felling one of the Krillitanes fell the sky. Finch's mouth gaped in a scream scream, roaring his displeasure into the room as K9 rolled through the burning smoke.

“K9,” Sarah Jane exclaimed with relief.

“Suggest you engage running mode, mistress,” K9 said, taking aim with his laser again and firing.

“Come on,” the Doctor urged, and they crawled out from beneath the tables to run out of the side door that led off into another classroom. “K9, hold them back! “

“Affirmative, master,” he replied. “Maximum defence mode.”

The Doctor sealed the door behind them, racing to catch up. “I figured it out!”

“Finally,” Jackie exclaimed. “Took you long enough.”

He ignored her as they ran. “It's the oil like Jack said. Krillitane life forms can't handle it. That's it! They've changed their physiology so often that even their own oil is toxic to them. How much was there in the kitchens?”

“Loads of it,” Mickey said, a little out of breath, leading them to the kitchens by slamming through the swinging doors; Jack ducked a swinging ladle. “Here.”

  
“Okay, we need to get to them and pile them all in here,” the Doctor ordered. “Mickey, you, Rose, and Jackie get all the children unplugged and out of the school. This is going to get explosive fast, and I don't want any casualties, particularly children.”

“Copy that, boss,” he nodded, leading Rose and Jackie, who was red in the face and looked frustrated at having to run again, through the side door to get the children out.

“Now then,” the Doctor continued, looking around for inspiration. “Bats, bats, bats. How do we fight bats?”

“The fire alarm,” Kenny said, hand massaging his side, glasses slipping down his nose, cheeks blotched red. They all looked at him in surprise, having half-forgotten that he was there. “Bats have sensitive hearing. The fire alarm might hurt them.”

“Gold star for Kenny, _yes_ ,” he enthused. “Kenny, set off the fire alarms and then get outside quick as you can. I don't want you anywhere near this.”

He nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose, taking great pleasure in setting off the alarms; the wail of it made the Krillitanes scream, the sound echoing down the hallways and into the kitchen. Kenny took one last look at the strange group of people before he raced out of the same door that Jackie, Mickey, and Rose had left through. Zoe and Jack were busy hauling barrels of the oil into the centre of the kitchen while Sarah Jane kept lookout; she let out a small sound of surprise when K9 nudged his way through the door and bumped up against her leg. Her eyes burnt with tears at the sight of him, and she crouched to pet him.

“I've missed you, boy,” she said, softly.

K9 bumped her hand in response.

“They've been deadlock sealed,” the Doctor said, irritably. “Finch must've done that. I can't open them.”

“There must be something we can use for leverage,” Zoe said, looking around. “A bar of some kind.”

“The vats would not withstand a direct hit from my laser, Master,” K9 said, the four humans looking down as one. “But my batteries are failing and there is capacity for only one shot. For maximum impact, I must be stationed directly beside the vat.”

Jack frowned. “You won't be able to get out. You'll be trapped in here, caught in the explosion.”

“That is correct.”

Grief gripped Sarah Jane, dropping to her knees, hand resting atop his head. “No, K9, we'll find another way.”

“No alternative possible, Mistress.”

“Doctor, there has to be something else.” She looked up into his unfamiliar face and recognised the lines of resigned acceptance that lived beneath his skin. “No, _no_. Don't look like that, he's our friend, we need to –”

“Jack, get her out of here,” he ordered, speaking over her and anger roared through her when he grabbed her elbow and lifted her to her feet. “Sarah, I'm sorry, I am, but we don't have time to argue.”

“No,” she protested, the gentle way Jack took her arm belying the strength of his hold. “K9 –”

“Goodbye, Mistress,” K9 said, tail wagging as Jack half-dragged, half-carried her out of the door. “Master, it is the optimal time for you to go.”

The Doctor swallowed back his regret at another friend gone, and he crouched down in front of him, hand reaching for Zoe's. “Goodbye, old friend.”

“Goodbye, Master.”

“You good dog,” he said, meaning every word, taking the time despite the shrieks of the Krillitanes approaching and Finch's footsteps growing louder. “You really good dog.”

K9's ears twitched. “Affirmative.”

Zoe pulled on his hand, drawing him back from K9, and they rushed out of the kitchen, the door slamming shut behind them. The sonic screwdriver slipped from his hand, pulled out of his lax grip by Zoe who pressed it against the lock and sealed the door behind them; there was no time to stop and grieve, the noise from inside the kitchens reaching them as the Krillitane converged on K9. Jack hadn't been able to pull Sarah Jane too far away for fearing of actually harming her, and they stood on the edge of the marked playing field, waiting and watching, her face creased in sadness and grief.

“We need to run,” the Doctor said in lieu of a greeting, grabbing her hand and fighting through her resistance. “Sarah, come on, _please._ ”

He pulled her along behind him until she found her own steam at his side, crossing the length of the playground at a run. Halfway across the concrete stretch, the ground trembled and the force of the explosion threw them from their feet. He hit the ground hard, acrid smoke filling the air as sheaves of paper and dust rained down upon their heads. Somewhere ahead of him, he heard Jack's voice break through the ringing in his ears, checking on Zoe who responded and set his mind at ease. Pushing himself up, he crawled over to Sarah Jane and helped her sit up, the loud cheers of the children at odds with the burning building in front of them.

“Here, let me.” The Doctor curved an arm around her back and helped her sit up, brushing the dusting of detritus from her hair, her fingers curled against his shoulder. “I'm sorry, Sarah. He was a really good dog.”

Her throat worked, tears burning. “It's all right. He was just a daft metal dog. It's fine, _really_.”

“Sarah...” he murmured, gently.

Her expression wavered, eyes meeting his, and a sob slipped from her mouth. He drew her into his arms and bowed his head against hers. She pressed her face into his chest, the school burning behind them, as she wept for K9.


	23. Chapter 23

Sarah Jane placed a bowl of jelly babies on the table next to the custard creams, hands nervously smoothing down the front of her outfit. She had changed six times before settling on a simple green dress, white flowers stencilled onto the hem, wanting to look casual without coming across as trying too hard. Even so, she had had her hair professionally styled that morning and even asked her cleaner to come around earlier than normal to scrub the place clean, which made her feel a little embarrassed that she was so nervous. The lemon-scented fragrance of the cleaning liquid Tatiana had used remained in the air, making her worry that it was noticeable she had spruced her home up; despite Zoe's assurances that he was eager to catch up and spend some time alone with her, she hadn't actually expected the Doctor to agree to coffee, his entire face lighting up with delight – _I get to see your home?_. She hadn't had the heart to tell him she envisioned their meeting in a coffee shop, unwilling to wipe the shy pleasure from his face, and so she nodded before scheduling a time just after lunch as they had all needed a good night's sleep after the Deffry High explosion.

“Stop worrying,” she said, annoyed with herself. “It's the Doctor.”

A quick glance at the clock told her that she still had five minutes and it wasn't as though the Doctor was notorious for being punctual. She was prepared for him not to show up or to show up in a year's time completely unaware he had messed up. To distract herself from her nerves she reorganised the books and journals on her coffee table – research for her next article on the proliferation of nuclear weapons in politically unstable countries, which she suspected was going to require a trip to the region, something that sent excitement fizzing through her instead of the usual quiet dread. There were adventures to be had on Earth still, and perhaps she would contact her editor and float an idea for the book that Zoe had let slip.

The sudden, sharp ring of her doorbell made her jump.

Her eyes darted to the clock on the mantelpiece, surprised: he was exactly on time.

In the hallway, his form distorted and dark in the glass, she paused and drew in a deep breath, calming her nerves and touching her hair before opening the door, a welcoming smile on her lips. His name froze in her mouth when a bouquet of flowers swarmed her vision. Yellow and pink flowers of varying hues held together by a thick purple ribbon edged with gold greeted her, rendering her speechless before the Doctor's face appeared around the side, a small, boyish smile playing on his mouth.

“You still like yellow, don't you?”

“I do,” she said, surprised he remembered. He thrust the flowers at her, awkward in his desire to please. “You brought me flowers?”

“I – yes,” he said, shifting on her doorstep. “There was a lot of discussion over what was an appropriate gift to bring an old friend. It was all very confusing and not really that helpful so Jack ended up helping me pick some flowers from Zoe's garden. They're all Earth flowers, mostly – I think. She hasn't quite figured out how to keep them from growing into each other yet so there may be an alien petal in there. Don't eat any of it and you'll be fine.”

The words fell from his mouth in a rapid jumble, reminding her of the quick nonsense he used to spew, rushing through his speech as though there wasn't enough time. Those first few days after his regeneration when she startled when she saw him from the corner of her eye, expecting a head of white hair and a cape, it was the way he spoke that highlighted how much he had changed – no longer measuring his words and speaking them carefully and succinctly, able to pick a man apart in a few sentences, he was instead a chaotic mess of words that somehow formed a perfect picture in the end.

“You've got a bit of a mouth on you still,” she observed, taking the flowers from him, lifting them to her nose, breathing in the scent of early spring.

He flushed, hand rubbing over the back of his neck. “Yeah, I've been told that. It's only been a few months. I'm still getting used to the gob.”

“Well, thank you for the flowers, Doctor, they're lovely,” she said, stepping aside. “Please, come in.”

The moment he stepped into her home she was besieged by the strangeness of having him there. Not once in all the time they worked together at UNIT had he visited her home before. She wasn't able to remember if she had offered, but she did recall Alistair extending an invitation to come around for dinner and being sharply and roundly rebuffed for his efforts. She was sure she refrained from doing the same in order to avoid the sharp edge of his tongue, still not accustomed to the sensitivities of humans then. There was another part of her that was sure he had simply never considered what she did when she wasn't in his line of sight, unaware perhaps that she lived a life outside of him during that time – shopping in supermarkets, going on dates her friends set her up on, spending long nights in the library researching articles.

Often she had considered him the textbook definition of a solipsist, and seeing him in the hallway that she walked every day, taking in the framed pictures on the walls from her travels to Africa, India, South America, the Antipodes, was overwhelmingly strange. It made her feel like she was the young woman she had been when she met him for the first time. Her fingers tightened on her flowers, a stray thorn biting into her, and she shut the door behind him.

“Come on,” she said, feeling hot. “I've had the kettle on.”

“I do love a good cup of tea,” he said, following her through into her spacious kitchen with the large windows and prepared table. “Ooo, jelly babies!”

She smiled. “Help yourself. I didn't know if you still liked them, but –”

“Love 'em,” he promised, popping two into his mouth, thrilled. “Thanks.”

“Where are the others?”

“In the TARDIS,” he said. “She's parked out on the street. Although Jackie's at home. She said she's had enough of my alien nonsense until her birthday, which reminds me.” He reached into his pocket and removed an elegant piece of card. “For you. She got them back from the printers this morning. Though when I say _she_ got them back, she sent Mickey and Jack.”

Sarah Jane took it from his long fingers and turned it over.

**You are invited to join us for drinks and dancing**

**to celebrate the 40 th birthday of**

**Jackie Tyler**

**on Friday, February 2 nd, from 8pm to late**

**at the recreation centre on the Powell Estate, Peckham**

**Theme: Hollywood glamour**

And written underneath it in blue Biro was:

_RSVP The Doctor – hope you can make it._

“No pressure,” the Doctor said, biting into a custard cream with enthusiasm. “But Alistair's going, and Harriet too, barring any national emergencies.”

“Harriet?”

“Harriet Jones.”

“The Prime Minister?”

“And a friend,” he said. “That whole thing with blowing up Downing Street last year? Harriet was involved in that. She's been a friend ever since. That's who Zoe was having dinner with the other night _and_ who called her yesterday at the school.”

To say that Harriet had not been happy that the school had blown up was an understatement. Zoe had received a phone call as they were picking through the rubble to reach the untouched TARDIS, pulling bits of building off of her, brushing her clean in order to free the door just enough for them to slip through. The Doctor hadn't heard much of the conversation as Zoe had stepped away to take the conversation but, judging from the body language and the way her loud exclamation of _I promised not to blow up anything, but the others made no such promise so, really, I don't see why you're upset,_ it seemed that Harriet was upset by events; Zoe wasn't bothered about it though, merely smiling when she returned, digging back into the mess. The Doctor wasn't sure he fully understood the friendship Zoe and Harriet shared but he imagined it to be rather like the one he had with Alistair – loving but tempered by exasperation.

“Oh,” she said softly, wondering how awkward it would be to attend before deciding that if Alistair was going to be there then it shouldn't be that bad. Besides, she hadn't seen Alistair since her aunt's funeral and the idea of catching up with him was a pleasant one. “I'd like to come. Please, tell Jackie yes.”

He nodded and picked up a cookie and dipped it in his tea while she pinned the invitation to the front of her refrigerator with a plain black magnet. “This is a nice house.”

“It was my aunt's,” she said, sitting down, tucking her feet beneath her chair. “When she died I thought about selling it but, I don't know, it's home.” He nodded, mouth full of cookie and tea, saving her from hearing whatever he thought passed for sympathy these days. “I – your friends are nice. Very... _you_.”

He swallowed. “What does that mean?”

“Brave, funny, clever,” she listed. “Not likely to put up with your bullshit.”

His eyebrows rose. “My bullshit?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” she said, and he grinned. “I like them. Not like you to travel with a group though.”

“It was initially just Rose,” the Doctor said, remembering the brief period when it was just him and Rose in the TARDIS – Platform One, Cardiff, 1869, and then the week's worth of adventure they had while waiting for Zoe to finish her exams before deciding to cheat and skip ahead to pick her up – he sometimes forgot that Zoe and Jack hadn't been there all along. “But then Zoe came along and I haven't found a way to shake Jack yet.”

She laughed. “You like Jack.”

“I do, I really do,” he admitted. “I didn't at first. Thought he was full of hot air and charm, but he grew on me pretty quickly, and the girls liked him so I was more or less stuck with him at that point.”

“Whatever the reason, they seem to be doing wonders for you.” She hesitated and curled her fingers around her own cup of tea. “What you told me about Gallifrey, I'm glad you're not alone while dealing with all that. You've always been a little rubbish at being on your own.”

“I have, haven't I?” He said, picking bits of damp cookie out of his tea. “After I lost Gallifrey...I was lost. They saved me, each one of them, even Jackie in her own way.”

She looked at him, past the smooth face free of signs of his advanced age, past the careless attitude he wrapped around him like a blanket, and sought the man underneath it all, trying to find clues to the things he had done in the years they spent apart. It was difficult but it was there in the rounded edge of his shoulder, the way his fingers constantly moved, tapping and fiddling, afraid to be completely still. When she had known him, there were times when she came upon him sitting as still as a statue, eyes open and staring at nothing; he always said he was just thinking and she believed that but she couldn't imagine the man in front of her simply sitting down and thinking.

“What happened?” Sarah Jane asked, carefully. “With Gallifrey, I mean. How can they all just be gone?”

Cracks ran across the surface of his facade, snapping open to reveal the depth of grief and despair that echoed within him. Her fingers touched her throat, worried she had gone too far, but with his eyes fixed on the bowl of jelly babies, he told her the story of Gallifrey's destruction. It wasn't the dark, ugly version he had given Zoe, but rather the sanitised version that he had shared with Rose and Jack. Talk of the Moment never left his lips, his shame at being the architect of Gallifrey's destruction too much to share with someone other than Zoe, but he spoke of Susan, a single tear sliding down his cheek as he detailed her death and then those of his children. His face was damp and tea was cold by the time he reached his return to Earth, crashing into Foreman's junkyard where he had first arrived all those centuries ago.

“I don't think I stopped screaming for days,” the Doctor said, staring out of her kitchen window, watching a sparrow flutter its wings rapidly. “The empty place where my people had been, the touch they had on my mind, was gone. I don't know how to describe it, not properly, but it was the worst feeling of being cut adrift, alone in the most awful way. I was reaching out for someone, anyone, and I just kept finding this expansive loneliness – I was drowning and there was nothing to hold onto, no one to grab.”

“God,” Sarah Jane breathed, wiping the tear from her cheek before reaching out to touch his hand, curling her fingers over his. “Doctor, I'm so sorry that happened. I can't – I wish you hadn't had to live through that.”

He covered her hand with his and smiled, sadness pressed into him.

“So do I, every single day.” He cleared his throat and looked at her again. “You remember that time on Skaro? When I had those wires in my hands?”

She looked at him steadily, unsure why he was pulling on that particular thread. “I do. I've thought about it on and off over the years.”

“I was so sure I was right,” he said, almost as though he hadn't heard her, desperate to unburden himself to someone who had been there. “I thought that by touching those wires together I would be exactly like the Daleks, genocidal, monstrous.” _And look what you became anyway,_ his mind hissed. “You told me I should destroy them, told me that there would be suffering afterwards if I didn't, but I decided not to do it. I said that perhaps something good might come of the evil they would inflict.” He shook his head, disgusted with himself. “What an arrogant man I was.”

“You thought you were doing what was right,” Sarah Jane said. He shook his head, a dark look of self-hatred flashing across his face. “No, listen. No one could've predicted what they would go on to do. Yes, they were evil then, but what right did we have the right to destroy every one of them? Did the Time Lords have the right to ask you to do that? No, they didn't. You said that it was on your shoulders, you and you alone, and that wasn't fair. If they wanted it done, then they should've done it themselves.”

“Everything they've done though,” he said, doubt plaguing him. “Not just to Gallifrey but around the universe, I could have stopped that.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But would you still be you if you had? Would you still be the Doctor?”

There was no way for Sarah Jane to know what he had confided to Zoe years ago about that moment – holding the wires in his hands and making the decision not to: that single moment in time when he became the Doctor. Before then his name was the affectation that his friends teased him about it being, just a word he had adopted because he needed a name to graduate the Academy; after that moment though, he drew his promise around him and let it settle in his bones, informing who he was and how he acted. If he had done what the Council wanted him to do, then he wouldn't have walked away from Skaro that day, someone else would be living his life. The what ifs and close misses made him brain hurt, and he turned his palm over to cup her hand properly.

“I've missed you,” the Doctor admitted, quietly. “I'm sorry I never came back.”

Tension seeped from her, a decades' old wound beginning to heal. “Thank you.”

“I hope you know that it wasn't a reflection on you,” he said, lifting his eyes hesitantly to hers. “I didn't come back because I was afraid, not of you but rather of me getting hurt. I'm something of a coward, you see.”

She squeezed his hand and chose her words carefully.

“It was hard, at first – for a long time actually. Those first few days...at least I had something to focus on: getting myself from Aberdeen to Croydon with K9, my things, and no money. It gave me something to do, but then I was back here, and I thought to myself – he'll be back, but then each day passed and you didn't. It was so hard to settle. I kept starting things but abandoning them halfway through, unable to finish anything, but I started living again, eventually.” She shook her head, looking at his hand and the dark hairs growing out of his skin. She slid their fingers together, her other hand reaching out to cover his wrist. “But it's funny. Last night I was thinking...I haven't actually thanked you for that time. I – it was the most incredible thing I've ever done, the most important, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. So, thank you.”

“Thank you for coming with me,” he said, roughly, embarrassed by the emotion in his throat. “I wouldn't have missed you for the world either.” Her smile was wet but beautiful. “Besides, something to tell the grandkids, I suppose.”

Regret twisted in her chest and her mouth twisted. “I think it'll be someone else's grandkids now.”

The awkward look on his face almost made her laugh. “Ah, yes, sorry, I – er – I didn't get a chance to ask what with everything. You haven't –? I mean, there hasn't been anyone, _you know_? There's no Mr Smith?”

“There was this one guy,” she told him, letting herself finally let go of it after thirty years, and the weight that lifted from her chest made her feel dizzy and free. “I travelled with him for a while, but he was a tough act to follow.” He looked down at their hands, thumb brushing over her knuckles, the closest acknowledgement she would get. “But what about you? All these years and there's never been someone that you grew closer to? And don't give me that line about being above it all, I've seen you and Cleopatra together.”

“She's a friend!”

“Of course,” Sarah Jane replied, patting his arm. “A special friend.”

The look of annoyance that twisted itself into existence on his face made her laugh, the sound of which softened his features, eyes rolling. His friends were determined to see things that weren't there when it came to him and Cleopatra. She was a good friend and while there might have been a time when he was mildly infatuated with her – though, he would argue it was impossible not to as she was intelligent, well-read, and fascinating – that infatuation faded away over time. Admittedly, walking in on her, Julius Caesar, and a plethora of oiled slaves had helped to hasten the demise of his feelings as nothing was more of a turn off than seeing someone bed slaves who were unable to consent.

“There was a woman,” the Doctor admitted, pulling the loose skin back over her knuckle in an absent manner. “Romana. She was a Time Lord – _Lady_ – but she died during the War. She was actually President of Gallifrey for a long time, but before that she had travelled with me – after you, to be honest. Not that I wanted her to but the Council overruled me. I found her quite annoying in the beginning...and towards the end. Also, during the middle bit too.”

Sarah Jane shook her head, amused. “She was good for you then?”

“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed, looking at her as he weighed up his options before deciding to take the plunge. “And now there's Zoe.”

The simple fact of speaking it out loud was novel to him.

Admitting to his relationship with Zoe – putting it into words that he couldn't pull back – was wonderful.

Sarah Jane blinked. “Zoe?”

“With the hair,” he said as though she hadn't seen Zoe only last night when they had all had dinner together, the two of them laughing over Sarah Jane's story of attempting to escape the Sontarans in the Middle Ages. “And the –” he mimed typing, “computer skills.”

“But Zoe's human.”

“Yes.”

“But that means –” her mind worked, and he looked away when her face flooded with sympathy before she was able to stop it. “Oh, Doctor. I suppose you've always been a glutton for punishment, haven't you?”

“I know there's a time limit,” he admitted, voice shaded with resignation. “I do. She can't – there's going to come a day when I have to say goodbye, but I've tried not to love her and failed miserably at it. I just want whatever time I can get with her.”

“And there was Finch dangling the God Maker in your face,” she sighed, reaching out to rest her palm against his face. His eyes closed as he leaned into her touch, her thumb smoothing over his freshly shaved jaw. “You poor, hopeless man. I suppose you're old enough to realise how this is going to end but I say that even brief happiness is better than nothing at all. It's like I told Rose the other night: some things are worth getting your heart broken for.”

He opened his eyes. “So you approve?”

“Does it matter if I don't?”

He considered the question. “A little, I think.”

“I like Zoe,” Sarah Jane said, honestly. “Though I haven't had the chance to get to know her as well as the others, but she seems kind, funny, intelligent – and as long as she treats you well, that's all there is to it. Does she, treat you well that is?”

He smiled. “She does.”

“Well, then.” Squashing the rise of jealousy inside of her – too old and too far removed from the woman she was to be troubled by that, she smiled before a thought struck her. “No one mentioned it the other night though. We were talking and...” she rolled her eyes. “They don't know.”

The Doctor straightened, eyes turning shifty, and he grimaced. “Yeah, it's still relatively new between us and Jackie's only just started liking me after a period of fervently despising me and wishing to never see me again, so we're sort of keeping it to ourselves for a while. Alistair knows though, so it's not a secret-secret, more of a find-the-right-time-to-tell-the-family thing.”

“My lips are sealed then,” she promised. “But I'm happy for you, really. She's a little young –”

He laughed and flicked a crumb at her. She pulled her hands back, smiling. “So, where are you off to next then?”

“I don't know,” he said, returning his attention to his lukewarm tea. “See where the wind takes us, I guess. And, listen, about what Rose said yesterday, about coming with us, I mean –”

“Oh, Doctor, I don't –”

“Please come,” he interrupted. “I'd love for you to come.”

She stared at his earnest face and almost laughed at how she was finally getting everything she had wanted since the TARDIS wheezed out of her life thirty years ago only to discover that she now no longer wanted it.

“I've dreamt of this for years,” Sarah Jane said, honestly, “but now that it's here, I can't. I'm sorry. I've spent so much of my time waiting for you, not really living my life properly, that it's time I stopped waiting for you and started living. But, I expect to see you every now and then for a coffee and a catch up. No more of this disappearing for decades. We're friends, we're going to start acting like it.”

“All right,” the Doctor said, pleased with the compromise. “I'd like that.”

“Good – what is that?” He slid his phone across to her. “You have a mobile?”

“Kind of mandatory when you're in Zoe's vicinity,” he said. “I tried not to use it but she insists on sending me messages on it, and I've got used to it now. Pop your number in there though and we can text. Rose is teaching me text speak. I think I'm getting good at it – lol, omg, wtf – I'm practically fluent.”

“Sounds like it,” she said, amused, quickly typing her number in and calling her phone to save his details later.

“Do you want to see the TARDIS before I go?” He offered. “She looks a little different to what you remember.”

“I'd love to see her again,” she smiled, pushing back from the table and letting him lead her out of her house to where the TARDIS was parked on the pavement, innocuously tucked next to the postbox. He opened the door and escorted her inside where she paused and she blinked, taken aback. “Oh, you've redecorated.”

“What do you think?”

“It's nice,” she said because that was the truth, eyes sweeping over the organic coral struts and examining the grating on the floor. “I liked the old one though, bit brighter.”

“Tell me about it,” Zoe said, drifting into the console room, reading glasses atop her head, a welcoming smile on her face. “I've been thinking about winding some fairy lights around the struts just so I can see what I'm doing.”

“You can see just fine,” the Doctor said, reaching for her. “Where are the others?”

“Kitchen - _oh._ ” She startled when he pressed a chaste kiss to her mouth. Her eyes slid to Sarah Jane who watched them, curious and unsurprised, warmth blooming through her at the realisation the Doctor had told his friend about them. “He hasn't broken anything of yours that needs replacing, has he? My mum's constantly on at him for touching things.”

“I fixed her washing machine,” he complained. “I don't know what she's going on about.”

“I think it's more the fact that there's now a baby squid taking up residence in the barrel,” Zoe said. “She's blowing up my phone demanding to know when you're coming to get it.”

“Sounds like business as normal then,” Sarah Jane smiled.

“Unfortunately,” she agreed. “I had far fewer cephalopods in my life before I met him.”

“And wasn't that a shame?” He asked as Jack, Mickey, and Rose spilled into the room, alerted to Sarah Jane's presence by the TARDIS turning the air in the kitchen arctic.

“Hey, you're here,” Rose greeted, crossing the room to hug Sarah Jane. “He's not been drivin' you barmy, has he?”

“No more than usual,” Sarah Jane replied as the Doctor rolled his eyes.

“Are you coming with us?” Jack asked, rolling onto the balls of his feet, hopeful. “Please say yes, please say yes.”

“No, I'm afraid not,” she said, gratified by the disappointment that swept their faces. “But I'll see you all in a fortnight anyway. Jackie's invited me to her birthday party, and I thought it might be nice to go.”

“Brilliant,” Rose beamed. “D'you want to have a nose in the wardrobe for somethin' to wear? Mum's got her heart set on this bloody theme, don't know why though. It's not like she even likes Hollywood glamour – I blame Jack myself.”

He twisted to look at her. “What did I do?”

“Got Mum all fixed on a theme when we were in Jamaica,” she replied, dropping her voice an octave and adopting a surprisingly good imitation of Jack's accent. “ _Oh, hey, Jacks, have you thought about a theme? Everyone loves a good theme. Let's have a theme_.”

Zoe nodded. “That does sound familiar.”

“Well, forgive me for wanting Jackie to have a memorable fortieth birthday,” Jack said, sarcasm heavy in his words. “Let's just slap out some sausage rolls and crack open a bottle of rum and call it a party, shall we? You lot have absolutely no taste when it comes to festivities, no sense of circumstance.” He stepped over to Sarah Jane and offered his arm. “Allow me. Unlike these uncouth barbarians, I know how to dress for a party. There's a lovely dress in the wardrobe that I think would suit you perfectly.”

“I don't know...” Sarah Jane said, unsure if she should stay for longer, eyes glancing to the Doctor who appeared thoroughly used to the antics unfolding before him.

He waved a hand. “Go on. I was able to repair K9 –” bright happiness and delight drenched her face. “And I need to run a final check on him. It'll take a little bit but, when I'm done, you can have your dog back.”

She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The smile remained on his face as she was swept away by the combined forces of his friends; Jack was chattering about the colours he thought might suit her before Zoe waved her hand, dismissing his suggestions, imperious in a way that only came about when discussing fashion or politics, both having been learnt at Reinette's side, mimicking her wife's body language unconsciously. As they left the room, his smile stretched across his face, happiness pouring into him and overflowing; picking up the Bach that Zoe had been humming for days, he left the console room to fetch K9, pleased with how everything had come together in the end.

* * *

“There we go,” the Doctor said, sleeves pushed up his arms, lifting the dripping baby squid out of Jackie's washing machine, avoiding its energetic tentacles as he placed it in a large plastic box filled with water that Rose clumsily covered with the lid. “One baby squid, removed.”

“It's not goin' to do that again, is it?” Jackie asked, suspiciously, wet clothes strewn out of the washing machine where she had dropped them with a scream when the squid had blinked at her, tentacle reaching out to curl around her wrist.

“Shouldn't do,” he said, pushing the clothes back in and rising to his feet. He scooped out a small cup of washing powder from the box on the counter and tipped it into the tray. “But, just to be on the safe side, let's run a quick wash.”

She sighed. “Why is it always weird with you?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“What are we goin' to do with this one?” Rose asked, already enamoured with the squid, playing patty cake with it through the plastic. “Where's it from anyway?”

The Doctor leaned over and peered at it. “Earth, off the coast of Mexico to be exact.”

“Why would you even know that?” Jackie asked before she shook her head, desperate for a glass of wine despite it only being the middle of the day – it wasn't the first time the Doctor and his antics had driven her to drink, and she doubted it would be the last. “Never mind, I don't want to know. Just get it out of here, would you?”

“Don't want to keep it?” He straightened up, a teasing glint in his eyes, drying his hands on her tea towel. “Fill up the bath tub, call it George?”

“I'm about to thump you,” she warned. “Besides, it's clearly a Gary.”

“How Rose and Zoe ended up with decent names, I'll never know.” He ducked the wet sponge she threw at his head, grabbing the box with Gary the squid. “Right then, we'll be off. See you for your birthday, I suppose.”

“Don't be lately,” she said, sternly. “I'm not goin' to be that woman who has a birthday without her daughters there, that's just sad an' pathetic. You bring them back on time, you hear?”

“For the fifty-sixth time, _yes_ , I hear you,” he said, annoyed. “Honestly, I'm not deaf.”

“Could've fooled me, now, c'mere.”

A deep groan reverberated from his chest as he was forced to submit to her affections, grateful when Rose rubbed the pink lipstick off his cheek for him.

“That was horrible,” he complained. “Please let me leave now.”

“Go on then.”

He darted out the door before she waylaid him further, leaving Rose behind to say goodbye. She caught up with him at the lift. “We're not keepin' him, are we?”

“Who, Gary?” He heaved the box up and scrunched his nose at the squid who was staring out of the box with an air of perplexed bemusement. “Nah, we'll swing by Mexico and drop him off, maybe stop for some food. I'm a bit peckish, are you peckish?”

“I could eat,” she agreed, stepping into the lift and pressing the button for the ground floor. “Wanna make a bet?”

He looked at her, interested. “On what?”

“On whether Mickey's waitin' there to ask you if he can come,” she grinned, tongue curled between her teeth. “There's a tenner in it for you.”

“I'm not in the habit of throwing my money away, thank you,” he informed her. “Of course he's going to be there. Now, if you want to make a bet about him and Jack, I might be interested.”

She scoffed. “Please, that's definitely happenin'. Jack hasn't been able to stop grinnin' since we got here an' Mickey's actin' all shy an' embarrassed. It'd be gross if it wasn't adorable.”

He laughed at that before looking her over for signs of emotional distress. Humans had the capacity to be infinitely loving but oddly jealous – not that he was much better but it was always a roll of the dice to see how a human might react. “And you're okay with that? Mickey's your ex-boyfriend and Jack's _Jack_.”

“Course I'm okay with it,” she said. “Me an' Jack talked about it a while back. It's a little weird but I think that's mainly because Jack's a bloke an' I didn't realise Mickey liked blokes.”

“To be fair to Mickey,” the Doctor said as they exited the lift. “It may not be blokes he likes, it may just be Jack.”

“He does kind of defy definition, doesn't he?”

“He really does,” he agreed, passing through the door she held open for him with a cheery _thanks_ , happily ignoring the strange looks they received from Priti Azadi who hurried past with a Tesco bag swinging from her hand. “How are you, by the way?”

“Me?” Surprise passed across her face. “Fine, thanks. How are you?”

He laughed. “No, you plum, I meant with the last few days. I know – the other night it got a little tense between us. We haven't had a chance to talk. I just want to make sure we're okay.”

“Oh, _that_ _._ ” She looked down at the ground, her arms folding across her chest. “I might've been a little unfair.”

He shrugged. “You were honest...and only a little hurtful.”

“Stop bein' so nice,” she sighed, annoyed at the easy forgiveness, and he pressed his lips together to hide his smile. “It was a shock, I s'pose. Like a look at the future an' I didn't like what I was seein' but –” she hesitated, vulnerable and young. “You're not goin' to do that, are you? Just leave us behind like you did with Sarah Jane?”

The truth was, the Doctor didn't know what he was going to do. Much of what would happen would depend on Zoe and how things unfolded between them, but there was a bigger factor – separated from his love for and relationship with Zoe – that he couldn't ignore.

“I was a different man then,” the Doctor said, the tiniest sigh falling from him. “I still had Gallifrey, my children –”

She tripped and nearly went sprawling across the ground, catching herself on his arm at the last moment, sloshing water out from under the lid; Gary, distressed by the sudden rough waters, slapped his tentacles against the wall in annoyance. “Your _what_?”

“My children,” he repeated, arm wet, taking in her wide eyes and parted mouth, astonishment and disbelief etched into her features. “I was a father once, a long time ago now. They died during the War. When I said I lost everything, I mean I lost _everything._ ”

“God, Doctor.” Horror threaded itself through her voice, tipping it low with despair and grief, mouth trembling as she tried to find the right words to say. “I – I didn't know. You've never said.”

“It's not something I like to talk about,” he admitted, clearing his throat. “It's – the war, Rose – it's not an easy thing to have survived. I try not to think about it too much because if I do, if I let myself think about what happened to me and what I did –”

“You worry that you'll never be able to move again because the pain is so sharp an' the guilt is so overwhelmin',” Rose finished for him.

He frowned, confused. “How do you –?”

“Before meetin' you...it wasn't a war but it was...” she trailed off, unable to speak. “I don't like thinkin' about some things either.”

“Jimmy Stone.” She flinched, eyes panicked and guarded, and he instantly felt sorry for putting that look on her face. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to throw that at you. The other night you took a step back from me and I realised I frightened you. Zoe explained that you've reason to be afraid of people coming at you quickly. She didn't tell me much, just enough to know that you and him had a bad relationship.”

Her body relaxed, hand passing over her face. “Zoe doesn't know everythin'. There's a lot I didn't tell her then. She was so young an' I wanted to protect her from some things. Only – Mickey's the only one who knows everythin', an' it's hard to talk about. I wasn't afraid of you, y'know. It was just – it was instinctive. I'm not afraid of you.”

The Doctor swallowed against his dry mouth. “Good. I – that's good. I don't ever want you to be. I won't do it again. I didn't mean to do it.”

“It was dark an' I wasn't lookin' at you, that's all,” she said. “Please don't feel guilty.”

“Can't help that,” he said. “Jack says it's my default setting.”

“He's not wrong,” she replied, drawing a smile from him as she looked up into his face. Gary was beginning to make his arms ache so he set the box down on the ground between them, standing outside the TARDIS. “I'm sorry about your children, Doctor.”

“I'm sorry about Jimmy Stone,” he replied. “But the point I was getting at before is that back when I knew Sarah, I had a family on Gallifrey, I had a life outside of the travelling even though I didn't like it much – I did stuff for my government, occasionally went back to work – but I had that. Now...now this is all I have: the TARDIS, the travelling, you lot.” He weighed whether or not to tell her the truth before deciding that there was nothing to lose but everything to gain. “When I met you, I was going die.”

She frowned. “What?”

“That night we met in Henrik's, I was going to blow up the building with me inside it,” he said, watching as tears welled in her eyes. “I wasn't coping with my survival but I was too much of a coward just to kill myself, which, for a Time Lord, is actually difficult because of the whole regeneration thing. So I was going to blow myself up, but then I met you and, at the last minute, I left the building. Then I met you again the next day at the flat, and then at the restaurant, and I was annoyed because this scared, angry human girl kept getting in the way of me killing myself. It was like – even when you refused to come with me that first time, I didn't feel that same dark feeling that I'd had since I woke up to realise everything and everyone was gone.”

“Doctor,” she whispered.

“You, Rose Tyler, were like the dawn after a very long night.” The tears slipped down her face. “You saved my life without even realising it. So, to answer your question, no, I'm not going to leave you behind. You're my family – you, Zoe, Jack, hell, even Mickey and Jackie.”

Unable to stop the tears, she wiped them away, sniffing. “I never knew any of this.”

“Now you do.”

She peered up at him and looked so young that his hearts ached. “I'm glad I was there that night.”

“Me too,” he said softly, opening his arms and she fell into them, hugging him tightly as her tears wet the front of his jacket. “I'd have none of this if it wasn't for you. I'm not going to forget that.”

As she sniffed into his shirt, breathing in the warm, spicy fragrance of him, her love for him nearly choked her, fingers curling into the lapels of his jacket, anchoring herself to him. She wanted to stay in that moment forever, understanding settled perfectly between them; yet, meeting Sarah Jane and actually listening to her – the things she said and the things she didn't - Rose knew that the life she had dreamt for herself with the rest of her days spent travelling in the TARDIS was never going to happen. The dream lay at her feet, shattered on the altar of reality, and it hurt even though she understood why it was broken. Jackie used to accuse her of living with her head in the clouds, weaving an imaginary life about her and turning her back on the things she didn't like in favour of bright optimism, but she couldn't turn her back on the truth revealed through meeting Sarah Jane.

One day, she was going to leave the TARDIS. There was already a her out there living that future, a her that had had adventures she couldn't yet dream of, who had lived her life on the TARDIS and made the decision to return home. That woman was a stranger to her but she knew that it was going to be okay. She had faith in herself that when she became that woman, she would be ready, even if the hurt was going to swallow her whole. Once before she had put all of herself into a relationship and after being released of Jimmy's insidious grip, she had sworn _never again:_ not even the Doctor was worth giving herself up like that again, no matter how much she loved him.

She closed her eyes against his chest, the thrum of his two hearts beneath her ear, and she held onto the moment for as long as she could.

“You're my family too, y'know,” she murmured into his chest before pulling back, hands on his arms. “An' I get it now. I want to travel with you forever but I understand why I can't, although I hate it.” His mouth curved a little at her emphatic declaration. “But that doesn't mean we're not goin' to see each other, right?”

“Right,” the Doctor said, firmly. “Me and you, Rose Tyler, best mates.”

She nodded and pulled back, spitting on her hand as she and Shareen did to seal pacts, thrusting it out to the Doctor. “Best mates.”

He stared at it. “Rose, that's really gross.”

Inside the TARDIS, the sound of Zoe and Jack bickering washed over Mickey - _it's supposed to have a hard outer shell, so hard you think you're going to break your teeth,_ Zoe argued; _deserts aren't supposed to come with the risk of dental surgery,_ Jack rebutted. As with most of their nonsensical disagreements, Mickey wasn't sure what had started it but an offhand comment about a canalé had devolved into something else. Their back and forth was a welcome distraction from the tumultuous storm that crashed through him, hands shoved into his pockets as he resisted the urge to fiddle with the buttons on the console, shoulder pressed against Jack's. Waiting for the Doctor and Rose to return from dealing with the squid in Jackie's washing machine was agony, see-sawing back and forth between wanting to travel but also wanting to stay where it was safe and he knew what waited for him. If ever there was an advertisement against TARDIS travel, then it was Zoe Tyler – tortured, stranded, brain nearly ripped apart – and he worried that something like that might befall him, but then Jack laughed and all Mickey wanted to do was to hear him laugh again and again, solidifying his certainty that he was making the right decision.

He hoped.

Maybe.

He was going to be sick.

“– a normal thing to do.”

“It's _saliva._ ”

“So?”

“So, it's not exactly sterile.”

“Then why do people snog?”

“Sex makes people crazy,” the Doctor said, setting the squid down on the floor, pushing it beneath the console with the side of his foot. He straightened up and gave Rose a small push with his shoulder, a grin appearing on her face. “Hello, gang – team – posse.” He grimaced. “Nope, still not sure what to call you as a group.”

“I vote not posse,” Zoe said.

Jack raised a hand. “Seconded.”

“Motion passed,” Rose nodded. “Posse's off the table.”

“This isn't a democracy,” he said, well aware the argument was already lost and happy for it. He gestured at Gary. “We're going to take him back to Mexico, probably stop for dinner as well, so Mickey, you might want to hop off now.”

Embarrassed nervousness clawed at him, Jack's hand a solid, comforting weight on his back as he curled his fingers into fists in his pockets. “About that...d'you mind if –?”

“Your bedroom's already set up next to Jack's,” the Doctor spoke over him. “Same one as last time. You know where everything is so we can skip the tour. You left anything behind? Tough, we're not coming back until Jackie's birthday.”

Mickey stared at him, the wind taken from his sails, the expression on his face making Rose and Zoe laugh. “What?”

“Not exactly a surprise you want to come with us,” he said. “We've been expecting it.”

“You have?”

“Since Christmas,” Zoe told with a small, apologetic shrug that meant nothing with the smile on her face. “Glad you finally made up your mind. We've been missing you.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, leaning against the Doctor, his arm around her shoulders. “Be nice to have everyone together properly. Almost, I mean, 'cause Mum's not here.”

“Thank Rassilon for small mercies,” the Doctor murmured, rubbing his eye and grunting when Rose elbowed him. “But, yes, it'll be nice to have you on board and all that. I was beginning to get a little offended.” A long finger pointed at Mickey. _“_ You, Mickey Smith, have the dubious honour of turning me down the most. I don't like that. You were harder work than Zoe to get on board.”

“It does you good to work for something every now and then,” she said, sliding from the jumpseat to squeeze Mickey's arm. “Welcome aboard, Mickey. _Finally_.”

“We should have streamers,” the Doctor said, looking down at Rose. “Why didn't we think of streamers? And those little party popper things. I like them.”

Bewildered, Mickey looked to Jack who had a hand across his face, smile creeping up towards his eyes, delighted at being proven right. Over the last few days, he had repeatedly told Mickey that the others were eager to have him come along, and Mickey leaned into him a little, silently pressing his gratitude against his side. Jack lifted his left eyebrow, a minute twitch that conveyed a volume of information and one simple question. The nerves slammed back into him, mouth drying out, but he nodded, refusing to go back on what he had already agreed to even though he was terrified. The good opinion of the Doctor, Rose, and Zoe meant everything to him, and although Zoe had been married to a woman, she was Zoe: the rules seemed different for her.

“There's something else,” Jack said, three sets of eyes turning in his direction as he caught their attention. “This won't come as a surprise to any of you but it needs to be said.” Looks were exchanged between the Doctor and Rose; Zoe leaned her hip against the console, arms folded across her chest, waiting. “Mickey and I are together. It's still very, very new so holding off on the teasing would be appreciated for the time being. We'll be keeping separate bedrooms but there will be the occasional public display of affection – nothing too serious, but affectionate nonetheless.”

Mickey felt the world spinning around him, growing dizzy from the speed, barely able to hear the silence above the rush of his blood.

“It's not a surprise,” Zoe agreed, remembering the way she had walked in on them in the medical bay, interrupting _something_ on Christmas Day and the awkward and odd conversations she had had with Mickey in Massachusetts. “It's been clear that the two of you've been growing closer, and I'm happy for you. _We're_ happy for you. Right, guys?”

“Absolutely,” the Doctor nodded, enthusiastically. “The more love the better. I do question your taste though.”

“Doctor,” Zoe and Rose chastised in unison.

“Who?” Jack asked, confused. “Me or –?”

“Both of you,” he said, curling away from Rose's hand that slapped against his chest, grinning as he did so to take the sting out of his words. “Surely you can both do better.”

“You be quiet,” Zoe instructed, catching Mickey's eyes. “Ignore him. You know he's a prat.”

He didn't mind. The Doctor's usual insulting behaviour helped to normalise the situation and restore balance within him; though, he did feel hot and uncomfortable with how well everything was going. It wasn't that he had expected angry accusations, expressions of disgust, or mockery, but to have everything go smoothly meant that he had worried for nothing. Even telling Jackie had been easier than he thought, her reaction the most unpredictable – he wasn't one of her kids, and she used to say some unintentionally homophobic things until a fourteen-year-old Zoe had put together a presentation on the damaging nature of ingrained homophobia like the tiny little nerd she had been. Having cornered her that morning before they left in the TARDIS to meet Sarah Jane, helping her sort through the pile of dirty laundry that tended to accumulate when her flat was invaded by TARDIS occupants, he had told her.

“I know, darlin',” she told him, mouth fighting against her smile. “You've not been that subtle, but it doesn't matter none. Jack's a good egg an' lord knows you need someone properly infatuated with you. This'll do you good, love.”

The easy acceptance left him unsettled.

“If you two ever want to go somewhere just the two of you,” the Doctor offered, catching Rose's hand in his and pinning her against his side, fingers dancing along her waist in an attempt to find her ticklish spots, making her twist away from him. “Let me know and I'll make it happen. The universe is your oyster and all that. There are some great romantic spots that I can show you.”

Interest made Jack swivel towards him. “How do you know about them?”

“I'm not a Time Lord, not a monk,” he replied with a roll of his eyes. “It's not like I've been single my entire life. I do know how to do romance.”

“God,” Jack said, fascinated as one would be by a car crash. “What would that even look like?”

“Ask Zoe, I've taken her dancing before,” the Doctor said without thinking.

“It's true, he has,” she nodded, throwing him a warning look that made his mouth twitch. “And only one of those times did we have to run for our lives. He knocked Rasputin out with a book.”

“Rasputin?” Rose repeated. “As in Russian Rasputin?”

“No, Rasputin from Burnley, of course Russian Rasputin,” Zoe replied.

The Doctor had managed to hook an arm around Rose and was trying to pin her down but she was a wily creature and was twisting her body to get away from him. “She's conveniently leaving out that she was half a second away from punching him.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Bah.”

Mickey looked to Rose who was twisted beneath the Doctor's arm, contorting her body in an attempt to bite him, looking comfortable and playful as she once had with Mickey. Not too long ago, he would have been eaten alive by resentment and jealousy to see Rose acting like that with the Doctor, but looking at the two of them now, he felt nothing except mild amusement at their antics. He and Rose were over, that part of their lives finished with, yet a shadow of regret for them not working out brushed against him. For years he had believed Rose was the one for him, someone to spend the stretch of his years with and to share children, a home, grandchildren, and everything in between. Being with Jack felt like the final nail in the coffin of those dreams, and he was surprised at how okay he was with that.

“Rose,” he said, her eyes snapping to him. “Are you – and you? Is this okay with you?”

Her entire face softened and opened up. “ _Yeah_ , Micks, course it is. Jack's a thousand times better than Trisha Delaney.”

“Thanks,” Jack beamed.

“She's really not that bad,” Zoe sighed. “She's just a tad desperate, that's all.”

“Have I met Trisha Delaney?” The Doctor asked.

Mickey laughed, tension seeping from him. Leaning more noticeably into Jack, who shifted to accommodate his weight, his worry drained from him. He should have been certain in his friends acceptance and had faith in their love for him, but it was a difficult thing to break free of social conditioning. To be gay – or bisexual, as was his case – _Jacksexual_ , a voice that sounded a lot like Rose's snickered in his mind – on the estate was to drum up a world of trouble for oneself. Most kept their sexuality to themselves if it deviated from the norm; Zoe hadn't bothered, not on the estate long enough at any one time to concern herself with other people's reactions, and he was pleased that she wasn't privy to some of the things that people said about her when they learnt about preferences. But he wasn't Zoe, he needed to live on the estate when the others were gone, but he now realised that it was foolish to worry about what other people thought, particularly those that had denounced him as a murderer during Rose's absence.

He was happy.

Everyone else was welcome to fuck off.

“Any other announcements?” The Doctor asked, releasing Rose. “Or can we take Gary home now?”

Zoe looked around, confused. “Who's Gary?”

The Doctor and Rose pointed at the squid, a heavy sigh falling from her.

“Right then,” he beamed, grabbing the console. “Mexico, here we come!”

* * *

There were any number of things the Doctor expected after eating Mexican food – from the feeling of satisfaction to the occasional stomach ache because he always added too much spice because he liked the burn – but Zoe waiting until the others had wandered off to drag him into his office was not one of them. Her dropping to her knees in front of him was also the last thing he expected and he wasn't entirely sure it was the food that was responsible for her sudden bout of amorousness as she wasn't the sort to manhandle him. In between moments of spine-tingling pleasure, he tried to piece together the events that led to this so he could repeat it in the future. Unfortunately for him, his mind was addled by the pressure of her mouth around him, the wet heat and curling tongue that made every part of him clench in anticipation. His head thudded back against the door, hoping the others stayed far away because he doubted they would be able to explain _this_ away.

“Zo,” he croaked, fingers flexing in her hair. “I –”

The only warning he received was a slight twitch of her mouth around him before she did _something_ with her tongue that made his vision white out, mouth stretched open in a shout, as his orgasm rushed through him and into her. When he came to, she was on her feet again and had a look of such immense smugness on her face that he was briefly reminded of the Master. The comparison faded when she drew her thumb over her lips and grinned.

“Doing all right, love?”

“You – what – _Zoe_.”

She laughed and stepped in closer, the length of her body against his, fingers sliding into his hair as she angled his head before kissing him. A moan ripped through his chest at her thoroughness, fingers curling into the loops of her jeans, thumbs pressing against the skin above the band: she tasted like spices, agua de jamaica, and him. He pushed away from the wall, trying to regain some control even though he felt dizzy and lost in the best possible way. She wasn't normally one for being quite so demanding – she knew what she liked and was eager to try new things, but her advances tended to be spoken because she knew how much he liked hearing her vocalise her desires. The physicality of her approach, her rough, almost desperate, handling of him was new and entirely welcomed.

“I love you,” she said against his lips before dragging her mouth over his jaw, taking a languorous journey to the soft, sensitive patch of skin on his neck that made him turn hot and cold before melting into her hands. “I love you so fucking much.”

He never tired of hearing that.

“I love you too,” he managed to get out, embarrassingly breathless for someone with a repository bypass system. He finally succeeded in getting a hand up the back of her shirt, pressing his fingers onto the length of her spine as she grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him even closer. “And I'm loving this. I just – _ah!_ Do that again.” She grinned and bit down hard where his neck curved into his shoulder, a heavy shudder running through him. “I – er – what's – what's the occasion?”

“You, always you.” She pushed his jacket from his shoulders but slowed when she got to his tie. Once, in her eagerness to undress him, she had nearly throttled him and was able to learn from her mistakes. His hands fell to her jeans and popped the top button open before her next words made him pause, knuckles pressed against her stomach. “You told Sarah Jane about us.”

“ _That's_ what brought this on?”

She shrugged, cheeks a little pink, lifting the tie over his head and throwing it behind him. “It was very attractive.”

“Once we're done here, we can go meet Ace if you like and I'll tell her too,” he offered, completely serious.

A laugh lit up her face. “What makes you think you're going to be able to walk when we're done here?”

The moan that left his mouth was swallowed by hers and he cupped the back of her head, kissing her desperately while trying to help her shimmy out of her jeans at the same time as he removed his shirt. The door wasn't even locked and neither of them were particularly quiet when they got going; all it took was for Rose or Jack or Mickey to wander innocently by and hear them for their relationship to be blown wide open and he didn't fancy _that_ emotional turmoil so soon after recovering from Sarah Jane. He sent a chaotic, desperate, pleading message to the TARDIS to ensure they weren't interrupted and his ship gave a small huff in reply before agreeing. He grabbed Zoe by the back of her thighs and lifted her onto the edge of his desk, pushing the papers back to the corner before peeling her underwear from her as she pulled her T-shirt off over her head.

“Rassilon, Zoe,” the Doctor breathed, stunned as he always as by the sight of her before him. Reverently, he traced the edge of her plain white bra that stood in stark contrast to her skin. He bowed his head and kissed the swell of her breast. “I love you.”

Her hands sank into his hair and pulled him up, sliding a hand down his chest to palm him. “Please tell me you're good to go. I don't want to wait. I need –”

Her mouth dropped open, words dying on a small gasp, as he unceremoniously thrust into her. It wasn't the most elegant of entrances but she had no complaints, her nails cutting half-moon crescents into his shoulders and her tongue licked a path up his neck, taking his earlobe between her teeth to tug, sharply. The Doctor tried to get himself under control but it was difficult when his entire universe had narrowed its focus to _Zoe, Zoe, Zoe_. He looked at her, her skin flushed and her eyes dark, and a groan ripped through him as he set a hard, fast pace, urged on by her voice in his ear demanding more.

“Come on, come on,” she chanted, finding his mouth and kissing him clumsily. “I can take it. I won't break.”

He sometimes worried she would but he curled a hand around her thigh, hitched it higher on his waist and pressed her back. Her head narrowly avoided knocking against a paperweight and his hand knocked a cup of pens to the floor in a clatter but none of it mattered because she loved him and fire roared through his veins. All the emotions of the last few days – the rollercoaster of meeting Sarah Jane again, revealing his fears for Zoe's ageing, and then finding a quiet peace – made him desperate; he pressed his forehead against her clavicle, freeing a hand to reach behind her to unhook her bra, pulling it down to press his mouth to a nipple as he moved within her wet, clinging heat that undid him. Her hand shifted from his back to his hair, sinking her fingers into it and pulling his head back to catch his mouth again, nose bumping against his.

“You're gorgeous like this,” she said, breath hot against his mouth. “So beautiful.”

“You should see yourself,” he said, tightly, words shaking. “All flushed and perfect.”

“Mirrors,” she laughed before trailing off into a moan as he hit the right spot inside of her. “There's an idea.”

The Doctor slid an arm beneath her back and levered her up, the wet slap of skin of skin mingling with their sharp breaths and helpless moans. Zoe curved her leg firmer around his waist, arm hooked over his shoulder as she braced her hand against the desk, trusting his strength to keep her upright as she adjusted the angle until she found one that lit her up every time. Her orgasm started in her fingers and toes as fine pricks of electricity before it spread into a storm that made her head fall back and her back arch as her muscles clenched down around the Doctor, pulling a Gallifreyan curse from him.

“Doctor –”

Dropping his hand between them, he pressed at her clit and watched as she crashed over the edge into an abyss of pleasure, dragging the him along in her wake.

White spots danced in front of his eyes, pleasure slamming into him, and he barely had the wherewithal to gather Zoe into his arms and pull her off the desk on top of him as his legs gave way, knees turned to jelly with the strength of his climax. Pieces of paper were stuck to her back and fluttered to the ground as a thick file finally slid from the edge and scattered its contents across the floor. He collapsed back, her body splayed across his, and his throbbed with the pleasure that lingered in his veins. Above him, Zoe was breathing heavily, her skin finely speckled with sweat, and he turned his head to kiss at the underside of her jaw, shaking lightly.

“Hey,” she whispered, hoarsely.

She shuffled down his chest with some effort until their faces were level. Her eyes flickered over his face before she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, grounding him; his fingers curled into a fist on her back, filled with the sudden and strange desire to cry. He kissed her back, deepening the it, trying to find some semblance of order in the oasis of her embrace. A soft sigh left him when her hand stroked through his sweat-dampened hair, fingertips pressing against his scalp, and he opened his eyes to look at her properly, savouring the dishevelled, exhausted, _satisfied_ look that mussed her hair and bruised her lips.

As she settled on his chest with their legs tangled together, the Doctor relaxed his fingers and brushed them along the length of her spine. They stayed like that for a long time, half asleep and deeply relaxed, and he relished the lazy curl of satisfaction through his body that only came from really good sex.

The last few days had been _a lot_ and he hadn't realised how much he had needed this.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said some time later, the soft chime of an old clock sounding from a dusty corner.

A small laugh made her shake against him. “Pretty sure I should be apologising for manhandling you instead of you thanking me.”

“I _liked_ the manhandling,” he said with a slow grin. “More manhandling, I say.”

She lifted herself up so that she was braced over him, hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I thought I had it under control but the longer I left it, the worse it got. You telling Sarah Jane about us was...” a small shiver raised goosebumps on her skin and tightened her nipples. “You didn't have to do that.”

“I know.” He lightly traced the shape of her mouth with his fingers. “I wanted to.”

Her eyes softened and she kissed his fingers. “How did she take it?”

“Well, actually.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek before tucking her hair behind her ear. “Mainly wanted to know if you treat me well.”

“Oh?” A smile tipped her mouth up. “And do I?”

He hummed from deep in his chest. “Very, very well.”

“Good,” Zoe said, leaning forwards to kiss him again before she rolled off him, leaving him cold and bereft. She didn't go far, settling against his side with her head resting on his arm, and they both contemplated the ceiling. “I think...I think it might be time to tell the others about us.”

The Doctor turned his head sharply, surprised. “Oh?”

“Not right now, obviously,” she said, quickly. “Or, you know, soonish, especially with Mickey and Jack doing their thing. I don't want to make Rose feel like the odd one out straight off the bat, but I was thinking maybe after Mum's party? We'll all be together then and there'll be no secrets or anything, we can just tell them all at once and deal with the fallout come what may. What do you think?”

“I think it's a great idea,” he told her, curling his arm around her shoulders. “But only if you're comfortable with it. I'm happy to go out there right now and tell them.”

She pinched his thigh. “Don't you dare.”

He laughed. “I'm happy to follow your lead on this, love. I always have been. Besides, there's something to be said for keeping it just between us. It adds a little _spice_ to the whole thing. Who'd have thought sneaking around was fun?”

“Literally everyone,” she said with a fond roll of her eyes.

“Well, it's new to me,” he replied. “And I think you're wrong about the fallout. They might be surprised but they love you and seem to like me –” she pressed her smile into his arm. “They'll be okay with it. Although, I'm not looking forward to going back to square one with Jackie. I've actually enjoyed having a truce with her.”

“Not square one,” Zoe said. “Maybe square three or something. Someone post-Mondas.”

He made a sound in his throat. “Better than post-Downing Street, I suppose. Anyway, what's brought this on?”

“I guess it's you telling Sarah Jane about us and then Jack and Mickey being so open about everything even though it's still early days for them,” she said. “I think it's made me realise that I'm just making excuses because...truth is, I'm afraid.” She drew a lock of hair into her mouth and chewed on it nervously until the Doctor reached across and removed it. “I've been talking to Yatta about it for the last few sessions.”

“Oh?” The contents of her therapy sessions were something that she tended not to share with him unless it was something that was truly playing on her mind. “What does she say?”

She sighed heavily, almost annoyed, though he suspected it was more aimed at herself than at him given the way she pulled his arm tighter around her.

“She says that my hesitance of telling the family is because I'm afraid of making it real,” Zoe said, playing with his fingers. “And that I'm afraid of making it a full and recognised part of my life in case I end up alone again. She seems to think that while it's a secret, I'm protecting myself from all the hurt if it ends.” Her face rippled in a scowl. “I mean, my fear of abandonment is hardly breaking news but – I don't know – maybe she has a point. She's been right about everything else so far and I don't think she'd steer me wrong in this.”

The Doctor swallowed, wishing there was a glass of water around, and his tongue swept across his lips, wetting them.

“I wish there was something I could do or some words I could say that would help you realise I'm not going to leave you,” he told her. “Not until you ask me to go, that is.”

She brought his fingers to her mouth and kissed them. “I know. Logically, I know, but there's a lot to unpick there. And don't you start feeling guilty. Yatta's been tracing back my feelings of abandonment and it turns out I might have daddy issues after all.”

Surprise whipped across his face. “Really?”

“Yeah, apparently,” Zoe said with a small laugh. “We got into it with my childhood last session and I think I must've been six when I noticed I didn't have a dad but that was all right because neither did Rose, you know. But it was around then that I realised _my_ dad wasn't dead and I guess I had some problems with it. I don't know. We ended the session at a really bad time. She told me to think about it but, honestly, I can't remember ever thinking about the man. As far as I'm concerned, Pete Tyler was my dad.”

The Doctor hummed, thoughtfully. “You know...we could probably track down your biological father if you wanted. The TARDIS can find anyone when she puts her mind to it.”

“Nah.” She shook her head, not even having to think about it. “I know it's not his fault he wasn't there, he never knew about me, but – is it awful to say that I'm completely uninterested in him? I'm sure he's perfectly nice and everything but I honestly don't care who is.”

“I don't think it's awful,” he said. “I think it's honest.”

“What would I even do with a dad?” The look on her face as she contemplated what one did with fathers made him want to laugh; he supposed, for her, they were surplus to requirements. “It's not like I have use for one now. Besides, what would I tell him? Yeah, technically I'm supposed to be eighteen or whatever but time travel exists and here's my alien boyfriend? No, thank you, that's more trouble than it's worth.”

A small chuckle did slip free and he lowered his mouth to kiss the top of her her head. “Whatever you want, darling.”

“Mmm, that's something of a blank check right there,” she said, hand sliding up his thigh only to make him jerk when she curled her fingers around him, a small hiss slipping from his mouth. She looked up, concern pressed around her eyes. “Okay?”

“Just a little sensitive,” he said.

She carefully released him before sitting up, and he grinned as he peeled a post-it note from her back.

“God,” Zoe said, casting her eyes around the room. “We've made a bit of a mess. I think your research is going to be out of order.”

He smiled and stretched. “Completely worth it.”

His eyes tracked her as she stood up and retrieved her jeans, slipping back into them after failing to find her underwear. Watching her dress was one of his favourite things – though, if he had to choose, watching her _undress_ would definitely take top spot – and he sat up, back propped against the coffee table and watched her unearth her bra from the chaos of his disturbed papers. She was toned all over from the amount of hours she spent in the gym with Jack, the two of them disappearing for at least an hour a day to do some form of exercise that left him and Rose feeling tired just thinking about it, and he enjoyed the way that her muscles shifted beneath her skin, enjoyed knowing that there was strength in her bones that would help keep her safe when he couldn't.

“What are you researching anyway?” She pulled her shirt back on and freed her hair from beneath the collar, the faded emblem of Queen staring back at him. “Or is it super secret?”

“It's not super secret,” he said, giving in and rising to get dressed as well as he really did want a glass of water. “I'm just compiling the data from your medical scans so I can create a foundation from which to track your variables.”

“Boring,” Zoe singsonged.

“Necessary,” he replied. “Where's my –?”

“Here.” She passed his shirt over to him. “How's it going anyway? Am I going to mutate some special powers? Because I'd kind of like telekinesis.”

He laughed and shrugged on his shirt. “Sorry, no. It's fine, you're fine, but there are some things that have surprised me. Do you know what telomerase are?”

“Yeah, of course,” she said. “They protect the end of chromosomes from DNA damage or from fusing with neighbouring chromosomes. Is something wrong with mine?”

“They're a bit hyperactive at the moment,” he said, leaving his shirt unbuttoned as he bent to gather the folder in his hands, putting the papers together to reorganise later. “It's nothing to worry about but it's weird.”

She frowned. “Aren't telomerase mostly active in cancer cells?”

“You don't have cancer,” he said, quickly. “And even if you did that's something I can easily take care of here, but –” a thought struck him and he snatched up a pen from the floor, scribbling a note to himself on a stray piece of paper. “You've just reminded me of your time on Skaro. Maybe the radiation affected them. Did you take a scan?”

“No,” she said, careless with her own health in a way that she wasn't with anyone else's. “The Corsair did but I suppose that's not helpful.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the Doctor said, jotting that down as well. “All of the TARDISes synced databases before the end of the war but I can't remember if the Corsair was still around then. I'll check it out later.”

“Are you sure there's nothing wrong?” Zoe asked, observant eyes focused on his face. “You seem worried about this.”

“I'm only worried because it's your health,” he said, setting the pen down. “And because I don't like not knowing why something happened. Once I figure it out, it'll be fine.”

“Well, don't worry about it too much,” she told him. “All work and no play and all that.”

His mouth twitched, amused that she missed the irony of _her_ telling him not to work too hard when she would often forget to eat and sleep when in the middle of studying.

“I will, at some point, need to run an experiment on you.”

She sighed. “Most boyfriends take their partners out for dinner and dancing. Mine? He likes to experiment on me.”

“Oh, we can go dinner and dancing too,” he promised her, reaching out to pull her against his chest, pressing his face into her hair as they swayed on the spot. “But only after I've started the experiment. I just want to double check a few things and the information I have right now because, well, the Rani produced the initial experiment.”

“The Rani?” She repeated, pulling back. “The one who liked experimenting on people?”

“That's the one,” he said. “Her theory is sound but I question her results because of her ethics. I want to run her proposed experiment on you to see what comes up.”

A small crease appeared between her eyes. “This really sounds like something I should worry about.”

“You shouldn't.” His lips brushed over her frown. “You're completely and utterly normal with the exception of improved memory and faster regenerative abilities but those were expected changes. It's the telomerase that's confusing me as they've become adaptive and I want to understand everything down the the smallest atom. No stone unturned and the like. I don't want to miss something only to have your hair fall out because I wasn't paying attention.”

Her eyes rolled. “You'd be more upset than me.”

“You have _glorious_ hair.”

“Go on then,” she said. “What do you need this time? Blood? Tissue? A kidney?”

“Definitely not a kidney, you can keep that,” the Doctor said, releasing her. “Just some saliva, but I'll get it later. Right now I really need something to drink. Between the Mexican food and you ravaging me –” she snorted. “I'm parched.”

“I suppose I could do with a drink,” Zoe considered, smiling as she slipped her hand into his. “Come on then. May as well enjoy the peace and quiet before everyone finds out about us. You know we're not going to be able to be in the same room as each other without comment once they know, right?”

He smiled and swung their hands between them. “I think I'll survive.”

“Are you sure?” She asked. “Because think of all the questions Jack's going to have.”

The smile dropped from his face and his stomach swooped.

“Oh, no.”


	24. Chapter 24

Slotting into the rhythm of TARDIS life was easy for Mickey considering he had done it twice before. As the Doctor said, he knew where everything was, his bedroom was exactly the same – though there was a new connecting door between his room and Jack's that had made him blush furiously when he realised where it led – and no one was a stranger to him. He knew how meals worked – breakfast and lunch were often help yourself but dinner was always eaten together, taking it in turns to cook; Zoe put his name on the rota that hung on the chalk notice board that contained recipe ideas, odd scientific equations, a doodle of the Doctor and some bananas, and an insult that the TARDIS choose not to translate.

There was no time to miss his life back on the estate, from which he was ostensibly taking a two-week holiday until Jackie's birthday, as the Doctor filled every minute of every day with activities that left him breathless and disoriented.

His first week on the TARDIS as an official traveller – the Doctor gave him a badge to wear for his first day – had taken him on a whirlwind tour through the galaxy. With a burst of friendliness and generosity Mickey was still getting used to, the Doctor let him choose the destination: future or past, alien or human. Having had his fill of Earth for the time being, he chose to visit an alien future and the Doctor delivered on his promise. They strolled through the streets of the mighty Polexa civilisation, went swimming in the sand seas of Gref, encountered Headless Monks on the streets of Hund on the planet of Torahl, and attended the Festival of Lost Things on Espera. Every night Mickey fell into bed exhausted, never having laughed so much or lived so much in his life, buzzing with the relief of having made the right decision.

Yet, no matter how busy they were, time was set aside from him and Jack to steal together, slipping off away from the group in order to be alone. Personally, Mickey suspected the others were helping Jack make that possible, not that he minded; it was easier to be relaxed when it was just Jack, no one else's eyes on him, making him feel awkward and uncomfortable, unsure of how to express emotions to another man. Alone, it was easy – not perfect, but easier than if Rose and Zoe were around, watching them with an open interest that made him want to hide. Although, Zoe had reached out to him, seeking his company not long after he was settled and they were shaking the green sands of Gref off.

“I know how hard it is to make the transition,” she had said, handing him a beer as she sat on his bed, legs crossed beneath her, glass of wine in her hand. “When I fell for Reinette, I honestly wasn't thinking about the fact she was a woman but then it hit me one day and I panicked because I didn't know how to love her – I thought there were different rules for it, not that I knew much about love at that age.” Mickey remembered thinking how old Zoe had looked as she rubbed her thumb over the edge of her wine glass. “We're from a time where it's not really the done thing to love someone of the same gender, and we've got a lot of conditioning to fight against. I just want you to know that if you need to talk about anything, I'm here for you.”

Grateful as he was for the offer, he didn't think he would need her advice as Jack initiated nothing beyond a grin and a clap on his shoulder; though, he was always receptive to the times that Mickey garnered the courage to close the distance between them. Moving at a glacial pace was both reassuring and deeply frustrating, but he did feel his reserve melting away the more Jack enthusiastically responded to him. It wasn't all that different to how he and Rose had started, except the roles were reversed with Mickey being cautious and skittish and Jack being kind and patient.

“Good morning, Mickety Mick,” the Doctor greeted, hair damp from a recent shower, bouncing into the kitchen where Mickey was eating breakfast, flipping through one of the National Geographics that seemed to be scattered everywhere in the TARDIS. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah, ta,” he replied, eyeing the relaxed lines of his shoulder and the uplifted corners of his mouth, wondering what had put him into such a good mood. “You?”

“Brilliant,” he said, beaming over his shoulder as he flicked the coffee pot on and then the kettle, indicating that Zoe was most likely on her way. “Because we're off to somewhere interesting today – not that every place we go to isn't interesting but you're a mechanic so you'll probably enjoy this too.”

He waited and when the Doctor didn't elaborate, he lowered his spoon. “Where's that then?”

“Hmm?” The Doctor replied, distracted by his choice of tea, attempting to decide between PG Tips or a new lavender blend Rose had picked up in Hund before the Headless Monks made their appearance. “Oh, Tiaanamat, it's a market. I need to have a look for a spare part for the TARDIS. Well, I say spare part, really I just need something I can hammer into shape because there aren't actually any spare TARDIS parts around these days.”

“Have you tried Fluren's World?” Zoe asked, walking into the kitchen, her hair also slightly damp and curling tightly; she flashed a smile at Mickey in greeting. “There's all sorts of temporal technology for sale there that might suit your needs.”

The smile that graced the Doctor's face at the sight of her made Mickey turn his attention back to his cereal. Not travelling with them before had caused him to miss a lot of nuance in the personal relationships on board, but it had rapidly become clear to him that the Doctor favoured Zoe's company above all others. He doubted it was intentional but whenever Zoe was in a room, the Doctor tended to drift towards her, soft and pliable.

It was a well-established fact that the Doctor was affectionate with those he liked, particularly in his new body, and Jack had a theory that he was a little touch starved after the events of the war but with Zoe it bordered on the obsessive. He was constantly fiddling with her, be it with the edge of her sleeves, her fingers, her hair, she didn't seem to be free from him. Not that she appeared to mind, suffering through his tactile affection with her usual blasé nature, but Mickey found it odd; especially as Zoe was tactile in return. She would often straighten his tie or smooth down his hair, happy to have his head in her lap as she read, running her fingers through the mess on the top of his head. Mickey found himself watching them carefully and found that he was simply confused by what he was seeing. Jack was no help, shrugging when he asked about it, saying that for as long as he had known them, the Doctor and Zoe were affectionate with each other.

In the end, he put it down to Zoe growing up and having been married, learning the benefits of physical affection between friends, his mind skirting the other suggestion that was more troubling, dismissing all thoughts of romance from his mind.

It was Zoe...

...and the Doctor.

He wasn't touching that mess with a ten-foot barge pole, preferring to not get close enough to think about it. Swirling his soggy cereal around his bowl, he risked a glance up and was pleased to find that they were simply standing close to each other as they talked.

“Fluren's World?” The Doctor repeated. “What's that?”

“A temporal bazaar,” she said, hip-checking him out of the way of the fruit bowl. She selected an apple and bit into it, speaking through her mouthful. “Most of the stuff is black market, obviously. I had to put a stop to some people attempting to flog a bunch of Time Lord tech once. There's actually a box somewhere onboard filled with your people's stuff.”

He looked bewildered. “There is?”

“It must have slipped my mind,” she said with a shrug. “But I still want to have a look around Tiaanamat. You never know the bargains you can pick up, and I should probably pop in on an old friend who's got a shop there – she likes to buy things there and take it back to Fluren's World to maximise the profit or something. I haven't actually seen her since before she put me in touch with the Corsair.”

“They can track Time Lords?”

“Well, Roxx can, but there's not a lot she doesn't know how to do.”

“Can you back up a second, please?” He said, a pained look on his face. “There's a box of stolen Time Lord technology on this ship and I don't know about it?”

“I imagine there are lots of things on this ship that you don't know about,” Zoe said, wiping the apple juice from her mouth to sip her coffee. “Grab a banana and I'll see if I can unearth it. I think it's either in my study or one of the old bedrooms. I sort of shoved it out of the way as I had other things to deal with at the time.”

The Doctor grabbed his banana and followed her out of the kitchen, peppering her with questions that she couldn't answer and generally strolling down the path of annoyance. Mickey listened as their voices faded, amused and slightly off-kilter by their relationship. Determinedly shovelling cereal into his mouth, attempting to distract his thoughts of _maybe_ with food, he was washing his bowl when Jack entered the kitchen. He was glad he didn't have food in his mouth as he would have choked. Not for the first time he considered how unfair it was that Jack Harkness was able to look breathtakingly handsome no matter the situation. Dressed only wearing dark jeans and a shirt – a faded Queen T-shirt that he recognised as Zoe's – it made Mickey want things he knew he wasn't ready for.

“Morning,” Jack said, hand resting on the small of his back before he went to pour himself a coffee, leaving Mickey wanting a kiss. “Where are Zoe and the Doctor off to? I heard them arguing in the halls.”

“Somethin' about stolen Time Lord technology that Zo has tucked away somewhere,” he said. “I don't know any more than that. The Doctor said somethin' about a place called Tiaanamat though.”

Jack drew in a pleased breath. “That's a great market. I might see if I can pick up some bits and pieces. I've been feeling a bit naked without my paraphernalia.”

Mickey paused, aware of how conversations with Jack easily veered into the sexual. “What sort of stuff?”

“A new set of lock picks for one,” he said. “My set at the moment aren't varied enough. When we come across a deadlocked door that the screwdriver can't open, I'd like more range. Also, I want to get my hands on a hallucinogenic lipstick as well: red if they have it but I'll take any colour at the moment.”

“What now?”

“It creates hallucinations for those that have been kissed with it,” Jack explained. “Saved my ass on a couple of occasions before I met the girls and the Doctor.” His eyebrow quirked and heat flooded through him. “I'll use it on you if you like.”

“No thanks,” he said, higher pitched than normal. “I'm good.”

“Shame,” Jack mused, meeting his eyes. “But if I ask nicely, would you be willing to use it on me?”

It took thirty minutes for the colour in Mickey's cheeks to die down, by which time Rose was dressed and fed and the Doctor had been pried away from the newly-revealed technology - _a Time clamp, Zoe! How the hell did they get their hands on this?_ \- and only agreed to come back to it later when she threatened to drive. Everyone knew it was an empty threat as the Doctor didn't mind her driving as long as he was able to keep a discreet eye on her as she had the habit for only hitting their destination on the third or fourth try, usually after knocking a dent in whatever time period they happened to be entering into. His relentless encouragement of her was occasionally exhausting to watch and so everyone was grateful that the Doctor took the controls.

As soon as the TARDIS settled at her destination, Rose stepped out of the door and smothered a yawn with her hand, Mickey and Jack on her heels. The sheer alienness of the market took his breath away, certain he was never going to get used to his new life. The noise washed over him as he stood at the entrance to a busy and loud marketplace that thrummed with activity and noise, beings of all shapes, sizes, colours, and genders filling his vision. It was _colourful:_ bright reds and yellows and oranges were represented everywhere in the material that covered the stalls; painted flags bearing adverts fluttered overhead; and flickering holographic news channels pumped the daily news into the cavernous area that stretched further than his eyes could see. Mouth-watering smells of roasting meat filled his nostrils; thick slabs of butter slowly melting in the heat; fountains of fizzing liquid spurting up in the middle of a crowd, making a group of children laugh as they ran beneath the spray, mouths open and tongues extended.

“Whoa,” he said, unable to stop himself. “It's – whoa.”

Beings of all species moved about the market. He recognised one species as being from Raxacoricofallapatorius, stomach clenching in a brief moment of fear before he relaxed, remembering the others that he had met when returning Margaret home; there were also huge rhinos wearing thick black armour, and tall, skinny beings with two long necks that supported a bulbous head each. He stared after them, entranced. A small child with bright pink skin and a head that looked as though it was that of a cactus kicked a ball that went wild. Mickey stopped it with his foot. He picked it up and felt the softness of it as it took a imprint of his hand.

“Hey, mister,” the child called, a low click audible beneath the TARDIS's translation. “Can I have my ball back?”

Turning the ball over, he carefully tossed it back to the child who giggled and ran off. “They were pink.”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, hands in the pocket of his coat.

“You really do get used to it,” Zoe said from his side, holding a small, grey data stick out to him. “Currency. No matter where you go in the universe, you can use this to pay. They trade a little differently here but just flash them this stick and you'll get what you want. Should've given it to you before but we forgot.”

“Jack, Rose, keep an eye on him, yeah?” The Doctor said, dropping an arm around Zoe's shoulders and tugging on the end of her curls. “I'm taking this one to see if we can find parts.”

“Copy that,” Jack said, tossing him a small salute, and Mickey watched Zoe and the Doctor slip off into the crowd, chatting as they did so. He felt an elbow press into his side. “What do you want to do first?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted, overwhelmed. “This is – it's not like the other places. It's so _alien_. An' I know that's stupid because there were those weird monk things the other day, but this is alien, y'know?”

Rose laughed next to him, kind and understanding. “The first place the Doctor took me too, I said everythin' was so alien as well. Sometimes I still get taken aback by it.”

“We'll take care of you,” Jack promised, threading their fingers together. “Besides, the best way to explore is to just throw yourself in and I'm something of an expert at that.” Rose snorted, sweeping her hair from her eyes, watching as the Doctor and Zoe disappeared from sight around the corner of a stand selling what looked like roasted dog. “Where to first?”

“Let's go find the stuff you want,” he suggested, grabbing hold of the idea and digging his fingers tightly to it, hoping that a goal would help him acclimatise to how very alien it was. “An' then we'll explore.”

“Good idea,” Jack said, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “Rose, keep your eye out for lipstick.”

“Lipstick,” she repeated, confused. “Why d'you want lipstick?”

“You never know when it's going to come in handy,” he said. “Honestly, didn't Jackie teach you anything?”

Rose blew a raspberry at his back.

* * *

_ Yepah, 902,138AD _

The air around him was thick and muggy as he pulled himself through the vents. Omni was pushing as much heat as it could into the ventilation system in order to stop him from reaching the central hub. Mickey's mouth was thick with dried saliva, his throat clogged with dust that made him cough every few seconds; sweat poured from him, making it difficult to find traction against the smooth surface of the vents. There was a tight band of pain wrapped around his head from the heat and dehydration but he kept moving forwards, pulling himself through as there was no other option but to keep moving. If he went back, he would fall into the hands of the planetary police and that wouldn't help free the others.

“I've reached another junction,” Mickey said, sounding tired and confused even to his own ears. He rested, breathing heavily, using the collar of his T-shirt to mop the sweat from his face and eyes. “Which way?”

“ _Bear left_ ,” Zoe said, distracted. “ _You'll come to a grate at the end of the path. Pause there. Don't try and move through it. There's a security net in place_.”

“Copy that,” he said, dry tongue trying to wet his lips as he started moving again. “You all right?”

“ _I'm getting my exercise in, let's say that_.” The sound of her boots hitting against the ground as she ran filled his ears. “ _Don't worry about me. Just focus on getting through the system_.”

Her telling him not to worry was about as difficult as her telling him to stop breathing for a couple of days: unlikely and probably the ultimate cause of an ulcer that he suspected was growing in his gut. Worry clawed at his chest and pulsed in his stomach, waves of pain radiating out to fill his limbs, his head spinning from how quickly everything had gone wrong. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised – Rose hadn't been, releasing an annoyed sigh when everything went topsy turvy – but it took him aback, particularly after how peaceful things had been for the last few weeks. It was easy to forget that danger was a constant companion to the life the Doctor led, his friends pulled along for the ride.

After their pleasant but ultimately uneventful trip to Tiaanamat, the last few weeks had been a dizzying whirlwind of alien planets, space stations, trips to the past, trips to the future, and everything else in between. He had visited the purple seas of Drana for sushi and deliberately avoided going for a swim as Jack held a grudge against the water nymphs for nearly drowning him that one time; Qarth, so that they could all climb the water hills that left them laughing and wet; the Louvre in 2029 to see the painting of Zoe on the wall as Rose had expressed an interest; and Russia in the seventies to investigate some strange readings only to find a nest of Zygons that kidnapped Zoe due to yet another misunderstanding which left her extremely snappish, not helped by the way the Doctor laughed when they came upon her in another maturation pod.

The fun made it easy to forget the danger that typically came from being in close proximity to the Doctor.

Yepah was supposed to be an easy adventure for them, something light and fun. Having never been, the Doctor was eager to explore as he had only heard good things about the planet, bouncing around the console room as he waited for everyone to gather. It generally took them a while to come together in the mornings because someone always forgot something, or someone slept later than normal, and Zoe was a big proponent of everyone eating breakfast so she would press fruit and sandwiches into their hands and make them eat before they left the TARDIS. Their slowness frustrated the Doctor, which generally led to bickering between him and Zoe that never got nasty but did get sarcastic, and it always ended with the Doctor dragging one or more of them out of the TARDIS with an empty threat of leaving the others behind thrown over his shoulder.

But Yepah was worth the Doctor's nagging.

It was like no other planet they had ever visited in the fact that it managed to render even the Doctor speechless, an event that Jack marked by taking a photograph of his awed face. Huge, elegant skyscrapers rose so high into the sky that the tops of them were covered by fat, fluffy clouds; the streets glimmered with cleanliness; and the store fronts advertised their wares with perfect holograms that beckoned them inside. Hover cars wove through the sky streets like ants, and the ground streets were filled with pedestrians walking in neat lines. There was technology everywhere from on-street food replicators to inter-city transport hubs; walk-in medical centres ran by exquisite androids that he mistook for flesh and blood beings; and open-air entertainment centres where the customer slipped on VR glasses and let themselves get lost in imaginary and distant worlds.

“We don't really visit these places a lot,” Jack said, hands in the pockets of his long coat, shoulder brushing against Mickey's. “Technologically advanced, I mean.”

“I try to avoid them,” the Doctor replied, garnering looks of surprise that made him smile. “Places like these generally have rules against time travellers and unregulated space travel. It's never been worth the inconvenience of being picked up and interrogated but I think I've landed us in the right time.”

“Think again,” Rose sighed as planetary police appeared on the transport platforms and started to converge on them. “What d'you think we've done this time?”

It was difficult to tell what happened after that, the chaos of guns pointing in their faces and voices being raised tended to blur the memory. He remembered the Doctor saying something only to receive the butt of a gun to his temple, dropping like a bag of rocks, which set Zoe off and she threw herself at the woman who struck the Doctor and had her on the ground before anyone realised what was happening. Rose swung a punch to protect her sister and Jack threw himself into the fray but, at some point, Zoe grabbed Mickey's hand and dragged him to safety, the two of them sprinting down the street as the others were thrown into the back of an unmarked hover car. Returning to the TARDIS was out of the question as it was cordoned off by heavily-armed guards that saw them coming and raised their guns, shouting at them to _freeze_. Bleeding and a little sore, the two of them quickly realised that they were on their own when the faces of the Doctor, Rose, and Jack were broadcast across the planet as criminals.

“ _Fuck._ ”

“What?” Mickey asked, dreaming of ice.

“ _These assholes are riding me hard_ ,” she grumbled. “ _You're going to be on your own in a few minutes. I can't keep them off me forever._ ”

Fear sent a surge of energy through him.

“I'm at the grate,” he said, shifting so he was able to sit and give his hands and knees a reprieve from the hard ground. “Zoe? Zo?”

“ _Sorry, yeah, I'm still here_ ,” she said, sounding winded. “ _All right, I've got a couple of minutes and then I'm fucked. I'm lowering the security net, which is extremely difficult by the way. This Omni is a work of art, and I wish I had time to dig deep into it and –_ ”

“Zoe,” he said with a hint of sharpness, interrupting her. “Focus.”

“ _Sorry_ ,” she apologised. “ _I'm lowering the net. Once that's lowered, you've got to head straight until you reach a junction. Go left, then take the second right. So that's straight, then left, then the second right._ ”

“Straight, left, second right,” he repeated. “Straight, left, second right.”

“ _After that_ ,” she continued, “ _you're going to hint an incline. There's another security net in place there. I need you to move as quick as you can because I'm placing a backdoor in the network that Omni is going to detect sooner rather than later. All you need to do is place the thing I gave you against it and it should, fingers crossed, lower the shield._ ”

“What happens if it doesn't?”

“ _If it doesn't, don't go through it, you'll lose your skin and other organic bits._ ”

“What?”

“ _But it'll work, course it will, I promise_ ,” she said. “ _So, that's straight on, left, second right, hit the incline, place the thingy against the side and jump through. Make sure you take the thing with you as well. I don't think there'll be any guards in the main room but knock 'em out if there are._ ”

“Zoe, I don't think –”

“ _Shit!_ _Mickey, go. Go now!_ ”

The line went dead.

Only the sharp, rapid sounds of his ragged breathing filled the silence, the awareness of being entirely cut off from the others temporarily paralysing him with fear as the realisation that he was on an alien planet with no back up was terrifying. Though he was worried about Zoe, he was confident in her ability to make life as complicated as possible for whoever caught up with her. Pushing the grate to one side and crawled through as quickly as he could, dragging himself along as he repeated the directions like a mantra.

Yepah was controlled by an artificial intelligence that saw everything, knew everything, and ruled everything. Omni was a benevolent dictator that treated those who followed the rules kindly and compassionately but those who opposed it were dealt with harsh, swift justice. The Doctor, Jack, and Rose were considered enemies of the state because of the unexplained nature of their appearance on Yepah, no records of them anywhere in Omni's systems. Powerful as it might be, Omni was still a computer programme and was unable to accept the fact that they might be unfortunate, ignorant tourists – tourists had to apply for visas to the planet, report to local embassies upon arrival, accept a temporary sub-cutaneous implant for the duration of their stay, and download Omni onto their communication devices. Having done none of that, they were judged to be criminals and an insidious influence on the population, their executions set for later that evening.

“ _Dissent is chaos, and chaos is unacceptable_.”

“Shut up,” Mickey complained, Omni's modulated voice sweeping across the planet, sinking into every nook and cranny.

“ _Acting outside the law diminishes all society._ ”

Minutes later, he reached the incline and began the arduous task of climbing it, muscles burning as he worked himself into position and straightened, knees popping and muscles stretching. He removed the small grey cube that Zoe had MacGyvered out of a stolen communication device, wire from her bra, and a piece of gum; he didn't know what it did, not really, but she assured him that it would work even if it wouldn't work well. _You want decent craftsmanship, go to the Doctor, 'cept he's not here, so we've got this thing that might work but might also explode in your face, we're taking a risk here,_ she had said, slapping it into his hand, not exactly filling him with confidence.

Pressing the cube against the side of the grate, there was a flash of light that made colourful spots dance across his retinas dance, the security net falling. He punched the grate open and listened to it clatter to the ground indicating that there would be a bit of a drop. Luck was on his side as he slithered through the opening to fall ungracefully into a pile of limbs on the other side, the room free of guards, empty except for one large rectangular black box that towered above him.

From the centre of the panel, a blue light shone.

“This is unexpected,” Omni said, calmly. “My scans of your physiology told me that you would not be able to survive the heat.”

Mickey unfurled himself from the ungainly pile on the ground and heaved himself upright, slumping back against the wall as breathed heavily. The frigid air of the room was heaven against his overheated skin, the temperature carefully controlled so as to ensure that Omni didn't overheat; all he needed now was a glass of water and a nap.

Tongue darting out to wet his lips, he struggled off the floor, trying to get his feet under him. “Nearly didn't, was a nasty trick.”

“Your friend is talented,” it replied. “I know of no one who has come close to hacking my systems.”

He wiped the sweat from his face and popped his neck. “That's Zoe for you. She's good at doin' things people don't expect.”

“I am not people.”

“No,” he said. “S'pose you're not.”

The light shone steadily. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No.” He shook his head, surprised at the lack of vitriol; he wasn't sure what he had expected, but it wasn't the calm, rational, almost pleasant conversation he received. “But I do need to rescue my friends...unless you want to let them go an' we can skip all this?”

“If I make an exception in this case, I must make an exception in others,” Omni said. “Where is the fairness is that?”

“It's fair because it's right,” Mickey said. “My friends aren't guilty of anythin', we're just tourists.”

“Then you are guilty of bypassing immigration and border laws,” it said. “That is still a crime punishable by death.”

He blinked. “Are all crimes punishable by death?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It is an effective deterrent.”

“You ever thought that one day these people are goin' to get sick of some computer rulin' over them?” He asked. “Because I reckon you'll be shit out of luck then an' might change your mind on the whole execution thing.”

“I do not understand the phrase _shit out of luck_?”

Light headed with exhaustion, headache pounding through him from dehydration, he sighed. “No, I don't s'pose you would.”

Crouching, he placed the cube at the base of the rectangular box and flicked the tiny switch. Omni made a small sound of confusion that went straight through Mickey before the blue light flickered, dying. The hum of the air conditioning cut out, and darkness cloaked the room. Fumbling back, panic started to make him clumsy before he found the door and yanked it open. With Omni no longer active, the entire planet was disabled, and he needed to use the confusion to get back to the TARDIS. Staggering down the hall through the darkness, wishing he carried a torch like Jack, a ribbon of light sliced across the floor, drawing him towards it. Following the source, he pushed into a room with a window that looked out onto the carefully cultivated lawn outside. Only on the second floor, he risked his limbs by bracing himself on the edge of the window and jumping out.

On the horizon, the suns were setting, the sky streaked with oranges and pink. He picked himself up, knees aching, and limped away from the central building, weaving his way through the crowds of confused, scared people. He wanted to find the others but was reluctant to deviate from Zoe's hobbled together plan, trusting that they would seize the opportunity to free themselves. Grabbing a length of cloth from a stall, he wound it around his shoulders and flicked it over his head, covering his face from view as crowds spilled onto the streets. The noise level rose and rose as the fear over what had happened to Omni started to seep into the inhabitants of Yepah. Mickey didn't know if they loved Omni or loathed it but he decided that it wasn't his problem: it was their planet and customs, they were free to live as they liked.

By the time he reached the TARDIS, night had fully set in and he was cold, the dried sweat on his skin making the night's air bite him.

Relieved to see that the ship was no longer surrounded, the guards having left when Omni was deactivated, Mickey used his key to open her up and shut the door firmly behind him, relishing the feeling of safety that the TARDIS provided. He was the first one back. Stopping in the kitchen for a long, deep drink of water that helped to ease the pain in his head, he filled a large bottle and waited nervously in the console room for the others to arrive. Zoe hadn't been sure how long Omni would stay down for – minutes or hours, or something in between – and he waited while he sipped at his water, trying not to think about what he would do if the plan didn't work.

Ten minutes after his arrival, the door opened and his entire body relaxed as The Doctor, Jack, Rose, and Zoe – all in various states of dishevelment – tumbled inside.

“Mickey,” the Doctor greeted with a huge grin and a bruise on his temple, dried blood clinging to the cut as he sauntered downwards in a vaguely horizontal direction. “Nice work, me old chum!”

“Oh, no.” Rose looked down at him, mascara smeared across her cheeks, lip swelling. “Did he faint?”

“Probably just a concussion,” Zoe said, stepping over his sprawled form. “I'll get us out of here, then we can worry about him.” She smiled at Mickey. “Good job, Micks. You saved our asses today.”

Embarrassed by the praise, he managed a nod before moving to help Jack lift the Doctor.

* * *

_ Kutib, 92BC _

Licking melted ice cream from her fingers, catching it before it ran down her wrist, Rose gave the matter some thought. “He folded a page instead of used a bookmark.”

“Nah, he uses bookmarks as well. How about...” Jack tipped his head back in the warm sun and took a slow lick of his ice cream, Mickey's eyes tracking the movement as heat bloomed through him and he shifted, uncomfortable with the direction his blood ran. “His tone of voice was condescending and she didn't like it?”

Clearing his throat, Mickey tried to sound normal. “When does she ever like that? He – er – he woke her up early?”

“Maybe,” Rose mused. “But she's gettin' better about the early mornings. She's normally up before us these days.”

“The dead are up before you,” Jack pointed out only to get his thigh pinched. “Just how bad did she look this morning? Was it like that time Rose had the music up too loud, or like the time that she thought I as breathing too loudly?”

Mickey pulled a face. “Kind of between the two of them, I guess. Not happy but also not like she was about to shank him. She was kind of scowlin' but not scowlin', y'know?”

“Oh, I know that face,” he laughed, fingers trailing across Mickey's shoulder as he stretched, spine popping. “It must have been something serious to bring us here though. He only brings out the big guns when he thinks he's well and truly fucked up.”

It wasn't a bad destination, Mickey considered, although not really as interesting for him as it was for Zoe, which he supposed was the point. Upon waking that morning and finding a nervous Doctor and a quietly fuming Zoe in the kitchen, everyone quickly realised that he had done something to annoy Zoe and not in the usual way he annoyed her that she accepted with a roll of her eyes and a sigh – it was clearly a serious infraction this time. No one was quite sure what it was but their destination revealed the severity of his actions. They were on Kutib, a planet devoted to the creation and love of books; it was, according to the rambling Doctor, the biggest repository of books for sale anywhere and anywhen in the known universe. There was The Library of course but Kutib was a place where people were able to buy and sell books from all corners of the universe. He had presented it to Zoe with a hopeful, eager expression on his face only to have his features fall when she simply sniffed and walked off, leaving him trailing after her like a sad puppy. The others had spent much of the last two hours trying to figure out what he had done wrong.

“Whatever the reason,” Rose said, tongue sweeping over her ice cream. “I'm kind of glad for a break. My thighs haven't recovered from our hike yesterday.”

“It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't started pissing it down,” Jack nodded, working on expanding his vocabulary to include common 21st century idioms that he found slightly awkward to say. “Although the look on your face when you slipped in the mud – hey!” She dragged her fingers through the cold of her ice cream and flicked it at him. He rubbed the flecks away, arm dropping around Mickey's shoulders. “Truth be told, I could do with a day or two off. I wouldn't mind staying in the TARDIS for a bit.”

“Not likely,” she said. “Not while the Doctor's tryin' to impress Micks.”

Mickey choked. “He's what now? Don't be daft.”

Jack laughed. “He is. We haven't had the glitz and glam in ages. He's pulling out all the stops for you.”

He looked between the two of them, searching their faces for the lie but he found none. “Really?”

“It's what he does.” Rose grinned at him. “He likes to show off to people an' you're brand new to him. Well, I say brand new – you haven't travelled with us properly before so everythin's all nice an' shiny still. He likes it when things are new to people.”

A wave of dizziness washed over him, turning Jack and Rose's voice into distant sounds. The thought of the Doctor trying to impress him was laughable. Part of him still resented him for the way their first few meetings had gone – the dismissive, almost cruel way he was treated, the disregard of the difficulties he had gone through because the Doctor wanted a travelling companion, damn the consequences; it was easier now that he didn't have to look at the big ears and leather jacket any more, but it still rankled. Zoe's influence only stretched so far, his mouth running away with him more often than not, but he was more likely to apologise now when he was rude than he had been, which was an improvement, and the two of them did lounge and chat sometimes.

Pushing the uncomfortable thought of the Doctor wanting his approval from his mind, he caught sight of Zoe and relief whipped through him, not wanting to pursue the conversation. She was moving through the crowd, hair visible before the rest of her was, and he twitched when someone reached out and grabbed hold of her arm. She could handle herself, he knew that, but she was still the same person she had been when she was eight years old, missing her front teeth, crying over a scraped knee. Sunlight bounced off the man's golden hair, sharp jaw briefly in profile, before he released Zoe as abruptly as he grabbed her and disappeared in a crackle of energy that Mickey associated with Jack's Vortex Manipulator.

“Hey, you all right?” Mickey asked, frown of concerning lining his forehead as she approached them, absently rubbing her arm. “Who was that guy?”

Jack looked away from his conversation with Rose, interested. “What guy?”

“Some asshole just grabbed Zoe.”

Rose stood. “Where?”

“It's fine,” Zoe said, mouth twitching. “Case of mistaken identity, I think. Although, he did look a bit familiar.” Her eyes fell to their ice cream. “You got ice cream without me?”

Jack held his out. “Want some?”

Knowing his eclectic tastes, she hesitated. “Depends. What is it?”

“Gooseberry and _fanala_.”

“Why, Jack, why?”

“It's tasty.”

“It's an affront to decent ice cream is what it is,” she replied, shaking her head. “You guys ready to go, or do you want to stay a bit longer?”

“We're good to go,” he said. “But where's the Doctor, did you kill him?”

She rolled her eyes. “Course I didn't kill him, there'd be no point, he'd just regenerate. Anyway, he's just taking my books back to the TARDIS. I thought I'd come and pick you guys up.”

Rose found a pack of wet wipes and cleaned her hands. “We've only been here four hours. You spend longer in Waterstones back home.”

“It's no fun when the Doctor looks like I've kicked a puppy in front of him,” Zoe said.

Jack grinned. “What did he do?”

“It's nothing.”

“It's not nothin',” Rose said, brushing her skirt out. “He's been tryin' to make it up to you all day. What did he do? Tell us. Go on. Tell us.”

Zoe laughed as her sister leaned into her, pushing her away. “All right, all right. He messed with the coffee machine.”

They all sucked In a sharp breath.

Everyone knew not to touch the coffee machine.

“And he's still alive?” Jack asked, amazed.

“He swore blind that he was following the instructions that came with it because it has been playing up a little but he did something and it melted one of the filaments,” she explained. “He was going to replace it before I noticed but I woke up before he could.”

“I'm surprised you didn't straight up murder him with a rolling pin,” Jack said, seriously. “No wonder you were pissed.”

“Have you had a coffee today?” Mickey asked, warily.

“Yes,” she exclaimed before sighing. “I don't know where you lot get the idea that I'm not a reasonable person. It was a mistake, he's fixing it. It's not the end of the world.”

Rose frowned. “Are you on drugs? God, he drugged you, didn't he?”

“I hate you all in various and unique ways,” Zoe said, speaking over their laughter. “Now come on. I want to organise my books.”

“Nerd,” Rose said, earning the elbow to her side.

* * *

_ New Roman Empire, 12005AD _

“This way I – _whoa_!”

“Doctor,” Zoe called out as he was swept away into a tide of people that turned the corner and filled the street, his long form ducking and weaving, pushing his way back to them. He reached out and grabbed hold of Mickey's extended hand, pulling himself back, flushed and dishevelled. “You all right?”

“This is – _oh_ , that's someone's hand on my – er – I'm not sure what's happening right now,” he stammered, twisting away from hands that reached out to fondle him, turning so his back was to Jack as Rose sharply slapped a hand away with a stern warning. No one appeared to be touching Zoe simply because she wasn't giving them the chance; though, more than one opportunistic passer-by left her vicinity cradling sprained extremities. Rose tucked herself behind her sister, keeping her body from out of view. “This is bracing. Unpleasantly so, one might say. I haven't been felt up that thoroughly since William Shakespeare.”

Zoe turned her head and he grinned when her eyes met his, a small wink making her smile.

“There's a story _there_ ,” Jack said, immediately interested as he drove his elbow back into the solar plexus of a man whose hand refused to leave Mickey's behind. The man fell away spluttering, and Jack gave Mickey a push into the centre of their small protective circle. “But for later, I think. What the hell's going on here?”

“No idea,” the Doctor said, his usual cheer dampened by the unpleasantness of having his body touched against his will. Already he was regretting bringing them here but Rose had made a passing comment about wanting to see Rome – he thought she was just craving some proper pizza – and instead of boring them all with a trip to the past, he had brought them to the New Roman Empire. “Who knows with the New Romans. Like their ancient counterparts, they loved any old excuse for a knees up. Could be anything from a fertility festival to a beheading.”

“But it's the future,” Mickey said, scowling at someone who came close to him, Jack's arm locking him firmly against his chest. “Thought that sort of stuff would be done with by now.”

“Nah,” the Doctor shook his head. “Bit disappointing at the end of the day but people do love a spectacle. Back in Ancient Rome, the Romans used to feed Christians to lions as entertainment. Well, I say lions, it was really just big cats and any sort of wild animal with sharp enough teeth, and I say _Christians_ – runaway slaves, criminals, the usual. Makes sense, if you think about it.”

Rose turned on him, face twisted in disgust. “It doesn't sense, what are you talkin' about? It's awful.”

“No, not the lion thing,” he said, gesturing around them. “ _This_. Ancient Rome had a huge entertainment industry, the first of its kind really. Keep the masses entertained and there was less likelihood of a rebellion. It was the first real use of advertising and marketing as well – everyone had their favourite sport that their followed, they had a preferred gladiator – it's not too different from life in the 21st century. Minus the lions and stuff, of course.”

“But this is the year whatever –”

“12005.”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “Shouldn't they be, I don't know, more enlightened or somethin'?”

“You'd think,” he said, the crowd slowly beginning to thin. “But history has a tendency to repeat itself in ugly ways. You see, this lot, this empire, it came about because people got all nostalgic for the past and thought the old ways were the best ways. After the Technological Resistance about fifty years ago, they got rid of their technology, buried it and burned their knowledge. There's still some tech knocking about, mainly health care for the rich, the comfort technology and all, but this is as close an approximation to the original Roman Empire as they could get.”

“What a shit time period to choose,” Zoe said. “The Renaissance, there's a decent time period if you're a white man with money, but since we're picking and choosing bits, we'll keep the social advances but have the Renaissance around us.”

Rose thought about it. “Y'know, I don't think I'd bother.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, travellin' in the past has shown me that it was complete crap for women and people of colour,” Rose said. “I'll take our time, thanks, or the 32nd century. That was fun and only the tiniest bit racist.”

“Xenophobic,” the Doctor corrected, eyes sweeping the crowd. “Think we're in the clear. You guys want to see what's going on, or shall we make a hasty exit?”

“I kind of want to see what's happening,” Jack admitted. “Curiosity and all that.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Rose reminded him.

“But answers brought it back,” Zoe said. “Let's go have a look. If it's something really awful, we'll just turn around and leave but we're already here so we may as well have a stroll about.”

Rose hesitated. “I'm not sure I want to see people being fed to lions.” She quickly shook her head. “I don't know why I said that. I _know_ I'm sure I don't want to see that.”

“You don't need to worry about that,” the Doctor said. “Lions are extinct now.”

“That's depressing if somewhat expected,” Zoe said, looping her arm through Rose's and guiding her down the street towards the colosseum that loomed high out above the city, a general roar of noise filling the air. “You ever watched Jurassic Park?”

He looked at her curiously. “Yes, why?”

“Just wondering if de-extinction is actually a thing,” she said. “Are there parks somewhere with dinosaurs moving about, or is Africa covered with lions brought back from extinction?”

“Funnily enough, humans never really go down the route,” he said, hands tucked into his pockets as they approached the colosseum, falling in with the edge of the crowd but keeping their distance in case hands started to get grabby again. “There's the odd person here and there who tries to make it happen, a few movements that pick up steam and then fizzle out after a while, but humans don't really go in for the de-extinction trend. Now, the Hintarans, they're huge on it. Sometimes they'll kill of species just so they can bring them back with new chromosomes added in for fun.”

Mickey listened, bewildered. “Space is weird.”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, delighted. “Isn't it great?”

A loud, terrified scream made them all jump. They turned as one, eyes fixing on the source of the scream, to find a young woman – _girl,_ they quickly realised – held aloft in the air, her body twisting and writhing as she tried to break free. She was naked and glistening in the sunlight, thick black ink swirled across her skin beneath the oil slathered on top of her; her long red hair fell to the ground in a silken waterfall. It took six men to keep her aloft, the sharp point of a sword nestled in the small of her back, keeping her from twisting herself entirely free, blood running in small rivulets down the blade. She was being carried towards the colosseum, robed figures chanting in updated Latin, scented smoke filling the air around her.

Rose was the first to remember herself, body jerking into action. She wrenched free of Zoe and surged forwards. “Oi, you _bastards_ , let her go!”

Later, as Mickey sat in the dank, wet cold of the underground prisons, stripped of his clothes and dressed in a small canvas loin cloth and nothing else, he considered that it wasn't really a surprise he was in what passed for a prison cell. His head throbbed from where the hilt of a sword impacted had with it but he wasn't worried. From the stories the others had told him over the last few months, he knew they had been in worse situations and got out more or less unscathed. It bothered him that he didn't know where the girls were – after Rose wrestled the young girl free of her captors, she and Zoe had been taken away with the girl against their will; Jack was also missing, his good looks proving detrimental to him as he was also carted away as a gift to the emperor. Mickey had the Doctor with him, who looked skinny and pale in his own loin cloth, revealing more skin than Mickey had ever wanted to see of him.

“This is quality craftsmanship right here,” the Doctor said, standing on an upturned bucket that had, prior to being tipped upside down, contained bodily waste that now seeped across the floor. Mickey kept his eyes sharply away from him, an unexpected glimpse of what was beneath the his loin cloth certain to feature in his nightmares. “Solid rock, which is odd considering the time. Then again, if they're getting it from off-world that'd explain it. I wish I had my screwdriver to properly examine it.”

“Or open the locks,” Mickey suggested.

“And that too, I suppose,” he said but he didn't sound nearly as interested in the possibility of escape as he did in the properties of the rock face. “I hope they haven't got rid of my clothes. I like my clothes. Janis Joplin gave me my coat, you know.”

“I do,” Mickey said with exaggerated patience. Sometimes dealing with the Doctor was like trying to manage a toddler; it wasn't so bad when there were four of them but one on one he was a little exhausting. “D'you have a plan to get us out of here or somethin'?”

He hopped down from the bucket, deftly avoiding the foul stain on the floor. “Yep, a foolproof one in fact.”

“Yeah?” Mickey was experienced enough to be sceptical. “What's that then?”

“We wait for rescue,” he said with a grin. “Brilliant, right?”

“That's your plan? Wait to be rescued?”

“Yep.”

“Even though Rose, Zoe, _an'_ Jack have also been captured?”

He nodded his head. “Uh-huh.”

“That's not a great plan, Doc.”

“It is, and don't call me Doc,” he said, grabbing hold of the heavy gate and swinging from them, heels turning on the ground. “Want to bet on it?” Mickey stared up at him. “Tenner says that Zoe gets here first.”

“Don't be daft,” Mickey said. “She an' Rose are goin' to help free anyone else they're with. That's goin' to take time. Jack's goin' to get here first.”

The Doctor looked at him, an amused glint in his eye. “Tenner on it?”

“You have a gamblin' problem,” he replied, having noticed that he and Rose would place small bets on silly things, exchanging the same ten pound note back and forth between them as they often alternated triumph. “But sure. Tenner says Jack's the first one here.”

“Done,” the Doctor said, stretching out his hand to shake on it. He flopped down next to Mickey, long legs stretching out, drumming his heels against the ground like a child who was bored. “So...how's it going with Jack?”

Mickey groaned and prayed for rescue.

* * *

_ The Sura Desert _

_ Níphikân, The Triangulum Galaxy _

Huge mouthfuls of sand lifted and heaved as machines bore down on them with old, mechanical mouths that scooped up large piles of hot golden sand and displaced them, digging down through the desert as the sun rippled the air. Through the dry, oppressive heat, teams of people moved and tents with large awnings that cast hot shadows over the ground provided a small respite from the heat; large barrels of water, slick with condensation from the generator that kept them cold, waited in the shade for thirsty workers, the threat of heatstroke a real one. It was beyond foolish to be out in the dessert during the middle of the day but Ermina Pera didn't care about the cost: if some of the workers died, then it was a small price to pay to get what she wanted.

Her single-minded focus was what made her a successful business woman – the _most_ successful – and she relished her position at the top of the chain. Rich beyond anyone's wildest imaginings, safe as the rest of the world suffered, she could have stopped working after the string of catastrophes decades ago but she hadn't. The Sura Desert was her last, great, unconquered territory, and she had never forgiven it for turning on her when she had finally succeeded in wrestling the contract for the oil well out of the hands of her last remaining competitor only to have it cave in on itself. It set her business back by decades and threw her plans into disarray. A child of twenty-nine then: smarter than anyone expected and more ruthless than even her mother realised; the last fifty years had given her time to think and plan and she wasn't about to let something like the unrelenting heat stop her from accessing the greatest oil well on the planet and establishing herself as the sole provider of Níphikân's oil.

After decades of research, her company had found a way to stabilise the tectonic plates and had spent years drilling into them to stop them from shifting and causing an earthquake like last time.

Cool air from the air conditioner washed across her back, shifting strands of long grey hair about her neck; she breathed in deeply, satisfied with how close she was to success. By producing oil again instead of finding ways to recycle and conserve what they had, Níphikân would be able to return to its former glory instead of the empty, traumatised husk it was.

And she was going to be the architect of it.

Her name would be written in the history books as the woman who lifted Níphikân from its knees and brought prosperity back to it. All the little people throughout her life who had disparaged her would be forgotten but she was going to last for an eternity.

It was a wonderful thought.

There was a sudden cry of excitement and her head snapped around. The black slick of the longed-for oil was obvious against the golden sand and she was moving before she realised it. The sand shifted beneath her feet as she ran, snapping furiously at the workers in her way to _move_. They parted and she drew to a stop, her breath catching in her throat. There, in a small pool in front of her, was her destiny. The sharp smell of it sank into her and made her stomach turn at how pungent it was; she crouched next to it and reached out a hand.

Her fingers lightly touched the surface.

_Warm._

She pulled them back and rubbed the viscous liquid between her thumb and forefinger, satisfied.

“Begin drilling down immediately,” she said, straightening up and facing the silent team. “This won't stay secret for long, and I refuse to allow anyone else get what I've worked my entire life for. Get the refinement tanks ready, and –”

Someone screamed.

Another started babbling a prayer.

All of them fell back, toppling over onto the sand, scrambling away with fear in their eyes and shadowed over their mouths. Someone shouted her name – her assistant who knew better than to call her by her first name – and she turned, recoiling in fear, knees turning weak.

Emerging from the oil pool, the thick liquid shaped itself into a facsimile of a bipedal shape, rising and rising from the well. It reached out for her, the gelatinous mass forming itself into a hand – _her hand_ –, and Ermina fell backwards, the sand burning her skin when she caught herself on the ground. Pushing herself away, a mouth appeared where the head should be, thick strands connecting it all together, and a horrible gurgling sound pierced her ears; it sounding as though it was choking on the oil. It wrapped its mouth around one word, repeating it on a loop, before Ermina picked herself up and ran.

“Stop. Stop. Stop.”


	25. Chapter 25

Lethargic from the heat of the afternoon, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, the sound of laughter made Mickey open his eyes. Squinting against the bright blue of the sky, every part of him was soft and malleable and he was loathe to move but laughter rang out again – closer this time – and he propped himself up on his elbows. Jack's hand, which had been absently playing with his hair, fell away; near them, Rose lay with her eyes closed beneath an arm thrown across her face as a small ladybug crawled towards her open mouth while she napped. He leaned forward and rested his finger lightly against her jaw, letting the insect crawl onto his finger before flicking it off into the soft grass that surrounded them. He yawned and sat up properly, rolling his neck to ease the tension there – Jack's thigh was comfortable but tended to twist him up into knots.

Stretching, he blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Where's Zoe an' the Doctor?”

“Out there, playing,” Jack said, nodding at the shivering grass as he turned a page in the dog-eared book in his hands. “They've been chasing each other for a good ten minutes. Hard to tell who's winning.”

Standing up to let the blood push feeling back into his legs, toes tingling with it, he watched as Zoe tentatively stroked the head of a dinosaur that had ambled over, curious at their presence. It nudged her hand with its head, making her pull back startled before she laughed, delighted: the Doctor had his arms around her waist, whispering something in her ear that made her twist and grin at him. Boring of them, the dinosaur plodded off, mouth masticating grass it ripped from the ground; not that either of them seemed to notice, caught up in each other as they were. Mickey watched as the Doctor lifted her from her feet and spun her in a slow circle, her legs stretched out so her bare feet swept through the soft blades. Seeing Zoe happy always brought a smile to Mickey's face but there was something about the two of them together, the sun shining on them, oblivious to anyone else's existence except their own.

The sight of them together reminded him of the happier days with him and Rose, the two of them messing about, happy to be together. A thought pressed against the back of his mind, and his eyes started to sharpen their focus on Zoe and the Doctor before he was distracted.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Jack asked. “We can leave Rose to get eaten by the dinosaurs. A sad end, to be sure, but a fitting one.”

“Fuck – off,” Rose grumbled.

He grinned. “Thought you were asleep.”

“Hard to sleep with those hyenas out there,” she complained, rolling onto her stomach and groaning into the flattened grass. “What are they even doin'?”

“Roughousing by the looks of it,” Jack said, finding his bookmark and sliding it between the pages. “You know what they're like.”

She grunted into the ground.

Mickey sat back down, another yawn stretching through him. “Good book?”

“So-so,” he said, setting it to one side, happy to turn his attention elsewhere. “Zoe recommended it.”

“Let's see,” Mickey requested, turning the book over in his hands, surprised. “Science fiction?”

“She thought I'd find it funny,” he said with a small shrug. “Mostly I just find it annoying because of how wrong it is.”

“Star Wars must really bother you.”

“Not as much as Star Trek,” he said before glancing around, cautious. “Don't tell Zoe I said that.”

Rose laughed and peaked out from beneath her curtain of hair. “Livin' dangerously there.”

He pointed at her. “Not a word.”

Once again, Zoe's laughter filled the air, this time words tangling over the ends of it. “No, Doctor, stop!”

Rose rolled onto her back and sighed, splaying out her arms. “ _God_ , what are they doin' now?”

Lifting himself up to look over the top of the grass, Jack watched Zoe dumped a handful of shredded grass on the top of the Doctor's head before she took off running, graceful as a gazelle in flight.

“Still playing,” he said.

“They're weird,” she groused. “Too hot to be chasin' each other around like kids. He's goin' to get sunstroke again.”

Jack lay back to stretch. He had forgone a T-shirt as a concession to the heat of the day and both Rose and Mickey watched the play of muscles beneath his skin, distracted.

“She's happy, he's happy, we get a few moments of peace. I say we leave them be.” Rose grumbled again, and his mouth turned up in a smile, mischief crawling over him like a second skin. “What's the matter, Rosie? Feeling left out. Need a bit of loving?”

One eye popped open, suspicious, only to yelp when the full weight of him landed on her, smothering her as he tangled her up in a hug that ensured only the top of her head and a startled eye was visible. Mickey lay back on his elbows and laughed.

The picnic had been an excellent idea – good food, good company, good weather, and the added bonus of getting to see actual dinosaurs. Assured by the Doctor that they were herbivores, and quietly double checked by Jack who had just enough experience to not always take the Doctor's statements as fact, Mickey enjoyed watching them. Stretching back, he tucked his hands beneath his head and closed his eyes, watching the light of the sun dance across his eyelids, the swirling colours lulling him back to sleep only to be woken by the Doctor flopping down on the blanket next to him some time later, flushed cheeks and grass in his hair. Squinting up at Zoe, he saw that she looked equally dishevelled with grass stains on her knees and her hair flying in every direction.

“Got a message on the psychic paper,” the Doctor said, brushing an ant from one of the few remaining sausage rolls, popping it into his mouth. “Someone's asking for help.”

“A call for help from across the stars?” Rose, long since free of Jack's embrace, draped herself against the Doctor's back and brushed the grass from his hair. “Last time that happened, it was Boe.” She stole the psychic paper from his pocket, flipped it open, and read the message aloud. “ _Please. Help_. _Time's running out._ Oh. That's – I don't like that.”

“Yeah.” He took the paper back and used it to tickle her beneath her chin to chase the look of distress from her face. “I know we said we'd take it easy for a while, but –”

“Duty calls,” Mickey said, all eyes turning to him, making him hesitate, suddenly self-conscious. “Right?”

“Absolutely right,” the Doctor nodded. “I don't know where this message is coming from though, so we have some time while I track it down. Use now as your bathroom break, I don't know when we'll be stopping next.”

Blowing a puff of air into Rose's face, he twisted from beneath her and jumped to his feet, hurrying into the TARDIS. Left with the clean up, the four of them made quick work of bundling the remnants of their lunch back into the picnic basket, brushing small insects from the plates and glasses, and making sure they didn't leave anything for archaeologists in millions of years from now to puzzle over. Stifling another yawn, Rose frowned at her sister and –

“Is your dress on inside out?”

Zoe looked down and blushed. “Oh, yeah. The Doctor – he shoved a handful of grass down it so I had to shake it out.”

“Honestly,” she clucked. “what're the two of you like?”

“You sound like Mum,” Zoe accused before slipping behind Jack's back to fix it. “And blame the Doctor. I was the innocent party in all this.”

“Innocent party, my ass.” Rose flicked her thigh as she walked past, hugging the blanket to her chest as she skipped into the TARDIS. She swept past the Doctor, reaching out to poke him in the side, a small jump and a yelp letting her know she got him in the ribs. “Don't have fun without me.”

His eyes crinkled with a grin. “I would never.”

Jack and Mickey tumbled after Rose, carrying the picnic basket and calling over their shoulders that they needed to clean up first, both of them needing a shower to wash off the sweat, and the Doctor was certain that it was going to be at least an hour before they were all ready. He sighed, wondering why it was that all the humans he knew tended to take _forever_ to get going. Bowing his head in an attempt to track the signal, he jumped minutely when Zoe's arms slid around his waist, her chest pressing against his back as she tucked her chin against his shoulder.

“You could have told me my dress was on inside out,” she said, biting him through his shirt. “Rose noticed.”

“I was a little distracted by other things,” he said, rubbing her hand. “Your lovely arse for one.”

She tapped his thigh. “No dirty talk in the console room.”

Slipping a hand behind him, his tongue pressed against his teeth as pinched the body part in question. Her laughter was muffled against the side of his neck, the warm bloom of arousal spreading through him again despite their _shenanigans_ less than ten minutes earlier. He turned abruptly, catching her against his chest and placing her between him and the console; her eyebrows climbed, eyes darkening, and he was glad that he wasn't the only one affected by the strength of what was between them. Sometimes he felt like a horny teenager, pawing at her, desperate to kiss her, touch her, be inside of her; and other times, all he wanted to do was be around her, breathing the same air as her.

He had forgotten how intoxicating love was.

“Plans for me, Doctor?”

“Many. Varied. _Lengthy_.” The shudder of anticipation that ran through her and into him made him swallow. He dragged a finger down her throat until it rested beneath the V of her dress, fingertip pressing into the hollow between her breasts. Her heart fluttered rapidly, and he wanted to sink to his knees in front of her and feel her hands in his hair as he made her heart race but there were things to do. “Not right now though.”

Her body slackened, tension rushing from her. “You're a tease.”

“So you've said.” Glancing around the Time Rotor to make sure they were alone, he leaned in and kissed her slowly, hand curving over her breast, thumb brushing over her nipple. His nose brushed against hers, the small whine she released went straight to his groin. “Later, I promise. You'll have my undivided attention for as long as you want when we're done.”

Her tongue slipped out to pull the taste of him from her lips. “That'll be forever then.”

“Zoe...” his eyes shuttered, leaning into her, his hand dropping to her hip to tug her against him, pressing his hardness against her thigh. “The things you do to me.”

She laughed, soft and breathless against his ear, drew his hand between her legs to feel the wetness there. “As though I'm any better off.”

His mouth slanted over hers, selfish in his need, fingers twitching against her, thinking that maybe they would have the time, when –

“Do we have a destination?” They jerked away from each other. She shoved him back behind the console and jerked her dress back down over her thighs, trembling fingers touching her neck before she turned around. Jack was fully dressed, his typical uniform of dark jeans, tight top, and long coat letting them know that he was ready for action; Rose and Mickey appearing behind him in clean clothes. “And do we have a mission?”

The Doctor swallowed, making sure that his lower half remained out of sight, not daring to look at Zoe for fear of making the situation worse. “I thought for sure you lot'd be at least an hour.”

“You complain about us takin' ages,” Rose said, moving towards him only to have him dart away, fiddling with the biscuit dispenser under the guise of work. “We listened.”

“Well...” he exhaled, off-balanced. “First time for everything, I suppose. Thank you.”

“So, destination?” Jack prompted.

“Níphikân.”

“Bless you,” Mickey said.

“Níphikân,” he said slower. “It's a planet in the Triangulum Galaxy.”

Zoe twirled a curl around her finger and tugged. “That's a long way from Earth.”

“2.73 million light years,” he said, glancing at her before immediately looking away as her existence was not helping his situation. “Brand new planet to me though. I've never heard of Níphikân before today. I know nothing about it, their people, or why someone would know of me.”

“To be fair,” Rose said, sliding onto the jumpseat and swinging her legs. “People know of you for all sorts of reasons. You've spread yourself about a bit.”

Jack grinned. “That sounds sexy.”

“I was thinkin' more like the plague,” she said.

“Hey!” The Doctor latched onto the thought of pustules and oozing wounds and slowly felt himself return to normal. “That's hurtful.”

Mickey bobbed his head. “True though.”

“I'm travelling with a bunch of bloody comedians,” he sighed, grabbing hold of a lever. “Right, everyone, hold on because we're off!”

The TARDIS lurched beneath their feet sending them scrambling for support, the Doctor throwing them into the Time Vortex head first. Whenever a message was sent on the psychic paper, it was difficult to pinpoint the spatial and temporal co-ordinates, instinct and trust in the TARDIS his main tools, and that uncertainty often led to a tumultuous ride that, once upon a time, would have had Zoe upending her stomach into the nearest umbrella stand. As it was, the TARDIS settled gently in the corner of a busy laboratory, a small fire beneath the grating sending Rose rushing for the fire extinguisher. Outside, the strength of its materialisation caused carefully organised pieces of paper to sweep up into the air and swirl into disarray, distressing the young intern that had just that minute finished organising them. Computers shook with the vibration of its arrival and Petri dishes were quickly caught by nimble scientists who, while alarmed at the appearance of a strange blue box in their midst, were more annoyed that their work was being disturbed than the arrival of their planet's first extraterrestrial visitors.

The head of the laboratory, and director of the research into the strange habits of the plant life in the country of Ulas on Níphikân, removed her safety goggles and contemplated calling for the military police who were taking a coffee break three levels down. She didn't enjoy dealing with them despite how military-adjacent her job was, but she thought it might be the sensible option; tugging off her plastic gloves, she swept her hair from her eyes and reached for the intercom but the emergence of five people who looked relatively normal stilled her hand.

“Oh,” the Doctor said, face slackening in surprise. “Ah. Hello. Sorry. Didn't mean to, you know, park right in your – what is this? A lab? It looks like a lab, yes – sorry. Didn't mean to park in your lab.”

“Who are you?” She demanded, dropping her hand to curl her fingers against her thigh. “And what is that thing?”

“I'm the Doctor, and this is the TARDIS,” he said, patting the side of the blue box. “She's my ship.”

“She's a wooden box.”

“She's got hidden depths,” he said. “And these are my friends. That's Zoe and Mickey. That handsome fella there is Jack –”

“Hello,” Jack grinned.

Her stomach flopped and heat climbed up her neck.

“And this is Rose,” he finished, hand resting on Rose's shoulders as she waved her fingers. “We were called in to help with whatever's happening here. See?” He held out the psychic paper, and she took it from him with a doubtful expression that didn't fade when she read the information on it. “I think you'll find that that's everything you need.”

“You're a team of plant experts?” She asked. “What type of plants?”

“All of 'em.”

“All of them?”

“Yep,” he said, hands in his pockets. “We're a diverse team. We're able to cover all bases, Dr...?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth, annoyed. “Erket, Dr Krav Erket.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Dr Erket.” He beamed at her and looked around at the gawking scientists. “And hello to you all too.”

Krav turned and scowled at her team. “Get back to work. Now.”

“Lovely team,” the Doctor observed. “I've found it makes all the difference having a good team. Take Rose for instance – she makes a cracking cup of tea.”

Rose sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if you even think before you speak.”

“I try not to,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “It's more fun that way. Never know what's going to happen.”

Aware that he was capable of rambling for hours if left unchecked, Zoe interrupted. “Since we're here, could you get us up to date, please?”

“The information is available in the global codex,” she said. “Didn't you check it before your assignment here?”

She smiled blandly. “Evidently not.”

A heavy sigh dropped from her, a headache pulsing in her temples. Between her daughter's refusal to get dressed on time for the school transport that morning, her wife's bitter words biting into her as a hangover from their argument the night before, and now _this_ , she was more than ready to call it a day. Instead, she turned and swept her eyes over her scientists who were doing their best to not look as though they were listening to every word. A pair of nervous, curious eyes peeked around the edge of a whiteboard and Krav grabbed onto the opportunity to hand yet another team of scientists off to someone else. One day, she hoped, the government would let her work in peace instead of forcing international cooperation into the laboratories in the hope of making some dramatic breakthrough.

“Jula,” she snapped, and the nervous eyes widened before a solid body emerged from behind the whiteboard, nervously fingering her identity card. “Get these people up to date with what we're doing and then find them somewhere to work. If you have any questions after, please do find someone else to answer them.”

Zoe snorted, amused, watching as she stalked off. “I kind of like her.”

Not the warmest welcome we've ever had,” the Doctor noted.

Mickey slid his eyes towards him. “We did just appear in the middle of her lab, mate.”

“Don't be all logical, Mickey,” he dismissed before beaming at the woman in front of him, enjoying the vibrant red of her hair and the way it frizzed out around her. “Hello, Jula. Trainee scientist, are we?”

“Er – yes,” she said nervously, her long braid falling down her back. “Botany, of course.”

“Why of course?”

Her eyes turned sceptical. “Because of the Upheaval.”

“Ooo, I felt the capitalisation there,” the Doctor said, excitement filling his face, and he danced his fingers up the length of Zoe's spine, the light touch making her twitch in anticipation of being tickled. “Did you feel it? I felt it.”

“What's the Upheaval?” Jack asked.

Jula looked to him and let out a small _meep_ , her pale skin turning blotchy with redness, her mouth parting in attraction. Well used to Jack's effect on people, they shuffled to keep him out of her direct eyeline and Mickey repeated the question.

“Everybody knows about the Upheaval,” she replied, plucking at her shirt, fanning it gently to quench the sudden wave of heat that had washed over her. “I mean, it's impossible not to.”

“We're – well – we – er –”

“We don't get out much,” Zoe said as the Doctor stammered in his attempt to find a plausible excuse. “We've everything we need in our ship. It does mean we miss a few things though like this Upheaval.”

“When you say _ship,_ ” Jula asked, frowning. “What kind of ship do you mean?”

She grinned. “The magical kind.”

“Not magic,” the Doctor sighed even as the corners of his mouth curled. “This Upheaval – so important it needs to be capitalised – what is it?”

Glancing between them, uncertain if she was being hazed, she hesitated.

The internship wasn't turning out at all like she had hoped and their arrival was the most exciting thing that had happened since her first day. Instead of getting coffee and carefully transferring samples between the labs, she was being given an opportunity to do something different; even if it was a joke, it was far more preferable than having to reorganise the paperwork again. Besides, not one of them looked to be the sort to be cruel and tease her, they looked honestly ignorant of the only thing that mattered on the planet any more, and her curiosity was piqued. Tugging on her lap coat, smoothing her hand over her frizzy hair, self-conscious in front of Jack, she decided to play along.

“Follow me,” she said. “It's easier if I show you.”

As she turned, the Doctor's head snapped towards her, eyes sharp and focused as her time lines shifted and solidified with such strength that he missed a step and walked into Rose. A familiar hand reached out to right himself and he looked down at Zoe who raised her eyebrows _._

“You okay?” She asked. “Not drunk, are you?”

He rolled his eyes, keeping his voice low. “Hardly, just...something's changed. Jula's timelines just solidified. It was unexpected and distracted me.”

Zoe peered at the back of Jula's head, the two of them falling behind the group. “That's interesting. What do you think it means?”

“No idea,” he said, offering his arm to her. “But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.”

Like ducklings, they followed Jula down a corridor that was wide and gleaming, the squeak of their shoes against the polished floor the only sound they made as they walked. Swiping her badge across a set of double doors, she led them into a darkened room. On the walls around them were small nodules that emitted a variety of different light and sound, their attempt at communicating with what they didn't understand. Approaching the wall at the end, she swiped her badge across the panel and the wall began to move, a stiff, articulated sound making her wince as it slowly lifted up to reveal the clear wall-to-ceiling panel behind it.

“Whoa,” Rose breathed, eyes wide as they stared at the dense mass of flora and fauna that writhed against the barrier. “That's a lot of plants.”

“Plants that are moving,” Zoe said, fascinated. She stretched out a hand and touched her fingertips to the surface. “Are they growing?”

“Kind of,” Jula said. “This building used to a paper factory, and that room used to be the main processing area before the Upheaval. This –” she tapped on the clear panel, “is the only thing we've found that keeps the plant life in place but there's a scarcity of it these days.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

The darkness helped her, shrouding him in shadows so that she wasn't able see him, distracting her from his good looks.

“Because it needs to be produced in a factory,” she explained, “but all the factories are overrun by plant life. Not just in Ulas but all the over world. You have to know this. Everyone does.”

The Doctor ran his finger around Zoe's on the glass, watching the plants curiously. “We're not from around here.”

“This is happening everywhere.”

“Like I said –” he looked around and smiled at her. “We're not from around here.”

Confusion flickered across her face. “I don't understand what that means.”

“That's okay,” he said, dropping his hand to Zoe's shoulder, squeezing. “I don't understand this Upheaval. Think that makes us even, don't you?” Jula didn't understand him but she thought she liked him. “So, the planet was taken over by the plants. I assume that happened quickly?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“When did it start?”

_Who are you?_ Jula wanted to ask, tongue darting out to wet her dry lips.

She wondered if he would tell her if she asked.

“About twenty years ago,” she said, pushing the question back, observing instead, collecting data. “We've been trying to figure out why ever since. Most people study botany these days because we need all the brain power we can get to fix the planet.”

“Sorry,” Mickey interrupted. “Hold on. You're tellin' us that plants have taken over the planet?”

“Yes,” Jula nodded. “Well, a little. It's a bit different.”

Jack rubbed his left eye. “How different?”

“The plants haven't overrun the _whole_ planet,” she said. “More like, specific areas. Production areas like factories, processing plants, refineries, energy tunnels, those sorts of places. Most places are unaffected by it but there are always patches of the Upheaval here and there, just...isolated.”

“That's strange,” Zoe said. “Really strange, actually.”

“Why?” Rose asked. “I mean, I know it's strange, but _why_ is it strange?”

“Plants generally don't inhabit urban spaces, and they certainly don't grow over factories that are being used,” she said. “Human activity normally prevents that from happening for a number of reason: heat, radiation, actual physical maintenance, and the like. It's more likely to happen in places that have been abandoned like Chernobyl and Krakov.”

Rose nodded, slowly as she thought it through. “So, it's weird that it's not slowin' down because these guys are tryin' to stop it?”

“Pretty much.”

“It's weird for a whole host of reasons,” the Doctor said, looking back at Jula. “You say this is happening everywhere?”

“Everywhere,” she confirmed, picking at the hem of her lab coat. “Um – there's another oddity that you probably won't know about since you lot seem to not know anything about this.” He smiled at her, enjoying cheek. “The plants are growing in the wrong place.”

“Well, yeah, you just said they're growin' in factories,” Mickey said.

“No, I mean we're getting flora and fauna in Ulas that's only seen in Haran,” Jula said. “They're two very really climates.”

Zoe nodded. “Like mangoes in Britain.”

“I don't know what that means,” she said. “But this strange diversity is happening everywhere and no one's been able to figure out why. It's called the Upheaval because it changed everything for our planet. Economies collapsed, poverty increased, homelessness is at an all time high, and people are starving to death because we don't have the machinery to farm on a large scale any more. In the last twenty years, 3.4 billion people've died.”

“Fuck me,” the Doctor said, taken aback, and his friends stared at him in surprise, unused to hearing him curse. “I'm sorry, that was very rude. Extremely rude. Clearly I'm picking up some bad habits from Zoe.”

“Hey,” she protested, frowning in his direction before shifting her attention back to the matter at hand. “3.4 billion people have died because of this?”

“Yes.”

“I guess we know where the message came from then,” Rose said. “Someone on the planet must've sent it.”

“Maybe,” the Doctor mused, troubled. “Jula, I'm sorry this is happening to you. I am. We're going to do our best to help you fix it.”

“How?” She didn't want to be sceptical but it was hard not to be when her whole life had been spent in the shadow of the Upheaval. “We've had our best minds working on this for two decades now and there's nothing they can do.”

“I hate to say this,” Jack said, “believe me I do because it's only going to make his ego grow, but the Doctor's got a better brain than all your scientists combined. If he can't find a solution, then there isn't one.”

The Doctor beamed at him. “I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said about me.”

“You don't hear what I say about your ass.”

“And you've ruined it,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “But tell me, Jula, what was the trigger point for the Upheaval? And, what have you been doing to try and stop it?”

“We haven't been able to determine an exact trigger point,” she said, turning her ID card over and over in her hands. “We think it began twenty years ago in Mana –”

“Which is...?” Jack trailed off hoping she would finish the sentence for him. When she didn't, he completed his question. “What exactly?”

“Mana is the largest country on Níphikân,” she said. “It's heavily industrialised with factories in every city. Really poor though.”

“I want to look at the records,” the Doctor said, thinking as he spoke. “All of them, from the first recorded instance to now.”

There was a side office that was used more as a storage room than anything else, but it was out of the way and had a working computer, which wasn't always a given when one took into account how stretched the budget for the facility was lately. The global government wanted results but they weren't willing to pay for them when there was mass starvation; the general public were giving up hope that there was going to be a solution to the Upheaval and many were questioning whether or not they should turn their sights back to the space programme that had been picking up steam before the changes. Jula thought that was silly; they needed fossil fuels to get into space and it was clear that they weren't going to get it, and the renewable energy sources they had were being pumped into keeping people alive day after day. There was no choice but to press ahead with the botanical research and hope against hope they might one day unearth a particular string of genetic code that would allow them to alter the plants, pushing them back where they belonged.

“Ooo, this is interesting,” the Doctor chimed twenty minutes later as Zoe scanned a pile of dusty newspapers and Rose helped Jula sort the paperwork she had carried into the room, deciding they were more interesting company that the small nook of the lab she had claimed as her own. “Plants that weren't poisonous before are now poisonous. Blimey, that's unexpected.”

“It's what's making feeding people so difficult,” Jula said, sliding a magnetic clip onto the newly organised papers. “What we used to eat's now inedible. Thousands of people die every time a food source turns poisonous. We haven't been able to find the cause as the soil remains the same.”

“It sounds like everything's remained the same except that the plants decided to completely freak out,” Jack said.

Her cheeks darkened but she was able to speak as long as she didn't look directly at him. “Yes.”

“What about this?” Mickey asked, flicking through faded magazines that were nearly half a century out of date. “It looks like there were lots of natural disasters before the first Upheaval thing. Landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, an' the like, way more than what happens on Earth. Is this normal?”

“They haven't happened in a really long time,” Jula said. “I don't remember any happening in my lifetime.”

“How old are you?” Rose asked.

“Twenty-two.”

“So you wouldn't remember if there was one,” she said, thoughtfully, looking over at the Doctor. “Coincidence?”

“You know how I feel about coincidences.”

“Never ignore them unless you're busy.”

“Exactly.”

“We're not busy.”

“No, we're not,” he said, pulling the magazine out of Mickey's hand and scanning with a quick flick of his eyes. He repeated it with nine others before spinning in his chair, the slow creak of the springs making Zoe's eye twitch. “Natural disasters dating back fifty years, plant life going crazy for twenty years: starvation, mass death, and no discernable source. 'Tis curiouser and curiouser.”

“This might be daft,” Zoe said, leaning back in her chair as she propped her on a filing cabinet, distracting the Doctor with a glimpse up her dress. “But have you tried speaking to the plants?”

Rose nodded. “You're right. That is daft.”

“It's not actually,” the Doctor said, tearing his eyes away from Zoe's thighs to shift them up to her face, a knowing glint in her eyes that made him feel hot and prickly. “You chatter to your plants all the time –”

“I thought we decided she was slightly –” Jack swirled a finger by his temple, “for doing that.”

Her mouth dropped open, offended. “You lot think I'm crazy for talking to my plants?”

“Not crazy,” the Doctor quickly reassured her, “but possibly still suffering the lingering effects of loneliness from the last four years.”

Her feet dropped to the ground with a loud thump, sitting up straighter. Mickey tried to curve himself out of the way, wishing he wasn't between her and everyone else.

“Talking to plants is scientifically proven to help them grow faster and healthier,” Zoe said, shortly. “And I don't hear any of you complaining when we have picnics in the garden, or I find you sleeping beneath pear trees, _Jack_.”

“Did I say I was complaining?” He asked, hands held in supplication. “I like your garden. Your garden is lovely. Talk to your plants more, I say.”

“Whether or not Zoe has some sort of mental imbalance is neither here nor there,” the Doctor said, ducking when she threw a magazine in the general direction of his head. “What's important is that she has a point. Jula, have your people attempted to communicate with the plants?”

“Of course,” she said, watching them with a small smile. “We've been trying for years. That's what those light and sound nodules in the main room are for. Another way we're trying is to create hybrid plants as a conduit for communication but the plants won't cross breed in our labs. It'll happen in nature but when we try it, they just die.”

“Interesting, interesting,” he murmured, drumming his fingers on the desk. “This is like a jigsaw puzzle of information. I've no idea what the final picture is going to look like but it's going to be fun to try and put it together. Do you have a plant to hand?”

She frowned. “Like a portable one?”

“Ye _p_.”

“Er –” her eyes darted to the left as she thought. “There's one that we're moving to another lab today. Do you want to see it?”

“Absolutely, yes, please,” he said, enthusiastically. “Can you bring it here?”

“In this room?” She confirmed. “This unprotected room?”

“I'm assuming it'll be confined in one of those nice little clear boxes I saw in the lab,” he said, smiling at her, and she hesitated before nodding.

“All right,” Jula said. “I'll see if Dr Erket lets me, and when she doesn't, I suppose I can borrow it without anyone noticing.”

“I like her,” the Doctor said when she left. “Very helpful young woman.”

Zoe grimaced, fingers rubbing the back of her neck. “When you say things like that it makes you sound old.”

“I am old.”

“Yeah, but like creepy old,” she said.

“So, what d'you think's going on?” Mickey asked him, cutting him off before he got worked up about his age. “You got any ideas?”

“I think something very strange is happening,” the Doctor said.

Mickey leaned back, disappointed. “That's it?”

“I don't have enough information yet!”

“I might be able to add an extra piece to the jigsaw, or whatever it is we're callin' it,” Rose said, slipping some paper out of the sheaf that she and Jula had been organising. She handed it over to him. “This is a casualty report from another site about sixty miles from here –”

“How do you know that?” Jack asked. “The distance, I mean?”

“It says it at the top of the page,” she replied, flicking her eyes towards him, smile pulling at her mouth as he grinned. “In the last month, there've been seventeen reported injuries. None of them fatal though.”

Zoe leaned over to read the paper upside down. “Injuries from what?”

“It doesn't say,” she said, “but they're all scientists. Look – doctor, doctor, _professor_ , doctor. An experiment gone wrong?”

“Who knows?” The Doctor shrugged. “Might be worth having a look at. We can't all go though. Do you want to –?”

“Yes,” Rose said, “but I reckon I should stay here. You lot are useless when it comes to interactin' with normal people.” Zoe opened her mouth to protest that statement. “Yes, I'm includin' you in that too. I reckon it's too much time alone. It's ruined your social skills, not that you had many to begin with.”

She pulled back, scowling. “Is this Insult-Zoe Day or something?”

“No, that's on Thursday,” Jack said. “We had a vote.”

“I'm going to have a vote to kick you in the ass in a second,” she threatened to his laughter. “If Rose isn't going then I guess Captain Stupid Hair and I can go and check it out.”

The laughter dropped from his face. “How dare you? My hair is not stupid.”

“I'm the one looking at you, and it is.”

“It is _not_.”

“Is.”

“Not!”

“Is, is, is, is, is,” she said, childishly.

“Yes, please, you two go,” the Doctor urged, waving his hands at them. “Spare us all the headache of your bickering.”

Zoe stuck her tongue out at him just as Jula returned, carefully carrying a single plant in a sealed container. She set it down on the table in front of the Doctor and worried her bottom lip.

“Please be careful,” she pleaded. “The last time we had a containment breach we lost an entire research facility.”

“Cross my hearts,” the Doctor replied, dragging his fingers across his chest, and slipping his glasses onto his face. “Right then, my pretty, let's have a look at you then.”

He leaned in so close to the container that the tip of his nose touched the surface. The reaction was immediate. The plant curled around and stretched out towards him, touching a beautiful orange and pink petal against the side of the container as though trying to touch his nose through the barrier.

Jula stared, amazed. “What are you doing to it?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor said, glancing up. “Why?”

“That's never happened before,” she said softly, afraid of disturbing it. “The plants only react to the presence of people in the wild, and even then it's not known how and why they react.”

“Maybe this little guy just wants to say hi,” he said, curling his fingers around the edges, and the plant stretched out in those directions as well.

Anywhere the Doctor touched, the plant reached out for him, and he smiled.

“Hello, there.”

* * *

The military truck they had semi-commandeered through the use of Jack's charm and a flash of Zoe's cleavage jolted over a pothole in the road. Grimacing, Zoe's hand flew out to stop herself from knocking the top of the head against the roof; she braced her foot against the opposite seat while scowling at Jack who smiled serenely at her, perfectly at home in the tumult. His ability to make himself comfortable anywhere, often falling asleep in contorted positions during the handful of occasions they ended up prisoners somewhere, was a source of envy for her as she often suffered during their adventures with the varying climates and locales while he breezed through as though nothing was amiss. It wasn't too bad this time as the road they were on reminded her of the M25 just emptier and in a poorer state of repair: the tarmac was broken and crumbling, weeds and trees pressing up through the earth, making the commute twice as long as it should be. Along the edges of the road, lush fields buzzed with wildlife that made itself at home there.

It was beautiful in an eerie, abandoned manner.

Despite the disrepair of the world around them, it was the silence that struck her the most. The M25 was a huge, throbbing hub of activity and it always seemed incredibly loud with the noise of car engines and drivers honking their horns. Yet on Níphikân there was a stillness and an emptiness that felt quiet, _ominous_ , as though there was something lurking just out of sight. She imagined that with a dramatically reduced population then the noise level was obviously going to reduce but it made her feel cold and unsettled. Fiddling with the straps of her dress, she found herself wishing she had grabbed a jumper as it was cool in the van; Jack, noticing a small shiver running through her, offered his coat but she refused as his pockets had a tendency to move.

She still hadn't forgiven him for the time that a small white mouse scuttled across her hand that one time she had been looking for some gum.

“You know,” Jack said, breaking the easy silence between them, “I've been thinking –”

“Christ.”

“Let me finish.” He reached out and tapped her ankle in chastisement. “It's been a while since any of us have gone out for the night. I think your graduation was the last time. Why don't we all head out to a club once this is over?”

“You know I don't like clubs,” she said, a little motion sick with the continuous jolting. “But you guys should definitely do it. The Doctor and I can find something else to do.” An expression flickered across Jack's face, almost disappearing before she caught it. “What? What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That thing you did with your face just now.”

“I did a thing with my face?”

“ _Jack_.”

“Oh, fine,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “I just want you to know that I'm not judging you because we've all been there. I think it's like a rite of passage or something and it was really only a matter of time before it happened to you. I'm just surprised it took – what? - thirteen years for it to hit you.”

She stared at him, confused. “What are you going on about?”

“I think...” he said, choosing his words carefully, not wanting her to jump down his throat as she had about his breathing not too long ago. “That maybe you're feeling ready to start dating again. You know, after Reinette.”

Zoe felt her blood run cold, the unexpectedness of his words striking her hard in the chest. “What? Why – what's brought this on?”

“I've seen you with the Doctor.” Panic flared like a bright light inside Zoe, not ready for this conversation, fingers curling around the handholds as she tried to think of a reasonable explanation that Jack would buy. “And I get it, I do. Who hasn't had a crush on him at one point or another? First time I met him, the things I wanted to do to that man.” Jack's grin was deep and lascivious, making her hot and uncomfortable. “And I understand why you're drawn to him – he's safe, he's not going to do anything about it, he's the perfect person to dip your feet back into the waters of love with.”

“Jack...” she began, unable to finish her sentence because she didn't know what to say.

“But I want you to be happy,” he said, leaning across and placing his hand on her knee, unbothered by the sharp jolt that shook her teeth. “And I think maybe going out for a dance and flirting with some people who aren't the Doctor might be good for you.”

“I'm not – that's – the Doctor and I –”

“Seriously, no judgement,” he said. “I've fancied him, Rose does, even Mickey in his own way fancies him. Look at Sarah Jane as well. She thought she was in love with him. I think everyone who travels with him has to go through it at some point. It's just hit you later than us because you're, you know, _you_.”

Torn between mortification that Jack had noticed her and the Doctor and bone-deep amusement at how thoroughly he was misinterpreting what he had seen, it crossed her mind just to come out and tell him. Out of everyone in her life, he was definitely the best person to tell as he would be surprised but also delighted, peppering her with questions about her sex life – the thought of which didn't fill her with excitement but also didn't fill her with dread – while supporting her completely. He wasn't the type to be disappointed or envious, and she looked at his handsome, familiar face and the desire to lay the truth of her relationship in his lap was overwhelming. It was on the tip of her tongue to do so, but, at the last second, she swallowed it back, aware that if she told Jack, she was going to have to tell Rose, Mickey, and ultimately Jackie as it wasn't fair to ask hims to keep it secret.

That wasn't something she was ready for.

Not yet.

Jackie's birthday was still some time away – the Doctor's insistence on having her celebrate her thirtieth on her actual birthday at the end of January gave her extra time – and it was easier to tell them all then.

It had to be easier.

“Thank you for your concern,” Zoe said, finding her voice again, loving him for worrying about her and her heart. “But I don't want to flirt with anyone.”

A solitary eyebrow lifted. “Except the Doctor?”

“I don't –” she stopped herself before the lie fell from her lips because Jack wasn't stupid. “Okay, I do, but it's not – I mean – the thing is –”

“Like I said –” he patted her knee and sat back up. “I get it. It's just a shame to waste all of this –” he gestured at her body, “on someone who doesn't know to appreciate it.”

The grass stains on her knees and the pleasant ache between her legs told her how much the Doctor appreciated her body but she wasn't about to tell Jack that. Instead, she smiled at him. “Thank you. I love that you care, I do, but I'm good right now.”

He eyed her, assessing the truth of her words, before nodding, faintly disappointed. “All right then, but you should still come out dancing with us. I want to see you try and do the robot again.”

She laughed. “I don't know how to dance like that. I only learnt the fancy stuff.”

“Yeah, you and the Doctor doing the waltz to Hips Don't Lie was...something.”

Scrunching her nose up in embarrassment, she kicked out at him but he caught her foot as the truck bore left and pulled up at a checkpoint outside the military base. Peering out of the window, Zoe thought military base was a little much considering that it was a series of tents and gazebos set up on the edge of a forest that was pushing into the area: heavy branches hung out over the tops of the tents nearest the tree line, weeds growing thick and knotted along the ground, brambles rising up against the sides of the tents, cutting small rips into the material. The growth of the forest looked angry and violent, as though rage had pushed the sprouts up through the soil to lay claim to what was above, and it made her heart skip a beat, uncertain as she took Jack's hand to help her out of the truck.

The air was cool and fresh, and there was a hub organised of activity as boxes were carried to nearby vehicles, and, when questioned, the soldiers escorting them said that the base was preparing for its bi-annual retreat back as the plant life was threatening to overwhelm their structures again. Hand in hand, Jack and Zoe were led into a dark room with computer screens that glared out at them, casting the administrative workers in a sickly glow; a tall man with a scowl etched onto his grizzled face looked up.

His eyes swept over them and took in Zoe's white summer dress and Jack's offensively bright pineapple shirt beneath a light summer jacket, and scepticism dripped from him. “You're the plant specialists then?”

“Yeah, that's us,” Zoe replied with a smile. “Specialists in plants with a side interest in medicine.”

He frowned, unaffected by her charm. “I'm Colonel Lin. Dr Erket's office called ahead. She said you wanted to look at the patients.”

“Please,” Jack said, his own charm only slightly more effective than Zoe's. “We want to get an idea of their injuries.”

“Your paperwork.” It was phrased as a question but spoken as an order, and Jack removed the psychic paper from his pocket, focusing as he handed it over. They waited as Colonel Lin read that they were Dr Jack Harkness and Professor Zoe Tyler, all round experts and geniuses from the government investigating affairs of a classified nature. He grunted and handed it back. “Don't do anything to compromise my people.”

Jack's mouth opened and then closed when Colonel Lin turned his back on them. He and Zoe followed a uniformed soldier who wasn't inclined to make small talk with them out of the tent and through the base.

“Not the friendliest of people,” Zoe murmured, her ankles wet and cold from the dew that slicked against her bare skin. “You'd think they'd welcome the help.”

“They look traumatised,” Jack noted, quietly. “It can't be easy – 3.4 billion dead in the last twenty years and they're no closer to a solution? I imagine that'd make anyone unfriendly and to the point.”

Her lips thinned. “Well, if you're going to be logical about it.”

The medical tent was small and warm with a heavy scent of antiseptic and plant life clinging to the air. Zoe's stomach flopped, nose twitching as the ever present herbal smell brought a painful memory to the forefront of her mind. Her world shifted around her, and she dug her fingers into Jack's hand, breath thin and reedy, as she found herself standing at the foot of Reinette's bed. Her wife tossed and turned in her fractured sleep, sweat soaking the sheets beneath her, her cracked mouth calling out for her long dead children, the smell of medicine and herbs a backdrop to her death. Nausea swarmed her and hot tears blurring her vision; she turned her face into Jack's shoulder, breathing him in until the grief passed.

He bowed his head towards her, concerned. “You okay? Zo?”

“Sorry,” she whispered, feeling silly. “It's the smell. It makes me think...Reinette's room...it smelt like this towards the end. I'm fine. Sorry. I'm fine. It's just a bad memory.”

“Hey.” His softness wrapped around her as he drew her into his arms, her nose burying itself in the warm curve of where his neck met his shoulder, and her eyes squeezed shut. A small, humming lullaby rumbled from his throat, hand smoothing down the length of her back until she was herself again. “There we go. Why don't you wait outside?”

She shook her head, drying her tears on his collar. “I'm fine, really. It just took me by surprise that's all. Seriously, I'm good.”

A small frown shadowed his eyes but he nodded, trusting her to know what was best for her, and, keeping his arms around her, he looked about the room. Every bed was filled and there were two nurses checking on the patients, completing paperwork with brisk, dull efficiency but they looked up when Jack and Zoe entered, pausing in surprise at their unusual appearance.

“Orders from on high,” the soldier escorting them explained off a curious look from the staff nurse. “They're to be given whatever information they want.”

The nurse looked at them, shadows under his eyes from the lack of sleep, desperate hope naked on his face. “Are you doctors?”

“Not the medical kind,” Jack answered with the careful vagueness that was helpful in their line of work. “But we're here to help. We're from the government.” The nurse looked unimpressed so he changed track. “We understand that none of the injured here suffered fatal injuries from the plants, is that right?”

“They never do,” he said. “It's always what you see here: disabled, hurt, shaken up, but never dead.”

“Can we...?” Zoe asked, pointing, and the nurse nodded, rubbing a hand over his bristly jaw before covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he yawned. With a small squeeze, Jack left her side to go examine the patients while she hung back. “You guys busy here?”

“It's constant,” he admitted, scratching his neck, skin flaking away. “People are always getting injured and there's no one here to replace us. This was meant to be a six-month posting for me before I transferred closer to home but it's been three years.”

Zoe winced. “That's shit, sorry.”

“We've all got to do jobs we don't like these days,” he shrugged. “It's how the world is now.”

While she attempted to find out information that wasn't in the reports, Jack leaned over one patient and carefully tugged the bandages to one side to reveal skin that was red and blistered as though it had been burned furiously; bruises looped around their neck, dark and painful, and ribs that were clearly broken. Moving onto the next patient, he saw similar wounds but none of them in places that would cause fatal damage. As he moved around the tent, a theory started to build in his mind and by the time he had examined the temporary blindness of one patient – who commented that she liked the vibrancy of Jack's shirt, a gag gift from Rose in Jamaica – he was confused by what was brewing in his mind.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jack said where the nurse, a genial man called Tibbo, was showing Zoe pictures of his children. “But the blind patient, can you tell me more about that?”

“It's a temporary blindness,” Tibbo said, slowly lowering his phone. “The injuries are never permanent. It's not the first time we've seen a loss of sight either, or even a loss of sense. Injuries that affect sight and hearing are most common, but we've also had injuries where smell, taste, and touch have been effected.”

“Weird,” he said, catching Zoe's eye. “In all the time that you've been doing this, have you ever seen a fatal injury?”

“No.” He paused and thought again before shaking his head. “Not from the plants anyway. It's why the scientists keep going out there. Normally this rate of injury would cause the senior officers to shut it down but, since no one's actually dying, they're able to justify the continuation of the projects.”

He bobbed his head in a nod. “Can I see your files on all the plant injuries from the time that the base was established?”

“Sure,” he said, leading him over to his computer, pulling open the old records. “Everything's there: names of the patients, when and where the injuries happened, pictures. You need anything else?”

“No, this is good, thanks,” Jack said.

Not sure where he was going with his theory – or even what his theory was – Zoe looked back to Tibbo. “Have you ever been into the forest?”

“No, not at all,” he said, suddenly nervous. “To be honest, I wish I wasn't as close as I was. It creeps me out.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, eyes looking at the dark shadows on the canvas walls. “It creeps me out a little too.”

Uninterested in the recorded notes along the side, Jack scanned images of barely legible handwriting, barely legible, clicking through to view the accompanying pictures. He sat down in the chair and moved through the first few dozen pictures that simply confirmed what he originally thought: burns, lacerations, bruises, sensory deprivation, broken bones, but nothing fatal, and nothing that _could_ develop into a fatality. All of the injuries came from the plants, he was certain of that because of the bruising that wrapped around throats and arms; no human hands were able to get such a solid, comprehensive grip, and the lack of finger marks was telling. He leaned back in his chair and was thinking hard when Zoe appeared next to him, the soft linen of her dress brushing his hand.

“What is it?” She asked as her new friend tended to a patient. “You've got your thinking face on.”

“These are defensive wounds,” Jack said, pointing at the screen. “I recognise them from my training at the Agency. We had this class where we were taught self-defence but then to practice it people would jump out at us when we didn't expect it and try to kill us –”

“ _Jesus_.”

“No, it was good,” he assured her. “It worked really well actually, but I was one of the instructors for the course at one point and a lot of the injuries I got from the students are similar to these.”

She gestured with her finger at the picture before them. “It does look as though this person's been strangled.”

“And when you're strangling someone, you strangle them unconscious but then stop,” he told her, and she nodded as though that was something she had done even though the most physical violence she had enacted upon another person was a couple of broken fingers in France and a sprained wrist on the tube in London. “Plants shouldn't know when to stop but it's clear they are stopping. I think these plants are acting in self-defence.”

“That implies a level of intelligence we haven't considered,” Zoe said, hand on his shoulder. “You think they're sentient?” She held up her hand before he answered and fine-tuned her question. “More sentient than normal plants are, that is.”

“I think it's not something we can dismiss,” he told her. “I know it creeps you out but I want to go and have a look at the plants in their natural habitat.”

Her face twisted with displeasure and caution. “You don't actually know a lot about plants though.”

“No, true, but you do.” He tilted his head back to look up at her. “And I know about survival instincts in a number of different species. I know what it looks like when something feels threatened. We won't be able to see it properly in the lab with the others because there's that wall between us. We need to be immersed in the environment and between the two of us we can figure it out.” She worried a hangnail on her middle finger and he was a little surprised by her reluctance to go into danger as it had never worried her before. “I can go alone.”

“Don't be daft,” Zoe said swiftly, levelling an unimpressed scowl at him. “I don't actually know why I'm nervous. I just feel...this place is making me uncomfortable.”

“I think it's the quiet,” Jack said. “It's unsettling.”

She scratched her nails against the back of his head. “Come on then. Let's go and get Colonel Lin to give us an escort.”

He smiled at her and rose to his feet, taking her hand again. She waved goodbye to Tibbo and let Jack lead her out of the tent, unable to shake the sensation of something watching her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw nothing but the dark forest behind them.

Shivering, she walked closer to Jack.


	26. Chapter 26

The moment Zoe left the room with her arm tucked through Jack's, her dress gently shifting about her calves, the worry that hummed in the Doctor whenever she was out of sight ignited. Worrying about her was a fruitless endeavour as she tended to do whatever she pleased with very little regard for her personal safety, but he worried nonetheless. With the military base 24km away and the TARDIS tucked safely in a corner of Dr Erket's lab, he estimated that it would take a minimum of five minutes to get to her in the event of an emergency, of which he was sure there was going to be one: it was them after all. In five minutes, all manner of horrors and troubles could be enacted, and he wanted to hurry after her but he restrained himself with the reminder that she had survived the wastelands of Skaro without him and was certain to survive whatever Níphikân was going to throw at them.

Besides, Jack was with her to temper the more audacious impulses that came with forgetting that she was infinitely more breakable than she believed herself to be; though, Jack – for all his strict adherence to health and safety – was no better as he also had the awful habit of throwing himself into dangerous situations whenever the situation appeared. Thinking about it, Rose and Mickey were also the same, and he had to wonder whether he had accidentally fallen in with four of the craziest humans around or whether it was his influence on them – or theirs on each other – that caused his chest to ache with worry each time they were separated. Rubbing absently at his chest, he spun himself on his swivel chair, hoping the spin would snatch some of the worry from him, and he caught Rose's eye on the sixth go around.

She grinned.

Pressing his toes against the ground, he halted his momentum.

“I need to talk to Dr Erket,” he said.

Her legs swung from the side of the desk, the lower parts of her thighs pink from falling asleep in the sun. “You sure you want to? I don't think she likes you.”

“Impossible,” he scoffed, straightening his tie. “I'm extremely likeable.”

“Eh, you're all right, I s'pose,” she said, eyes twinkling. He swatted her knee with the nearest file. “While you do that, Mickey an' I are goin' to go investigate.”

His eyebrows raised. “You are?”

“We are?” Mickey repeated, surprised.

“Yep.” She hopped off the counter. “The Doctor can babble away in science without us, we're goin' to go stick our noses where they're not wanted.”

“That sounds like fun,” the Doctor said, hopeful. “Can I come?”

“No _p_ e.” She popped her _p_ to tease him. “You get the borin' science stuff with the scientist who doesn't like you, we get the fun askin' people stuff.”

“We need another person,” he complained. “When there's five of us, we split up weirdly. I don't like it.”

“Only cause you're normally left on your own,” Rose said.

He spread his hands and nodded. “Obviously that's the reason. Do you think – oh, no, not Jackie. Definitely not Jackie. What about Shareen? Maybe she'd be interested. Then again, she did cop a feel at Christmas, so maybe not. Deano? Blimey, I wish Sarah Jane had said yes.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “We're not bringin' anyone else on board. We're fine as we are. Stop bein' a baby an' go talk to Dr Erket. Jula will probably be there.”

“Ooo, I like Jula,” he said, perking up. “How about –?”

“No – more – people,” she said firmly, taking Mickey's arm and leading him towards the door. “Now go. Try not to insult anyone. Be nice.”

“I'm always nice,” he called after her, face falling into mulish lines when she was gone. “ _Be nice_ , honestly. I'm nearly a thousand years old and she tells me to be nice.” He spun slowly and clucked his tongue. “Humans.”

The door swung shut behind her and Rose walked through the corridors of the research facility as though she knew where she was going, the confident length of her stride leaving Mickey hurrying to catch up. The facility all looked the same to him – linoleum floor that squeaked under his trainers, plain walls with the occasional framed picture of cityscapes before they were overrun by plant life, strip lighting that was just a little too bright and threatened to burn his eyes if he looked at it for too long. It reminded Mickey of a hospital, one that was without patients but still a hospital, the only difference being that instead of the sharp smell of antiseptic, the fragrance from the plants and trees filled the corridors with a heavy scent that made his nose itch and his allergies begin to flare. He dug in his pocket for the small packet of antihistamines Jack had found for him that morning when a picnic was clearly going to be the day's events, and he swallowed a pill dry as Rose pushed a door open only to close it again upon discovering that it was a bathroom. He watched her as she peered through various window slats, skipping down the stairwell with energy that fizzed through her.

“Where are we goin'?” Mickey asked.

“The cafeteria,” she said over her shoulder. “Best place to find out all the gossip. People like to talk over food an' coffee, just like home.”

“Why we lookin' for gossip?” He slipped on the edge of a step, hands flying out to catch himself on the railing, heart pounding at the near fall. “We need to figure out the natural disaster thing.”

“Mickey, Mickey, Mickey,” she said with an exaggerated sigh of patience that made his mouth curve. “That's what the Doctor's goin' to do. See, you're still new to this but it generally works like this: the Doctor, Zoe, an' sometimes Jack get all tangled up in the mystery of it all, particularly when science is involved since they're all massive dorks – which means it's up to _us_ to cover all the other bits that they forget when they're bein' all intelligent-like, y'know?”

Mickey thought that explained a lot about the division of labour he had noticed. “An' we do that through gossip?”

“Yep.” She gave him a tongue-kissed smile that had once been impossible to resist. “Place like this? There's goin' to be lots of people who're workin' the crap, borin' jobs that people like you an' me would be stuck doin'. Admin, dinner ladies, janitors – y'know, the people that the doctors an' scientists overlook because if it's not science, it's not important.”

“Right,” he nodded, understanding. “People talk around you not at you in service jobs.”

“Exactly.” She spun around to poke him in the chest happily, walking backwards. “An' I bet the Doctor's never worked customer service in his life.”

Two hours.

The Doctor would last two hours in a customer service job.

One for curiosity's sake. Two for the fact that he would want to make the point that he could work a job if he wanted to.

Mickey found himself grinning at the thought of the Doctor working the shop's floor at Henrik's like Rose, a smile plastered onto his face because _the customer's always right_ or behind the tills at McDonald's like Zoe, eyes fixed on the screen of the checkout to stop himself saying something that would get him fired. The idea of the Doctor wearing a McDonald's uniform, baffling the customers and staff alike with his personality, made him cough into his fist, trying desperately not to laugh because he wasn't sure how to explain it to Rose. Fortunately, he was spared from trying when he walked into her, unaware she had stopped until it was too late, and watched her look through the circular windows as she examined the room before them.

Small pockets of people were dotted around various tables, the floor shining and clear, the overhead lighting bright and unforgiving. Mickey never understood why people used such horrible lighting in public spaces as it never failed to make everyone look washed out and sick. Rose's fingers curled around the sleeve of his jacket and tugged him towards the side where she figured out how to work the coffee machine and made them both a cup. Aware that sometimes things weren't what they appeared, Mickey sniffed it cautiously and took a small sip – it was sweeter than coffee, with a creamier taste that left a strange film on his tongue after drinking it.

Expecting him to follow, Rose walked across the room to a table of three tired-looking, neatly-dressed professionals. There were no white coats in sight but instead ink stains on their fingers and a wrist brace on one arm. Mickey took in everything with a careful eye, thinking about what Jack had told him about details during their late night conversations that only sometimes descended into make-out sessions that left his skin burning and chest aching for the want of more, more, _more._

_Details,_ he remembered. _Everything I need to know is all in the details_

“Hi,” Rose greeted with a smile. “Mind if we join you?”

Before they were able to answer, she slid into a free seat. Embarrassed at how forward she was, Mickey grabbed a chair from another table and pulled it across the floor, the squeaking, dragging sound breaking the silence, before he sat as well.

“I'm Rose, this is Mickey,” she introduced, resting her hand on Mickey's arm, nail polish chipped. “We're here with a visitin' doctor. Part of his admin team. Well, I say admin, I think he just likes havin' someone he can be clever in front of.”

The red-haired man choked on his coffee. “That pretty much sums these scientists up, right?”

“Right,” Rose laughed.

“I'm Hara,” he introduced. “This is Nomi and Ip. You guys here long?”

“Don't know,” she shrugged, sipping her fake-coffee. “Depends on the boss, I s'pose. Who d'you guys work for?”

“We're just general admin,” Nomi said. “So, everyone really.”

“Oh, great.” Rose rolled her eyes. “Meanin' everyone's got an excuse to be rude?”

Quietly, Mickey watched in amazement as Rose created a feeling of companionship around the table. It wasn't manipulation, not really, but it was close. He had seen her do it before when she used to date Jimmy Stone and he watched from afar, worried about the bruises that darkened her skin and the way she flinched when Jimmy moved too quickly around her, something that never failed to bring a cold, pleased smile to his lips – Mickey still dreamt about knocking that look off of his face, wishing he had done so before Jimmy packed bags and headed for Blackpool with his new girlfriend. Back then Rose's ability to befriend people was a defence mechanism: she got people to like her so Jimmy's lies about her didn't take root, and she was now able to use that skill to worm herself into the confidences of aliens without hesitation.

It made him proud to see how far she had come from the shivering, terrified wreck that had called him from a phone box after Jimmy had chucked her out onto the street in nothing more than an old T-shirt and a dirty pair of socks.

“It's weird though,” Rose said, shaking her head. “Like, our boss is suddenly really focused on the natural disasters that started – what was it, Micks? Fifty years ago? Sixty?”

“Fifty,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “He told us to pack a bag – no please, mind you – an' to dig up all the information we could on it. Course, he then shouted at us because we couldn't find everythin' but the system's _so_ out of date.”

“Why's he focusing on the natural disasters?” Ip asked, swirling loops of dark ink tattooed around her slender wrist. “Everyone knows they're not related.”

“Try tellin' him that,” she said, pausing deliberately and bringing her not-coffee to her mouth. “See, I told him – Doctor, I said, no one cares about the disasters. We're all focused on the Upheaval an' – well, you know what it's like tryin' to talk some common sense into scientists, you might as well be speakin' a foreign language.”

“Don't I know it,” Hara said, emphatically. “Dr Tunil wanted to have his paperwork completed overnight just because he was late handing it in. I tried to tell him that we have processes for this sort of thing and it'd take at least a week. Honestly, these people are adults but they throw the biggest tantrums when they don't get their way. It's ridiculous.”

Rose nodded as though fascinated by the story even as her thumb slipped impatiently over the ceramic edge of her mug. “Right, exactly. Thing is though, he wants to know the very first incident, an' he thinks it happened here.”

Watching her, Mickey wondered if lies and cloaked truths were going to come to him just as easily one day.

“He's joking, right?” Nomi asked. “Every knows the first incident happened in the Sura Desert – the Great Sand Earthquake of 3014.”

“I told him that,” she said as Mickey memorised the location. _Sura Desert, 3014; Sura Desert, 3014_ he repeated to himself. “But he thinks he's onto something.”

“I don't envy you your job,” Ip said, “chasing after wild theories. At least our scientists are permanently here.” Hara's watch beeped, and she twisted her friend's wrist to look at the time, sighing. “Damn. Guess that's our break over, back to the grindstone. Nice to meet you guy. Good luck with everything.”

Rose smiled up at them. “Nice to meet you too.”

Mickey watched them put their cups away in the washer, leaving the cafeteria together, the door clattering shut behind them. He looked to Rose who finished her coffee. “What now?”

“Now, we find an unattended computer an' find out what the Sura Desert is an' why they believe it's the first of the natural disasters.”

He left his mug on the table and followed Rose out of the room. “There's a lot more talkin' than I thought there'd be. I always figured there'd be a lot of runnin', but seriously, you guys talk _a lot_.”

“There's runnin' as well,” she pointed out. “Remember the Zygons a couple of weeks ago?”

“That was more Zoe runnin' than anythin'.”

“Yeah.” Rose's eyes creased, laughing at the memory of her sister running away from the Zygons – a temporary retreat, she claimed, only to find something to hit them with – while everyone else stood and watched before the Doctor sighed and went to smooth over whatever Zoe had done to escalate the situation. “She really doesn't get on with the Zygons, which is weird because she gets on with everyone.”

It wasn't difficult to find an unattended computer as there seemed to be more equipment than staff, and they stepped through a door into an office that looked as though it was temporarily unoccupied. Rose shoved Mickey into the seat in front of it and instructed him to work his magic. Despite having a sister who coded for fun, an ex-boyfriend who had taught himself all about computers from books from the local library, and an alien who read binary like it was a second language, Rose knew very little about computers beyond Ctrl+Alt+Del. Mickey looked over the computer, assessing the difference, before he set his fingers to the flat keyboard and got to work.

About a week after his arrival on the TARDIS, Zoe had handed him a laptop with the same fanfare that she had handed him his phone while in Jamaica – that is, thrust into his hands with an impatient sigh and a plea to not use substandard equipment in her presence again. Jack had shown him a similar laptop Zoe had gifted him some months earlier and told him that both the Doctor and Rose had also received similar items to fulfil her need to be surrounded by aesthetically beautiful technology. It wasn't the worst gift Zoe had ever given him, that remained a painted potato carved in the likeness of Bugs Bunny when she was four; he had kept it on his night stand before he woke up in the middle of the night and found it staring at him, startling him into a scream that had brought his mum racing into his room to throw it out.

Sometimes, he still saw the terrifying purple face when he closed his eyes.

“Not password protected,” Mickey said, heaping judgement upon the scientists for their lack of sense. “Poor security.”

Rose poked his shoulder. “Lucky for us though.”

“All right,.” He chewed on the corner of his bottom lip. “I'm in the system. What did you want again?”

“A complete, chronological list of all the natural disasters since the Great Sand whatever,” Rose told him. “Nomi said it was in 3014.”

It took only a few strikes of the keyboard and three clicks of the mouse before he found what she wanted. He tapped a button and the printer whirred to life. “Here, helpfully in one place. That was nice of 'em.”

She flashed him a grin and snatched the paper up from the tray, running her finger down the list, mouth moving as she counted silently down the pages. “One hundred an' twenty. There were one hundred an' twenty natural disasters in the thirty years before the Upheaval. That's – er – that's...how many a year? Er –”

“Four, babe.”

“Right, four a year,” she said, a little pink. Her maths skills were a sore point for her, particularly since she was surrounded by people who weren't only good at maths but enjoyed it as well. “Although, most of them happened in the last ten years. Look –” she set the paper down in front of him and pointed. “One in the first two years, then another, then we start seein' multiples but it's only in 3034 that we get twelve. It increases every year after that to fifty in the last year before the Upheaval. That's nearly one a week.”

“It is a bit much,” he agreed, “but why's it important?”

“No idea,” Rose said. “But doesn't it feel off to you? If this happened on Earth, if we had this many natural disasters in one year, wouldn't that be somethin' serious?”

“I guess the Upheaval distracted people,” Mickey said. “You've got to admit, plants suddenly growin' over buildings an' things is weirder than tsunamis an' hurricanes.”

“Course it is,” she said, “but accordin' to this, the disasters just stopped. Immediately.” She frowned and gestured at the computer. “Double check that. See if there've been any more recorded natural disasters since the Upheaval started.”

Mickey did as she asked. “No. None. That's weird.”

“Definitely.” Rose grabbed a box filled with large textbooks and groaned as she lifted it off the desk to set on the floor by him, perching herself on it. “But maybe not actually. This is too closely linked to be a coincidence. We just need to find the link.”

Mickey found it was difficult to take his eyes off her. He reached out and tapped his knee against hers, drawing her eyes. She looked young and pretty and the part of him that would always be in love with her warmed up. “You're really good at this, investigatin' an' the like. Should've been a copper.”

She laughed, pleased but embarrassed. “Can you imagine me in one of those uniforms? I'd look a right idiot.”

“Nah, you'd look gorgeous, course you would.”

She blushed and smacked his knee. “Focus.”

“All right then, sarge,” he teased, dodging the second swipe of her hand. “Where do we start with findin' the connection?”

“I don't suppose there's anythin' hidden on the computer, is there?” She asked, hopefully. “Generally the stuff we need is hidden behind a security wall, or whatever it's called.”

“I can check,” he said, attention back on the computer. “You think we'll actually figure this out?”

“Yeah, of course,” she replied. “Why?”

“I don't know,” Mickey shrugged. “Doesn't the Doctor ever just walk away from somethin'? Or does he stay until it's fixed.”

“He stays until it's fixed,” Rose said, confidently. “He's never walked away before, especially not when someone's asked him for help. It's like Zoe says: there's a way out of every box, a solution to every problem – we just need to find it.”

He shook his head. “When did she get so wise?”

“Probably all that time spent alone,” she said, mouth turning down a little at the memory. “But she's still a pain in the ass to live with. More so than before, I reckon.”

He laughed. “I know! _God_ , I thought she was goin' to murder the Doctor the other day for sneezin' while she was readin'. If looks could kill...”

“We shouldn't tease,” Rose said through her laughter. “She was alone for a very long time an' it's had a psychological impact on her.”

“That sounds like you're quotin' someone.”

“Yeah, the Doctor,” she said, shifting. “Few days after we left you after her graduation, we realised that it wasn't just exam stress that was makin' her irritable. The Doctor sat us down an' gave us a talk about how we needed to give her time to reacclimatise to havin' people around again. Course, we had to do it on the sly because none of us wanted her to know we were talkin' about her.”

“I don't get the two of them, Zoe an' the Doc. They're friendship is –” he slipped through a crack in the security system and blinked. “Oh, I'm in.”

“Great!” Rose shifted forwards. “Where are we?”

“Don't know,” he said. “But this computer is linked to a larger network.”

“Like the Internet?”

“No, like an administrative system,” he explained. “Like government departments. It makes sharin' information easier when it's all in one place so you don't have to constantly email people or phone them.”

She bobbed her head. “Kind of like a library system then.”

“Yeah, kind of,” Mickey agreed, hitting a few keys and a HTML screen appeared before him. “Right – er – search terms. I need search terms.”

“How about...?” Rose thought slowly. “Natural disaster causes?”

“I'll give it a whirl,” he said, typing it in and hitting return. The screen filled with a number of links, and he tapped the first one. “This is a whole lot of scientific jargon. I can't make sense of it.”

“Let me,” she said, and he moved to one side. “You start to be able to translate after bein' around the Doctor for long enough.” Her eyes rolled across the screen and her mouth moved, framed around unfamiliar words. “Blah, blah, blah... _the lack of quantitative support for_...boring, boring, boring...scroll down, please.” The screen moved down. “More science crap – I don't know how to pronounce that – here! Listen – _it is therefore reasonable to conclude that our oil production is the key factor in the upsurge of natural disasters_.”

“Oil,” Mickey said, jerking with surprise. “This is about oil.”

“Check the list,” she said, fingers thrumming against her thigh excitedly. “Find out which of the disaster sites were also oil production sites.”

Rose grabbed a pen from the desk and placed a tick next to each name on the list when he confirmed it. They checked off thirty before they stopped, not needing to go any further. She set the pen down and looked at it, skin thrumming with excitement at having cracked the case open.

“Oil wells, oil factories, oil processing plants,” Rose listed, excitement making her speak faster. “Oil is the linking factor. We did it!” He slapped his hand against hers in a high-five. “But that still doesn't explain the plants or the Upheaval. What could've caused it?”

“No idea,” Mickey said, “but shouldn't we tell the Doctor what we've found?”

“Yeah,” she hesitated, eyes flicking to the light above them and then to the electrical socket where the computer was plugged in. “Probably.”

“What is it?”

“What?”

“You don't look like you're rushin' to tell the Doctor,” he pointed out.

“It's just...” she began. “Oil.”

“Yeah?”

“Isn't oil used to create electricity?” She asked him. “I remember it from my GCSE science exam. We burn fossil fuels to create energy.”

“We do,” Mickey told her. “What of it?”

She gestured her hand over her hand. “Electricity, Micks. We're usin' electricity now. Why are they still usin' oil when they know it causes disasters?”

“To be fair, babe, we haven't been outside,” he said. “They might be usin' renewable energy. Wind, sea, solar, an' the like.”

“We may as well check before we go back,” Rose said, nodding back at the computer. “Find out where their energy comes from.”

Amused by her strict tone, he did as she asked.

* * *

Colonel Lin seemed not to want to give them an escort but Jack was persuasive and they soon found themselves in a changing room pulling on the biohazard suits that were a requirement for crossing into the Danger Zone. Zoe was able to find a pair of trousers to wear beneath the suit, folding her dress neatly up and placing it on the side, wearing Jack's standard white vest over her bra. She wrestled her hair back into a plait so that her helmet was able to fit over her head, sealing it with a concerned frown before Jack checked her over. She was a little concerned that she had her own oxygen supply but was assured that it was simply a fail-safe measure as the plants were known to occasionally release toxins into the air, which did nothing to alleviate those concerns. A cheerful young woman with red cheeks and ink-black hair told them about an incident as she checked their suits over.

“It was all a little funny really,” she said, running her hands over Jack who grinned at Zoe from behind his visor. “Because Dr Chi was a bit difficult to work with, but he got hit by something that made him lose his inhibitions. A team of twelve was dispatched when he escaped and they found him naked feeding the ducks about ten miles from home. Some people really wanted to turn it into a drug but the brass said no.”

“They did it anyway, didn't they?” Jack asked, knowingly.

Her grin turned mischievous. “Maybe.”

“Do not give him any if he asks for it,” Zoe said, voice distorted through her helmet. “He reacts badly to drugs.”

“Not that badly.”

“You ate those weed brownies in Jamaica and ended up crying on the Doctor's shoulder about how Lilo saved Stitch by just loving him,” she reminded him.

“It's an objectively lovely thing and the weed brownies had nothing to do with it,” he argued, pointing at her. “The fact that _you_ didn't cry really reflects more on you than it does me, so there.”

Concealed in a bulky glove, she held up her hand. “Guess how many fingers I'm holding up.”

He blew a raspberry, testing their in-helmet communication and laughed when she punched him on the shoulder.

They were taken to a tunnel that reminded Zoe of a 1940s Hollywood approximation of what space travel was going to look like in the future with silver lining and mood lighting that flickered as they passed beneath the sensors, moving slowly and awkwardly in their bulky suits. With their escort of two soldiers, they moved through the tunnel that grew ever darker as they crossed into the Danger Zone, plants growing around the tunnel, covering the top, pressing in on them. Zoe reached up and turned her helmet's torch on, shining a light before her as Jack did the same. They paused before the exit and one of the soldiers – neither of whom were particularly talkative and hadn't bothered to give their names – spun the wheel and opened the door, pushing through the growth that had occurred since the last excursion.

Stepping out of the tunnel was like crawling through the wardrobe and emerging into Narnia. The density of the flora and fauna was more than Zoe had imagined. It closed in on them from all angles and blocked the light of the sun out so that the darkness was only broken by the thin streams of light from their helmets. Thick grass covered the ground, nearly tripping her but Jack grabbed the back of her suit and helped her adjust her centre of gravity so that she didn't bounce with every step. Trees were packed closely together, vines twirling around them, blossoms blooming up the trunks; colourful flowers looped together, growing in tandem; and large, terrifying plants yawned their maws open so that insects were able to fly inside and begin the pollination process.

Jack swore softly next to her, audible along the comms. “This is amazing.”

“I've never seen anything like it,” Zoe said. She reached out and pushed against the thick leaves. “There's just so much life here. How the hell do we move through this though? It looks thicker than custard.” As though hearing her words, a path began to open up: vines and plants crawled apart from each other to let them in. “Okay then. Thank you, forest.”

“Despite how unsettling this is, it's actually rather beautiful,” Jack said as they slowly moved deeper into the forest: soldier, Jack, Zoe, soldier.

“It reminds me a little of the gardens in Versailles,” she said. “Although this is much more wild.”

Jack took care where he placed his feet. “Yeah, Reinette was a gardener, wasn't she?”

“A gardener in the sense that she planned the gardens.” She wobbled before finding her balance. “She didn't get her hands dirty but I don't mind it. I didn't have a garden growing up, always wanted one though and the TARDIS provided. You?”

“Kind of,” he said, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “We had land, a bit of it, but it was dry land – dusty, with a few patches of green. The Boeshane Peninsula was poor when I was kid, and we just got poorer. We did our agriculture in domes because the soil wasn't right for growing crops. People were working to change that but we were an impoverished colony so there wasn't a lot of green stuff or birds. It's why I like your garden on the TARDIS. It's nice to have something like it to relax in.”

It was disorienting and unpleasant to be surrounded by such complete darkness and a living, breathing wall of plant life that slithered around them like snakes, but the worse thing was the anticipation. Zoe was expecting something to happen: trees to creak around them, branches to trip them up, vines to strangle them. When nothing leapt out of the darkness to attack her, a tight ball of nervousness solidified in her chest. After twenty minutes of incident-free walking, they stopped to catch their breath, and she carefully reached out to touch the velvet petal of a luminescent blue flower.

“What were the scientists doing before they were attacked?” Zoe asked the soldiers whose hands rested on their weapons.

“Taking samples normally,” one of them answered – she wasn't sure which as they were indistinct from each other, though she named them Bert and Ernie in her mind. “The plants don't like it when someone tries to uproot them.”

“Zoe –” Jack warned when she got down onto her hands and knees. “Be careful, please.”

“If they're acting in self-defence then I'll be fine,” she replied. “Well, fine-ish, but what's a few bruises and temporary blindness really?”

He grunted his disapproval but otherwise remained silent. Shuffling forwards on her hands and knees before lying flat on her stomach, Zoe poked at the soil around the purple flower that had caught her eye: its stem moved, swaying gently. Carefully, she rubbed her gloved finger up its stem and it curled into her touch like a cat getting its neck scratched. It was strange behaviour for a plant, and she agreed with Jack's hypothesis that they were more sentient that initially assumed. She lifted herself to her knees and looked up, unhappy she wasn't able to see his face through his reflective visor.

“I think you're right,” she said. “I think we're dealing with a sentient life form. It's probably new to sentience, and I'm willing to bet that it came into consciousness about twenty years ago.”

“Still doesn't explain the natural disasters though,” Jack said. “Unless the two are linked somehow. Like sentience happened because of some natural disaster?”

“Maybe,” she replied, reaching up to rub her chin only to bump up against her helmet. “Don't you think this feels like a fight?”

“Want do you mean?”

“You said the wounds are self-defensive, right?” He nodded in response. “Self-defence occurs when someone, or in this case _something_ , is fighting against another. These plants clearly don't want the scientists to take samples but the scientists need the samples to figure out what's going on.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “but I still don't get it.”

“Nor do I,” she admitted, “because it's like this is a jigsaw puzzle and we don't have all the pieces or the final picture. We're missing the key reason of _why_ the plants suddenly developed sentience, if they have. Why, twenty years ago, did the plants suddenly start fighting back?”

“They were threatened,” he thought out loud. “You don't fight back if there's nothing to fight against, like you said – well, unless your Little Dave after three pints and a shot of tequila –” Zoe snorted. “So they were threatened, but by what?”

“People, I guess. Think about it.” She finally stood. “Jula said that the food supplies are being poisoned, or they're becoming poisoned. 3.4 billion people have died because of everything that's happening. That isn't self-defence, it's genocide.”

“The plants want the planet to themselves?” He clarified. “It's definitely not the first time one species has tried to exert dominance over the other. I can think of ten examples off the top of my head.”

“But it doesn't make sense,” Zoe frowned. “If they're okay with committing genocide, then why only injure the scientists? Why not kill them? Why spare them when they haven't spared billions of others?”

“We need to speak with Colonel Lin,” Jack said. “We're missing too much information to understand why. Come on. We need to get back now.”

Bert and Ernie fell back into formation, giving no indication as to whether or not they had been following the conversation and Zoe thought it would be awful to be so uninterested; they made it back to the tunnel in half the time it took to get out into the forest. After passing through the decontamination procedure and stripping themselves out of their biohazard suits, Jack wanted to go straight to General Lin but the young woman who was waiting for them made them change since partial nudity was frowned upon within the base, which made Jack mutter to himself about puritan societies as Zoe pulled her dress back on. Once she was decently attired once more, and he was back in possession of his white vest, he took her hand and the two of them hurried to the colonel who was in his office drinking something that released a foul odour and pulled Zoe up short.

Her nose wrinkled. “God, what is _that_?”

“What passes for tea these days,” Colonel Lin said, dryly. “And, by all means, come in.”

“Why are the scientists not dying?” Jack asked, ignoring the sarcasm. “Billions of people have died because crops unexpectedly turned poisonous but the scientists who are actively trying to uproot plants and fight this are left alive. Why?”

“I don't know.” Lin leaned back in his chair, faded uniform stretching across the broad expanse of his chest that, on any other day, might have distracted Jack. “Nor do I know who you are. We haven't been able to find any record of you in our systems – believe me – we know our plant experts, which begs the questions: who are you and what are you doing here?”

“We were asked to help,” Zoe said, her eyes skimming off Jack to focus on him. “We're responding to an SOS. We thought it came from the people here but I'm beginning to doubt that. Now, answer my friend's question. Why are the plants leaving people alive?”

He shrugged, a languid, infuriating movement that made Jack's hand tighten around hers. “I don't know.”

“I think you know more than you're letting on,” Jack said, heat beginning to crawl into his voice in a rare display of temper and impatience. “I think the military has something to do with this.” Zoe looked at him, surprised. “I'm a military man myself, colonel. I know how secrets work in this sort of organisation. I also know how the military think. So, I'm asking you again, why are the plants not killing the scientists?”

“I don't know what you're implying,” Lin said, meeting his eyes easily. “But I know I don't like it. We've been ravaged by the Upheaval and the spread of death and pestilence. Do you think we don't wish to stop it?”

“I think you've had twenty years,” he said, words clipped. “And I don't see any new technology. You're stuck using the same technology from twenty years ago and that makes me wonder why.”

Thin skin around the eyes creased as they narrowed. “You're talking nonsense.”

“Actually,” Zoe said, following where Jack was leading them. “He's making a great deal of sense because he's right.” A small flicker of displeasure played out across his face. Her head tilted curiously. “But you know that already, don't you?”

“My only goal is to ensure that the plants encroach no further into our world,” Lin replied, eyes glancing to the soldiers at the door. “And I do as I'm ordered.”

“Befehl ist befehl,” Jack said in German, surprising Zoe. A dark look sat upon his face, friendly mouth curved in disgust and it struck her how little she actually knew about Jack's military past. “The claim _I was only following orders_ is no defence, colonel. It never has been.”

Lin shifted, his voice remaining the same but anger settled in the air around them. “This is our world, not theirs, and if I have to burn every single plant out of existence to reclaim it, then I will.”

Silence stretched between them and Zoe was acutely aware of how tenuous the situation was. They were surrounded by armed soldiers and she doubted Lin would lose much sleep if he ordered them to be shot. Her tongue touched her dry lips, letting her weight spread evenly between her feet, calculating how long it would take to reach the soldier nearest Jack and disarm him if she needed to.

_Five seconds_ , she thought, stomach twisting. _Too long._

“You're a damn fool.” Jack's voice was sharper than a knife's edge, sending a shiver running down Zoe's spine. “You can't destroy the plants. They're the ecosystem. If you destroy them, then you destroy yourselves. You can't have the planet without the plants. It just doesn't work.”

“We will make it work.”

“Mate, you've had a chance to make it work and you fucked that right up, didn't you?” Zoe rested her hand on Jack's shoulder, feeling the wall of muscle there locked tight with tension. “Twenty years and it's the same old mess.”

“Thank you for your astute analysis,” Lin said, sharply, high slashes of colour on his cheeks. “But it's not needed. Soldiers, escort our... _guests_ to the holding cells.”

Jack shrugged off the hand of a soldier as Zoe twisted from beneath the touch, glaring a warning with dark eyes, fingers twitching with the urge to strike out but Jack passed his arm across her, keeping her a step behind him.

“If you don't like hearing the truth, you just toss it into jail,” Jack said. “Of course you do.”

Lin lifted his tea to his lips, staring at them over the stained rim. “You'll be dealt with by a military tribunal in the near future.”

“No,” Zoe said, a thick hand gripping her arm, yanking her from the room. “We won't be.”

Silence stretched between them as they were marched out of the office, arms twisted behind their backs, bruises threatening to darken their skin: a quiet, cruel part of her hoped that bruises were left on her if only to watch the Doctor's rage unleash on them. They were walked past people who moved through the corridors in search of rest or a snack, curious eyes tracking them, and Jack waited until they were in an empty corridor before he twisted, slamming the flat of his palm into the throat of the soldier, temporarily choking him. Using the surprise to free herself, Zoe dropped to her knee and spun, knocking the legs out from beneath her captor, grabbing his gun on the way down. When he made to sit up, she cracked the butt of the gun across his face hard enough to render him unconscious but not so hard she did more damage than an unpleasant headache when he woke up.

Waiting until she was certain he wasn't going to move again, she stood up and blew her hair from her face, handing Jack the gun. Her mouth opened to speak but an alarm cut across her, and her eyes settled on the security camera mounted in the corner that was pointed straight at them.

She sighed. “A hasty exit, I think.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, tucking the gun into the waistband of his trousers. “Think we might need to steal a car.”

The corners of her mouth lifted. “Don't we always?”

He snorted.

* * *

Back in the main lab and under the shadow of the TARDIS, the Doctor bombarded Dr Krav Erket with questions, cheerfully ignoring her attitude of barely-restrained tolerance. It was clear that she didn't appreciate his presence in her lab nor did enjoy the multitude of questions he threw at her with the expectation of actually having them answered. Jula hovered anxiously around the edges and, aware of Dr Erket's questionable temperament, she tried to make herself invisible but the Doctor kept turning to her and drawing her into the conversation. It was – _by far_ – the most interesting day she had ever had at work even though her stomach fizzed with nerves at being dragged into the middle of a tense conversation. She thought the Doctor was possibly mad – although mad in a fun, genial sort of a way that made her smile and not mad in the way that he was likely to rub soup into hair – but she considered that perhaps her planet needed mad to fix what was broken.

“I've been through your research,” the Doctor was saying to Dr Erket. “I've looked at your thesis and the results and I'm telling you they don't make sense.”

Krav slid a cell sample beneath the microscope. “Perhaps you didn't understand it.”

“I assure you, a lack of understanding isn't the issue here,” he said, tartly, face twisting as though he had sucked on a lemon. “What _is_ the issue is that your research doesn't make sense.”

“That's science, Doctor.” She leaned to peer through the microscope. “Science doesn't make sense until it does. Surely you understand that?”

“I do.” He glanced back at Jula to roll his eyes, teasing a smile from her. “However, I don't understand why you're focusing on stopping the spread instead of understanding it.”

Krav pulled back and looked at him incredulously. “You don't understand? Look out the window, sir! Look at how far these plants have spread and how far they're spreading still. We're losing territory every day. Soon our people are going to be pushed into extinction. _That's_ why we're focused on stopping it.”

“But if you worked to understand why the plants are behaving as they are then you can find a way to live together with them,” the Doctor argued, “instead of wasting your time fighting a war you're not going to win.”

A hot swathe of colour passed across her cheeks as anger pressed against her and her shoulders stiffened. “Wasting our time? I've dedicated my life to figuring out how to reverse the Upheaval and you dare stand there and call it a waste of time?”

“I didn't mean any offence.” He raised his hands and lied through his teeth, taking in the reaction he had hoped for. “But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. How long have you been working on trying to stop the spread? Twenty years? Since it began? There comes a time when you need to stop and consider whether or not your path is the right one.”

She turned on him sharply, eyes blazing. “Our entire planet has decided this is the right course – scientists, politicians, the public – what gives you the right to come in here and demand that we abandon years of hard work?”

“This,” the Doctor exclaimed, thrusting the psychic paper at her. “This message I received from this planet asking for help because people are dying. That's what gives me the right, Dr Erket.”

“This planet?” Krav repeated, eyeing the message with a sour look on her face. “What do you mean _this planet_?”

“Let's not get distracted,” he said as he tucked the message away. “I was called here because someone needed help. Your people need help. I – am – help. Let me do what I came here to do.”

“You're not needed,” she said, firmly. “Regardless of where that message came from, you're not needed in this laboratory.”

“Dr Erket,” Jula said, nervously, mouth dry as she interrupted, hesitance making her voice warble. “Perhaps we should –”

“If you want to keep your internship, you will remain silent,” Krav snapped at her, and she recoiled as though slapped; the Doctor's expression darkened. “I don't require the opinion of a child who can't even properly organise the paperwork!” Jula flushed and looked down at her feet, mortified. “And as for you, _Doctor_ , I don't care who sent you, I want you gone.”

His jaw worked, a small muscle twitching beneath his eye. “Fine. I'll go get my people. We'll be out of your hair as soon as possible.”

“Good.”

She turned her back on him and returned to work.

Frustrated and angry, the Doctor looked around the lab. The other scientists, afraid to be seen watching the confrontation, quickly ducked their heads. He wondered how many of them agreed with the status quo and contemplated how easy it would be to start a revolution – a quiet word here, a little tinkering there – but he decided against it, not having enough information to justify destabilising the world government. Instead, he turned around to Jula and took in the lines of misery on her face, the hunched look of embarrassment in the curve of her shoulders, and held out his hand. She looked at it, confused, and he smiled.

_Come with me,_ he mouthed.

Her eyes darted to the stiff-backed form of Dr Erket, and she hesitated for only a moment before slipping her sweat-damp hand in his, following him from the room.

“Right then,” the Doctor said as soon as they were back in the corridor. “We've got some work to do.”

“But Dr Erket said –”

“Dr Erket said a lot of things just then,” he interrupted. “None of them sensible or reasonable. I was called here to help and I'm not leaving until I've done just that. You up for helping me, Jula?”

In the face of his cheerful determination, her mood brightened. “Helping you with what?”

“Fixing your planet,” he said as though all it would take was an afternoon of work and some elbow grease. “Although, I don't actually know where to start. Not really, but I thought I'd try and speak with the plants.”

Her brow crinkled. “How?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” His brown eyes shone and his hair was sticking up in every direction; Jula thought him mad but she nodded. “I'm not from around here.”

She snorted, cheeks flushing with embarrassment at the sound. “Yeah, I kind of gathered.”

“No, I mean –” he pointed up towards the ceiling. “I'm really not from around here.”

Jula looked up and it took a long second for her to grasp his meaning. Her mouth dropped open and she snapped her eyes back to him and _stared_.

“You mean –? You're from –?” She covered her mouth with her free hand and whispered through her fingers. “ _Alien_?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, pleased. “Does that bother you?”

“No,” Jula said, quickly, looking at him with sharper eyes. “You look like me.”

He rolled his eyes. “You look like me. My people came first.”

“Oh my gods.” Her head swam and she thought she might pass out from how light headed she felt at the sudden expansion of her universe. “You're an alien. I'm holding an alien hand. I'm talking to an alien. Wait –” she squinted at him. “How come I understand you? Shouldn't you be speaking alien or something?”

The delight that suffused his face made him look like a small boy, and he rocked back on his heels. “I like you. You're smart and quick and really brilliant. But, to answer your question, I'm very clever. I speak lots of languages, including yours.”

“Right, okay,” she said, mouth dry. “So, this is what you do then? Go around helping people?”

“More or less,” he nodded. “Sometimes there's fun in between. Recently, we went to a funfair.” He paused and frowned. “Although, that's not the best example. There was a corrupted computer system holding the survivors of a nuclear disaster hostage and Rose got stuck in said computer system and had to outwit the intelligence that'd evolved there. It all worked out but was a touch unpleasant, but we do actually have fun. Proper fun, not just terrifying life-threatening fun.”

“They're alien too!” The realisation struck Jula suddenly, making her gasp before her eyes narrowed as a thought popped into her mind. “Actually, that explains your really handsome friend.”

The Doctor laughed and rubbed his eye. “Yeah, Jack's something else all right. So, Jula, you in?”

“I'm probably already fired, so why not?” A grin started to pull at her lips, excitement sending prickles of energy to her fingers and toes. “I'm in.”

“That's the spirit,” he beamed, swinging their hands between them. “Now, can you get me back into that room with all the plants? You know, the dark one?”

Hand tucked safely in his, Jula led the Doctor back to the room and swiped them inside. The darkness was broken only by the streaks of different coloured light that emerged from the boxes where varying plants were under observation and experimentation. Bypassing them, he tried to raise the shutter once more, hands flapping useless at it, only to step aside when Jula leaned past him and quietly swiped her card over the reader. Absently, he reached out to toy with the lanyard around her neck before snatching his hand back, realising that inappropriate fondling of non-Zoe-owned garments was probably not a good idea if he wanted Zoe to continue sleeping with him.

Marvelling at his growth, the plants behind the clear pane shifted and slithered against it, catching his attention.

Slowly, he pressed a hand to the clear pane.

“How are you going to talk to them?” Jula asked, voice pitched into a low whisper even though they were alone. The dark room and the secretive nature of their presence there made whispering feel appropriate. “Because we really have tried all sorts of things.”

He glanced down at her. “Not telepathy though, I'm willing to bet.”

“Telepathy?” She repeated. “That's a real thing?”

“It is for me,” the Doctor said. “My people were mildly telepathic. It's how we connected to each other and sometimes I'm able to reach out to other telepathic races to communicate with them.”

“Other races?” Jula repeated, eagerness coating her voice. “How many species are out there?”

“Oh, more than you could possibly imagine,” he said, eyes crinkling as he smiled at her. It had been a while since Rose and Zoe were so enthusiastic and _fresh_ about the basics, and though Mickey was still delightfully overwhelmed by certain things, it was nice to have completely fresh eyes to see everything through. “The universe is teeming with life. I'm from one planet, Jack's from another, and Rose, Zoe, and Mickey are from a third. And that number is infinitesimally small compared to everything else.”

She blinked rapidly, the information shouldering lifelong assumptions out of the way. “So you're going to try and telepathically connect with the plants?”

“Yep,” he nodded. “I know what it sounds like –”

“Insanity.”

“Exactly, but it'll be fine.” He shrugged out of his coat and settled on the floor, turning one way and then another, trying to figure out the best position for his comfort. It took him a minute before he sat with his back towards the pane, resting the curve of his skull against it. “This floor isn't very comfortable.”

Her mouth twitched. “Are floors normally comfortable?”

“No, I suppose not.” Looking up at her, he saw how young she was beneath the excitement and worry and smiled. “Clearly a design flaw.”

His smile soothed her for only a moment before worry began to gnaw at her again, and she twisted the lanyard around her fingers. “What do I need to do?”

“Nothing really,” he said. “Just try and make sure I'm not disturbed. It can hurt if the connection's broken abruptly, and I don't fancy a headache today.”

She nodded and swallowed. “I'll lock the door then.”

The Doctor waited until she returned and was settled in front of him, legs folded awkwardly beneath her, clearly intending to watch him. He thought of Zoe when she was younger and the way she would follow him around the TARDIS and pepper him with questions, or the way she would be just out of sight, peering around the corner as she watched him, caught between her curiosity of him as an alien and her respect of him as a person who had a right to privacy but eager to learn. He had never told her how much he enjoyed those days, his feelings for her then veering towards the paternal and familial, a poor shade of what he felt for her now.

Jula reminded him of those early days and a smile touched his lips as he closed his eyes and thought of Zoe, bringing an image of her to his mind – her smile, her laugh, the way her forehead creased just slightly during sex as she strained for her pleasure – and he felt himself relax into a quiet, meditative trance.

The last time he used telepathy was a little over two years ago when he touched his mind to Reinette's. It was easy to recall the smooth, clear plains of her mind – warm and bright like a summer's day – but it was easier then because she had been right in front of him for him to touch, strengthening the connection. The sudden memory of her warm, soft skin beneath the tips of his fingers returned to him and the forgotten echo of her feelings tangled with his. His nostrils flared and his fingers flexed as he tried to shake the memory off.

If Jack was with him, he would say it was dangerous – _too dangerous_ – to risk touching his mind to the plants if he wasn't willing to physically touch them and, normally, he would agree.

He didn't much like doing it because it left his mind unprotected against attacks but the risk seemed worth it as he probed around empty space for the telepathic connection that ran through all plants, brushing over the warmth of Jula's mind – bright, nervous, and curious – and felt the faint, familiar presence of Rose and Mickey somewhere in the building.

Slipping deeper into his meditative state, he felt his body relax. Sometimes he forgot how peaceful and soothing it was, and he really needed to find time for it more often; perhaps when Zoe was in the gym, he could settle himself on their bed and just _breathe_.

He let his mind drift languidly in the warm, empty space where nothing troubled him and he was at peace. Pleasant emotions filled him when stray thoughts brushed his mind – Jack's laugh, Mickey's delight, Rose's smile, Jackie's raised eyebrows, and Zoe's everything. He let those emotions float to the forefront of his mind so that the plants knew he meant no harm. As though stretching, he reached out telepathic and waggled his fingers, seeking contact with something, _anything._ He bumped up against the edge of a connection and carefully – with great politeness – the Doctor knocked lightly against it.

A small crack in the connection opened.

“Hello?” His voice echoed in around his mind as though he was standing in a cavernous room. “My name's the Doctor. I've come to help.”

“Doctor?” The voice of a hundred thousand replied, echoing and layered on top of each other. “You came.”

“Yes,” he said, deliberately keeping his breathing slow and even. “I was sent a message asking for help. I thought it came from the people of this planet, but I think I was wrong. Was it you? Did you send the message?”

“Níphikân sent it,” the plants said.

“Níphikân?” The Doctor repeated. “The planet sent the message?”

“Yes.”

Excitement and curiosity jumped inside him at the thought of a telepathic planet. “Why? Why did it send the message?”

“The dominant life form on the surface is killing it,” the plants said. “Níphikân has tried to get them to stop. It's tried to find a peaceful solution but they keep draining its life source. Help us to stop them.”

“I will,” he promised, considering that perhaps a revolution might be necessary. “But no one else can die. I'll help but the deaths have to stop.”

There was a whisper, like leaves caught in a breeze, and his muscles tensed. “We have not killed anyone.”

“The food supplies were poisoned,” the Doctor told them. “3.4 billion people have died as a result of starvation.”

“That was not us.” The denial was spoken with the weight of all, and it made the Doctor's head throb. “We do not wish to kill them. We wish to live in harmony with all life. All Níphikân wants is for them to stop draining her life source. It loves those who lives on the surface. It gave them life.”

He frowned. “Wait, just wait...if you didn't poison the food supplies, then who did?”

The silence stretched before they whispered, “is it not obvious?”

“You're saying the people – the dominant lifeforms – they poisoned the food? But why? Why would they kill their own people?” There were too many questions and not enough answers and he felt the familiar frustration at not knowing where to start build inside him. “And what's this life source you're talking about? Is it an actual element or something more ambiguous?”

“It is Níphikân,” the plants said. “It lives beneath the crust of the planet and has done for longer than life itself has existed here. The dominant species found it many years ago and they've used it to create war and greed.”

“Do you have a name for this life source?”

“It is Níphikân,” they repeated, unhelpfully. “Doctor, you must help us. Without Níphikân, everything on this planet will die. They are killing all of us. _Please,_ stop them.”

“I will,” he promised again. “But, listen, can I speak to Níphikân directly? Not that you're not swell and all but third-party communication risks losing a lot in translation.”

There was a silence that was filled with the rustling of leaves and the trickle of water over stones. It lasted for so long that he began to feel tired, head throbbing at the effort of maintaining the connection, and he wanted to break it when –

“Níphikân will speak with you.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to thank them when he was pushed out of the telepathic connection, a sharp pain driving into his temple as his eyes snapped open. Stomach churning, he groaned and pressed a hand to his head. “ _Ow_! What was that for?”

“Are you okay?” Jula asked, worriedly, on her knees as she struggled to hold him up.

He belatedly realised that he was slumped forwards and she was bearing most of his weight.

“They said I could speak to Níphikân but then pushed me out,” he grumbled, sitting up with her help, sharp pain already fading into a dull, unpleasant throb. “That was strange.”

“Níphikân?” She repeated. “The planet?”

“I don't know, I thought so,” he said, blinking heavily. He rooted around in his pocket for the packet of Skittles Zoe had started keeping on his person; he opened the bag and poured a handful into his mouth before offering Jula some. “But now I think maybe Níphikân is another form of life that lives beneath the planet's crust. Jula, this is important, what's something that your people are using on such a large scale that it's possible to use up all of it?”

She slowly sucked on the strange sweet in her mouth, unsure if she liked the taste or not, and stared at him, uncertain; realising that his question was badly phrased – speaking tended to be difficult after exercising telepathy on non-Gallifreyans – he started to rephrase. Before he was able to do so, there was a rapid knock on the door and they looked around, startled, only to find Rose and Mickey framed in the glass. Rose slapped a piece of paper against the door and pointed to it. Jula helped the Doctor to his feet before hurrying to open the door, peering out, worried that someone was watching them, before locking it again.

“Oil,” Rose exclaimed, triumphantly. “It's all about oil!”

“What?” The Doctor asked, pulling his coat back on and running his hand through his hair. “Don't tell me we're dealing with the Krillitanes again.”

Mickey frowned at him.“You all right, mate?”

“Yeah, just had a bit of a telepathic conversation with the plants, bit of a headache, that's all,” he said, waving off the concern. “Oil?”

“All those natural disasters Mickey found out about, they all happened in or around oil wells that were bein' used for production,” Rose told him, excitedly. “The first one happened in the Sura Desert fifty years ago. This desert was the main source of oil for the entire planet but there was a huge earthquake fifty years ago – an' I mean _huge_ – which caused a cave in of the oil well an' made it so no one could use it. Then there was the Freena Tsunami two years later that washed out the oil well on the Patran Islands: again, unusual. Every single natural disaster that happened in the thirty years before the Upheaval happened at oil wells. Every – single – one.”

“That can't be right,” Jula said, confused. “We would've heard about it if that's true. The public would know.”

“Sorry,” Mickey said, awkwardly. “But we've found a really big cover up. The governments knew that there was a connection between the disasters but they never told the public because most of their fundin' comes from oil companies.”

“Greed,” the Doctor sighed, annoyed. “That's what they meant: greed and war. Oil is used to create technology that can be used to wage war - industrialisation, capitalism, and _greed_! So, the government covers up the link between the natural disasters to ensure that the oil companies still make money and the politicians get their under-the-table handouts, regardless of the cost to the planet.”

“But that doesn't explain the Upheaval,” Jula pointed out. “The natural disasters stopped twenty years ago when the Upheaval started.”

“Oh, yeah, Zoe an' Jack are on the phone,” Rose said, having forgotten in her excitement. “Hold on.” She turned the speaker phone on. “Sorry, guys. We can hear you now.”

“ _This is a conspiracy that goes straight to the top_ ,” Zoe said against the backdrop of a car engine. “ _Jack and I are currently on the run from some angry military types. The aim isn't to stop the spread of the Upheaval but to destroy all plants._ ”

“What?” The Doctor asked, sharply. “But that's ridiculous –”

“ _We made that point to Colonel Lin as well,_ ” Jack said, “ _and got frogmarched to a cell for our troubles._ ”

“ _The plants are acting in self-defence_ ,” Zoe added. “ _None of the injuries have been fatal, and we were able to walk into one of the forests without any problems. It's only when I started touching the roots of the plants that we saw a reaction. They're not the ones causing this situation._ ”

“I agree,” the Doctor said. “I was able to make a connection with them telepathically –”

“ _Doctor, that's really dangerous_ ,” Jack chastised.

He rolled his eyes even as warmth bloomed in his chest at the concern. “I'm fine, stop fussing, you old lady.”

There was a crackle down the phone as Jack swore in a language the TARDIS chose not to translate.

“Rude,” he said, grinning. “But I think the oil the people are using is a sentient life form. The plants said that the people were draining its life force for their own means. This is just a life form trying to protect itself.”

“ _How do we talk to it then_?” Zoe asked before swearing. “ _Shit, Jack, potholes!”_

“ _Sorry!_ ”

“I don't know,” the Doctor said, thinking. “The plants said it would talk to me but it then ended the connection, so I'm not sure. Maybe I need to wait, or I need to seek it out, I don't know. Whatever it is, we all need to get together again. I told Dr Erket I'd leave once I got my people. We can bring the TARDIS to you.”

“ _Good idea,_ ” Jack said, _“because we're running low on petrol and both feeling guilty about using a car as our getaway considering, you know, everything._ ”

“Find somewhere safe to lay low,” he instructed. “I'll lock onto Zoe's phone and bring the TARDIS to you.”

“ _See you soon_ ,” Zoe said, hanging up.

“Right then.” He clapped his hands, regretting it when the sound went straight through the pain in his head, making it flare brightly. “To the TARDIS!”

Jula hesitated as they made their way to the door, uncertain of whether she was invited or not, wondering how to ask, when the Doctor turned back to her, the corridor creating a bright backdrop against his tall, thin frame.

“You too, Jula,” he said. “You're one of us now.”

A grin broke out across her face and she joined them.


	27. Chapter 27

A crackle of dry energy snapped through the air.

Appearing in a tangle of electric blue light, a tall, broad-shouldered man with hair the colour of a golden sunrise swore when he staggered into a swamp in a failed attempt to keep his balance. Murky water seeped in over the top of his boots, soaking into his socks, the stain climbing up his trouser legs, mud smeared against his knee before he grasped a handful of grass and _heaved_ until he was flat on his stomach, head spinning. Mouth slick with adrenaline and bile, he tried to orient himself, pressing his forehead against the damp ground, breathing in the strong scent of soil. He didn't know where he was but it didn't smell like Earth, at least not Earth of the 21st century where he had spent most of his time lately. He struggled to bring his arm in front of his eyes without vomiting, he squinted and checked the coordinates.

_Not Earth_.

At least there was some good news.

Groaning, he pushed, turned over, and stared up at the grey sky, birds singing in the distance. Wherever he was, the air was purer than he had smelt in a while. He sucked in deep lungfuls of air, grateful for the reprieve from the pollution that burned his throat and chest whenever he was outside for too long. Of all the time periods she had to live in, the 21stcentury was truly the worst. He missed the time when she lived in the 32nd century, not that he had appreciated it at the time, consumed with the immediate press of rage and desire for revenge, stalking her as her frail form slowly got stronger, disappearing only when she started catching sight of him from the corner of her eyes.

_Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,_ he repeated on a mantra, a heavy blink nearly sending him to sleep as exhaustion made a second home in his bones.

Taking hold of the anger that burnt like ice in the pit of his chest, he used it to sit up, torso slumping towards his knees as he shrugged off his backpack and searched for something to eat. The energy bar wasn't particularly tasty but the burst of sugars it dropped into his system was much needed, and he swallowed half a bottle of water before he was satisfied, sipping the rest until he felt halfway human again. His hand shook as he checked his Vortex Manipulator, thumb trembling when it pressed the system's check tab, a soft beep letting him know everything was okay.

Vortex Manipulators weren't intended for long-term use and he was going to need to stop and recover soon. He needed sleep. Not the few hours he was able to snatch here and there but proper REM sleep that let his body heal from forcing it to travel through the Time Vortex with only a Manipulator to shield him from damage. Jumping through time was taking its toll. The Church had told him that the last time he was there, but he wasn't going to stop, not when he felt he was getting closer and closer to her.

Even with the pain that spiked through his head and the way he felt too big for his skin, he wasn't going to stop.

He couldn't stop.

Not when every time he closed his eyes, he saw _his_ body left on the ground like it was nothing, Zoe Tyler imprinted on his retinal cameras, caught red handed.

Enjoying thoughts of the pain he was going to inflict when he caught up with her, the sound of a car engine made him tense. sweeping his bag onto his back, he rose to his feet with a grunt, grabbing his gun. The rumbling chug stopped and was quickly followed by two dull thuds of doors slamming, and his eyes swept the flat plains, searching with hope pressing up in his chest. Maybe, this time, he had it right, maybe he had finally figured out _when_ she was. Hot excitement pulsed through him when she appeared around a line of trees that edge the road, and he stepped forward, surging through the grass, feet squelching in his boots, lifting his weapon.

She was too far away to shoot – not that he wanted to kill her at a distance, he wanted her to see and know it was him, he wanted her to feel fear – but he was fast and could take her by surprise. A grin started to unfurl when another figure emerged from the trees and –

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed.

Zoe Tyler and Jack Harkness jogged towards a derelict house, throwing looks over their shoulders as though someone was chasing them. The urge to roar his frustration to the sky choked him, body trembling with disappointment.

He was too early; _every time_ , he was too early.

Did he have to crawl his way through her timeline until he found the her he was allowed to kill?

She caught sight of him, and there was a flicker of satisfaction when her steps faltered, forcing her to reach out and grab hold of Jack. The distance between them was too large to clearly make out her features but if he was jumping chronologically forward in her timeline then he imagined the times she had already seen him had left her confused and off balance, and it pleased him. Confusion was a special kind of torture for her; her need to know everything, to be in control of everything, would make not knowing who he was agony.

Across the dry field, hand curled around Jack's bicep, Zoe was frozen.

_I know you_ , she thought, heart thudding painfully against her ribcage.

Graduation.

Torchwood House.

Kutlib.

“Jack,” she hissed, afraid to blink for fear of the man disappearing. “Do you see him?”

“Who?”

“Over there.” She jerked her chin towards the man who raised a hand in farewell that felt mocking, her skin crawling as he lowered his hand to his wrist. “Look, _quickly –_ ”

By the time Jack turned his head to look, the man was gone.

Her heart slammed violently against her ribcage.

“There's no one there,” Jack said, concerned. “Are you okay?”

“There was someone there,” she said, straining her eyes as though expecting the man to make an reappearance. “I've seen him before, but in different times, places. I think – I don't know – there was definitely someone there.”

He frowned and stepped away from her, sweeping the area as though on a mission, but she knew he wasn't going to see anyone. Whoever it was had left, and she was left with the cold, unsettled feeling that someone was watching her, following her through time, and her mouth turned dry with fear. She struggled to think positively, trying to convince herself he was a friend like Amelia was going to be, but there was something about him that frightened her. Not wanting to linger outside, she pulled on Jack's arm and drew him further down the path, eager to put distance between them and whoever was haunting her. The sudden desire to see the Doctor filled her, wanting the safety of his presence and his embrace, and she felt like a child as she and Jack broke into the crumbling house, wishing she didn't feel as though she needed her boyfriend to protect her from the things that scared her.

“Careful,” Jack whispered, arm stretched out to stop her barrelling into the house. His eyes flicked over the walls and ceiling. “This place looks like it'll fall apart if we step wrong.”

Wind whistled through the cracks in the wall, and there was a strong, damp smell that made her shiver. The house had seen significantly better days: the windows were broken and dirty, and glass lay on the faded, stained carpet in jagged shards; detritus cluttered the floor; and the furniture was faded and mouldy. An unpleasant stench – something wet and rotten – soured the air – wet and Zoe didn't want to know what had died there, unhappy enough at crouching low so that anyone passing wasn't able to see her form in the window. Jack settled next to her and she listened to the rhythm he tapped against his thigh in order to distract herself from the fear and uncertainty the stranger had heaped upon her.

Her thighs burned in the crouched position, and she scowled at the small pools of green-brown liquid oozing up the sides of her shoes.

“Do you think we're ever going to be contacted by someone just to invite us to dinner or something?” She asked, tearing her eyes away from the filth. “Maybe a party or two.”

Jack smiled. “You mean you're getting tired of riding to the rescue?”

“A little tired of things being more complicated than they should be,” she said, honestly. “This whole situation could've been avoided if the people here weren't idiots. _”_ She curled her fingers into her dress and gathered it about her calves. “It feels like a waste. Not of saving people, obviously, but or time.”

“At the risk of pointing out the obvious,” he said, “Earth is just as bad.”

“Not like this.”

“It bloody is,” he said, startling her with the London cadence that fell from his mouth. She had noticed that the inclinations and declinations of the accent of her childhood was beginning to pepper his speech the more time he spent around Rose, Mickey, and Jackie. “Do you know how much pollution there is in Peckham alone? That doesn't come from renewable energies. You lot are so dependent on oil that if it stopped tomorrow you'd be well and truly screwed.”

She tilted her head, partly in agreement and partly to keep an eye on the large red spider that was weaving a web between the broken slats of the ceiling.

“All right, yeah, maybe,” she agreed. “But I like to think that we'd handle the situation better than this lot. When I was at university they were using renewable energy sources though some people still used fossil fuels, admittedly. You're from further in the future, you tell me. Do we ever get it right?”

He inched away from the chair that gave a low growl, both of them eyeing it warily.

“It takes a while,” he said. “But you eventually get your heads out of your collective asses. Besides, you find a new source of energy in meteors and asteroids.”

She perked up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Sometime in the 3400s a meteor passes through the Sol system and some enterprising individual decides to mine it. There's enough energy in that single asteroid to fuel the first push of human expansion out of the solar system and into the galaxy. It's the beginning of the First Great and Bountiful Human Empire.”

“Well, that's something, I suppose,” Zoe said, wriggling her knee. “It must be really weird for you visiting the 21st century a lot. It's so far in your past we must seem prehistoric.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “The pollution annoys me, _and_ the way food is processed. Seriously, I don't understand why you need to put chemicals into perfectly good food items and all that extra sugar. Why? It's so unhealthy.” Amused and delighted by his complaints, she watched him: he was so genial most of the time that it was nice to see that some things did get under his skin. “But it's not too bad. Just different. Technology's a lot slower but I think that's a good thing. We're all jacked in in my time.”

Zoe tried to imagine his home, the small bits of information he had dropped into conversation over the time she had known him forming a vague and blurred image.

“I'd like to visit it one day,” she said. “Your time and your home. I'd like to see where little Jack grew up.”

He knew she didn't mean to hurt him but the words struck like knives.

She had grown up in a loving family untouched by serious anger and bitterness. There were moments of pain, he knew, particularly with regards to relationships that died with the raise of a fist and bruised skin, but nothing that had torn the family apart. Despite never knowing her father and the loss of her wife, family life was happy for Zoe; her home was a safe, loving place to return to when the universe became a little too cruel. Unable to return because she wasn't welcome was something Zoe had never experienced, and he hoped she never would.

A heavy ache pressed against his chest at the thought of home – the desolate shores of the Boeshane Peninsula with the grey skies and sparse outcrop of rough grass that always bit at his skin, threatening to cut flesh open. He thought of his childhood home, one of the many temporary buildings that had turned permanent when the Central Colonies' Government inevitably forgot about them, and felt a low swell of nausea churn in his stomach.

The memory of his mother sitting in the kitchen as rain speckled the window, a cup of lemon tea in her hand, distant eyes gazing out of the window, seared through him. He was eighteen years old, his cadet uniform for the Time Agency too big for his lanky frame, his limbs still in the awkward, gangly phase that he didn't grow out of until he was in his twenties when his features finally settled. His mouth formed her name – _Mum,_ he said, wavering on that solitary word. A shattering occurred deep in his chest, heart already bruised and tender from losing Dad and Gray, when she didn't look around. It broke further still when he bent to kiss the soft blonde whisper of her hair only to touch air, a flinch moving her out of reach of his love.

He wondered if she was still sitting at that kitchen table waiting for her husband and youngest son to come home.

“Maybe,” Jack said, suddenly aware he had been silent for a beat too long and the expression on Zoe's face flickered from warm interest to concern. “It's really boring though. At least there are things to do in London. Who was it who said if you're bored of London, you're bored of life?”

Not taking the bait as quickly as he hoped, she let her eyes rest on him before exhaling, letting the moment pass.

“Oscar Wilde,” she said. “You're really steaming through those books I recommended, aren't you?”

“I've got a lot to catch up on if I'm going to be staying in the 21st century,” Jack said, managing a smile. “It also helps me keep up with you and the numerous quotes you drop into conversation. I used to think you were really witty but now I realise that you've just got a good memory for remembering quotes.”

Zoe laughed. “You've caught me. It was bound to happen. It took the Doctor about a fortnight to realise I wasn't wise but just full of Star Trek and Harry Potter quotes. You do realise that I can't let you tell anyone about this, right? I have a reputation to maintain so I think this means I have to kill you.”

“Can we schedule it for after I've eaten?” He asked, hopefully. “I'd like to die on a full stomach.”

“I'll pencil you in.” Her grin faded as the sound of the TARDIS reached their ears. As one, they peered over the edge of the rotten mantelpiece and watched the materialisation process. “Good. I thought he might be late.”

Jack stood and offered his hand. “Not when it's you he's picking up.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you're his favourite,” he said without any bitterness. “Personally, I think it's the hair.”

She shook her hair for him, braid bouncing between her shoulders, as blood rushed back through her thighs and down through her knees, tiny sparks of pain running through her legs. “He has a bit of hair envy going on, can't deny that.”

Outside, a cold wind swept over them and Zoe shivered, leaning into Jack. Her eyes searched the area, looking for the blond man with a knot of tension building in her stomach but there was nothing, only Rose standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, arms folded over her chest.

Stepping out of the house, the cold wind swept over them and Zoe shivered, leaning into Jack as her

Rose squinted at them, checking them over for injuries. “Everythin' okay?”

“Never better,” Zoe said. “Hi.”

“Hello,” she smiled. “Spot of bother?”

“Only a spot,” Jack said, rubbing Zoe's hand as they moved past Rose. “Oh, hey, Jula's here.”

Standing next to the console, Jula looked like most did upon experiencing the TARDIS for the first time. Her face was slack with surprise and her eyes round, stretching up over her face as her mouth worked silently; she seemed to be having trouble breathing properly but otherwise appeared to be holding herself together remarkably well.

“Thought I'd bring her along,” the Doctor said, popping his head around the console. Relief flooded through Zoe, and she wanted to cross the room and press her forehead into the crook of his neck but she resisted, shutting the door behind them instead. “She was about to be fired anyway.”

“Seems fair,” Jack agreed.

Door closed on the universe and the presence of the Doctor helped her shake the strange fear that had settled on her shoulders, and she moved away from the door towards him. His eyes lit up at the sight of her, soft waves of pleasure rolling through her at the visual confirmation he enjoyed her presence as much as she enjoyed his, and she pressed her palm to his forehead.

“You're clammy,” she said, accusation sprinkled lightly into her words. Her thumb moved against his forehead, brushing against his hair. “Are you sick? Did you lick a plant? Doctor, I swear, you have to stop licking things. Look what happens.”

A small laugh warmed the inside of her wrist, his eyes bright and mirthful, and the urge to kiss him burnt away the lingering remnants of fear. Being around him was a balm to her worries and concerns, and she was starting to tilt towards him before she realised what she was doing, dropping her hand quickly, ignoring the way the skin around his eyes crinkled in silent amusement.

“I didn't lick anything,” he said. “Just got a bit of a headache. The telepathy did a number on me. Reckon I'm a touch out of practice.”

Telepathy.

_Of course._

With a small sigh, she dipped beneath the console and rummaged for the emergency medical kit she had slipped beneath there after passing out one too many times in the console room in the early days of her recovery as it had been easier to crawl her way beneath the console rather than attempt to reach the medical bay. Reappearing with a cobweb attached to her hair – a reminder that they needed to dust – she removed a blister pack and popped a bright pink tablet from a small black bag and held it out to him.

“Here,” she said. “It's a chewable analgesic I picked up in Massachusetts a while back. I've double checked the ingredients, it's safe for you to take for a headache.”

Hie popped it into his mouth, trusting she had done her due diligence. “ _Hey_ , it tastes like oranges.”

“No banana flavour,” she lied. “Sorry.”

“No, it's good,” he said, the pain easing. “It's already working. I like these. Do you have more?”

“About half a pack left,” she replied, watching the colour come back to his cheeks. “So what's the plan? Do we have a plan?”

“I've picked up a strange signal from the Sura Desert where the first natural disaster was,” the Doctor said, brushing his hand across hers before focusing. “Although, it's strange, the readings I'm getting aren't in line with the previous disasters. It's showing a huge surge of energy in the area. Jula tells me that's not normal. Isn't that right, Jula?”

“I don't understand how you fit everything inside,” she said, dazed.

“Jula's slowly catching up,” he nodded, and Zoe pressed her lips together in a smile, sorry she had missed the reaction. “I figured we'd pop along to the desert, see what's afoot and work it out from there.”

“Make it up as we go along, brilliant.” Jack clapped his hands together, rubbing them. “We do well with ad hoc plans.”

“I feel that we do,” the Doctor agreed. “I've noticed it's only when we plan something out that it ends up going sideways.”

“That's because you get distracted halfway through and ruin the plan,” Rose said.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he said loudly, ignoring Rose who smirked at him. “Are you two okay? No one shot at you or anything?”

“No, it was a fairly polite arrest, y'know, as arrests go,” Zoe replied. “Jack took care of business after that.”

“To be fair,” Jack said, always willing to give credit where it was due. “She whacked a guy with a gun _really_ hard.”

“He went down like a sack of bricks,” she confirmed. “It was a little unpleasant.”

The Doctor turned sceptical eyes in her direction. “They teach you gun whacking in Krav Maga?”

“No,” Zoe said. “But they did teach me eye gouging which I haven't yet practiced in the wild. I want to find out if eyeballs are as squishy as they look.”

Blinking rapidly, he shook his head, deciding to ignore her more violent tendencies, and moved around the console. “Right, okay, next stop: Sura Desert.”

The TARDIS re-materialised halfway around the world. Being the closest Mickey was the first out of the door, where a wall of tight, dry heat hit him; he recoiled, sweat and soaking his T-shirt beneath the jacket he swiftly removed. He called a warning to the others and shielded his eyes as he took in his surroundings as coats and jumpers were shed – even the Doctor loosened his tie in deference to the heat. Jack tapped Mickey's shoulder and handed him a pair of sunglasses and set above slathering sunscreen over bare patches of skin. Never one to underestimate the damage of UV rays, Jack turned a stern glare onto the others and while the Doctor grumbled as he rubbed the cream into his exposed skin, he did as he was silently instructed, none of them caring for a repeat of the Jamaica incident.

“ _Whoa!_ ”

Zoe stepped out only to have the sand shift beneath her feet. Her knees went from under her and she flung her arms out, pin-wheeling wildly, until the Doctor caught hold of her, her hands clutching his forearms tightly.

“Thanks,” she said, breathlessly. “That was – are we going to be able to walk over this?”

“Balance your weight and you'll be fine,” Jack said, rubbing cream onto Jula who was too busy gaping at their surroundings to be embarrassed by Jack's hands on her. “Jula, how are you doing?”

“How?” She asked, bewildered, twisting and turning to try and spot the illusion. “How are we here? It takes hours and hours to reach to get to the continent, let alone this desert.”

“I told you,” the Doctor said, cheerfully adjusting the hat on Rose's head to make sure the shade fell over the back of her neck. “It's the TARDIS. She does more than just travel in time and space. She's great at hopping across planets too.”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I still don't believe in time travel.”

“Give it time,” he said, reaching for Zoe's hand as Jula tumbled and Jack caught her, causing her skin to turn vibrant red when she finally realised he was touching her. The Doctor looked down at Zoe and lowered his nostalgia-filled voice. “She reminds me of you, back when we first met and you were in awe of the TARDIS.”

Her mouth twitched. “I'm still in awe of the TARDIS.”

Pleasure shone from his face. “All the questions she's asking, her quick wit – it's you just minus the vomiting.”

“For which I'm sure we're all very grateful.” Zoe glanced over to Jula and then back to the Doctor, eyebrows lifting. “Are you thinking about asking her to join us?”

“Maybe, why?” He said, nose scrunching into a frown. “Is it weird?”

“It might be a little weird,” she said. She had never really thought about bringing someone outside the family on board though she knew that, one day, Amelia Pond would join them, though that future felt as though it was lifetimes away. “But it might be nice to have someone else to balance the numbers. It doesn't matter what I think though, it's your decision. The TARDIS is your home.”

“It matters a great deal what you think,” he said, quietly. “She's your home too.”

Her heart skipped a beat, warmth and pleasure filling her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, squeezing her hand.

They made across the dunes as quickly as they could. Cresting over the top, they paused and looked down into the deep sand well that held construction vehicles, tents, and terrified people: the terror was unexpected but let them know they were in the right place. The Doctor turned to Jula who was out of breath at the unexpected run, holding onto Mickey's hand at the top of the dune, skin dappled red from the heat and the physical exertion.

“I thought you said all oil drilling had stopped.”

“It has.” She squinted through her sunglasses at the blazing sun on the side of the vehicles. “But I recognise that logo. It's the Pera Corporation. The CEO's argued for decades that we should resume commercial oil drilling but public opinion's always been against her.”

“Guess she got impatient,” Mickey noted.

“Why?” Zoe asked. “I mean, public opinion hasn't stopped the government using oil and I assume they're getting it from somewhere, right? Why are people so against her getting it?”

“She was the one drilling in 3014 when the Great Sand Earthquake happened,” Jula explained. “A lot of people blamed her for the catastrophe because she's kind of notorious for poor employment practices. The only good thing was that no one died otherwise she'd have gone to prison but people haven't forgotten.”

Rose bobbed her head. “Think we should go down there?”

“People do look terrified.” The Doctor's sharper vision picked up the lines of fear and terror etched on the faces below. “And we are here to help.”

Jack glanced at him. “You don't need to sound so happy about it.”

“Do I?” He asked, surprised. “Oh, well. I hear you've got to enjoy your work. Come on then, gang – _no._ Team – ugh. This is frustrating. I really need something to call you all.”

Mickey rolled his eyes.

Descending the dune was difficult as the sand shifted relentlessly under their feet. It was only a matter of time before somewhere fell and Zoe was the unlucky person whose feet slipped from beneath her. Crying out in alarm as her knees buckled, she hit the ground, her arm going tense as it jerked in the Doctor's grip, pain lancing through her before the force of her downward momentum dragged him down with her. Mickey reached for them but missed the Doctor's shoulder by an inch, forced to watch as they tumbled down the steep rise until coming to a stop in a pile of tangled limbs at the bottom.

Zoe groaned and a mouthful of coarse sand out. “ _Ow._ ”

“Zoe! Doctor!”

“We're fine,” she called out, coughing to clear her throat of sand. She pushed at the Doctor's shoulders. “Get off me, you great lump.”

His eyes sparkled and sand cascaded from his hair when he lifted his head. “Are you okay?”

“Other than my alien boyfriend suffocating me, I'm fine,” she said with her own laugh, breathing easier when he peeled himself off her. “Ow, _again._ ”

“That was fun.” His hair flew in every direction and he was half strangled by his tie, mouth stained with sand. “We should go duning at some point.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said, fighting the urge to kiss him. She rose to her knees and helped him up, sand shaking loose from beneath her dress, grimacing at the feel of it where it shouldn't be. “Gross. I'm going to need a proper scrub in the shower later.” His eyes flashed with interest and a grin curved at her mouth. “You can help if you want.”

“You guys okay?” Jack asked, making her jump as he bounced to a stop near them, perfectly balanced, snatching the pleased look from the Doctor's face. “Nothing broken?”

“We're fine,” the Doctor said. “Just sandy.”

“You do like to make an entrance,” Rose sighed, brushing her sister down. “At least everyone knows we're here now.”

Men with guns and sweat-slicked skin were making their way towards them, giving the central pit a wide berth in a manner that the Doctor took notice of and thought interesting. Stretching one leg out in front of him, he shook it vigorously to dislodge more sand before stepping forwards, hands raised, a friendly smile on his face. It seemed only fitting they pointed their guns at him in return.

“Hello,” he said, pleasantly. “Don't suppose we could have a quick chat with whoever's in charge, could we?”

“Who are you?” A tall, dark-skinned man asked with eyes so bright and clear that the Doctor found himself momentarily distracted. “And what do you want?”

He snapped out of his trance. “I'm the Doctor, these are my friends, and I want to speak with whoever's in charge here.”

“That's her.” Jula pointed at a woman standing beneath an awning. “That's Ermina Pera. I recognise her from the news reels. She's the CEO of Pera Corp.”

“Excuse us then,” the Doctor said to the armed men, striding away without hesitation and the others followed more cautiously; unaccustomed to ignoring guns, Mickey and Jula hesitated for a moment longer before moving. “Ermina, hello!”

“He's goin' to get himself shot,” Rose said, pained.

Zoe sighed because she wasn't wrong. The Doctor had the almost impressive ability to irritate the people he shouldn't, and she lived in constant worry that he was going to get shot, stabbed – _again_ –, drowned, hung, or some other horrible punishment that would come about simply because he said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Fortunately, Ermina watched their approach with the lazy look of someone used to getting her own way but there was a thin edge of fear pressed into the elegant lines of her face. Her long grey hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore a simple dress that wrapped around her body, protecting her from the sun making Zoe hope she would also look as elegant and beautiful when she was grey haired.

“Who are you?” Ermina questioned, more pleasant than her men but infinitely more demanding, authority seeping into the curves of her body and the lazy lift of her eyes. “And what are you doing here?”

“I'm the Doctor, these are my friends,” he introduced again before he reached back and grabbed Jula, pulling her forwards. “And this is Jula. She's a scientist. We met today and I really like her.”

Jula blushed and avoided everyone's eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Ermina repeated, refusing to be put off by the Doctor's strangeness. “This is a restricted area.”

“I could ask you the same question,” he said. “I'm surprised you'd consider drilling here again given what happened last time.”

Her eye twitched. “Are you with the authorities?”

“No,” he said before correcting himself. “At least not any authority you'd be familiar with.”

“I work with the military in Ulas,” Jula offered, nervously, the feel of the Doctor's hand on her shoulder giving her courage. “I'm an intern on Dr Erket's project.”

“Krav Erket?” Ermina snorted delicately at the confirmatory nod. “I knew her father. Odious man. I can't imagine his daughter is any better.”

Jula didn't blink.

Her morning had started with her eating a bowl of soggy cereal listening to her parents discuss what they might like for dinner that evening as the news played in the background and now she was standing in the Sura Desert with a group of aliens staring at one of the most powerful women on the planet.

As it was, a flicker of anger licked at her chest, surprising her, but the risk Ermina was taking by being there was infuriating. _Everyone_ knew not to drill at the old oil site, unwilling to risk another earthquake when the first one had been so devastating; and, with the new information about the causes behind the disasters and the Upheaval, the spark of anger began to grow into a fire that spread through her, catching on the tinder of her dissatisfaction with her job, the dry paper of her regret at having to study science when all she wanted to do was write, and burnt across the barren wasteland of her hopes and dreams at growing up in a time when there was nothing for her generation except grinding disappointment.

“Why are you here?” She demanded, her question taking on a sharp edge that she had never heard before. “This area's been deemed unfit for drilling ever since the Great Sand Earthquake. You can't seriously be trying it again.”

“I'm aware of the restrictions, young lady,” Ermina dismissed. “Since none of you seem to be of any _official_ importance –”

“Hey, now,” the Doctor frowned. “That's rude.”

“I'll have my men shoot you,” she finished, gesturing for her armed guards. “It wouldn't do to have news of what I'm doing here leaked until I'm ready.”

“Whoa, hey,” Mickey protested, heart jack hammering as guns twitched in their direction. “That's a bit of an overreaction, innit?”

She inclined her head, amused. “More of a security measure.”

“Don't know why you want to shoot us.” Zoe had found the Skittles in the doctor's pocket and was snacking on them as though bored. “Looks to me like you're not doing anything. It looks like you're all standing around being afraid of something. Dig a little deep, did you? Hit something you shouldn't have?”

Ermina's hand flattened in the air, stilling her soldiers.

“What do you know of it?”

She held a red Skittle between her teeth and grinned. “Struck a nerve, did I?”

“Listen,” the Doctor said. “Between the six of us we have a very unique pool of information and experience. Whatever's happening here, whatever's scaring you, there's a good chance we've seen something like it before.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Not like this,” Ermina said, finally, a crack in the thick shield of her arrogance appearing. “This is...I'm not sure what this is.”

“Tell us,” he urged.

Hesitation glimmered in her eyes before she forced it away.

“Why should I?”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” Jack suggested, dryly.

“You could volunteer to show us, or I could make you show us,” Zoe said, lightly, meeting Ermina's eyes with a smile that sent chills down her spine. The Doctor shifted next to her and it was difficult to tell if he was upset by the threat or aroused by it. “Your choice.”

The hesitation was more pronounced before she relented. “I'll show you.”

Zoe slipped the Skittles away. “Wonderful.”

Reluctance stiffening her shoulders, Ermina led the way through the fearful crowd and across the empty stretch of sand until they reached the edge of the drilling point, heaped piles of sand dumped to one side. The smell of crude oil made Zoe's nose twitch but she leaned over it and looked at the glistening black pool, the surface shimmering beneath the sun, somehow managing to appear blacker than black, and then it shifted, like a pebble had been dropped into it and the ripples spread outward. As Ermina took a small step back, the Doctor stepped forward. It gurgled and heaved, stretching up and outwards as though there was someone inside it trying to break free; it rose up and up and up until it matched the Doctor's height and began to shape itself. First a head, then a pair of shoulders, followed swiftly by arms, a waist, and half of the legs that flowed down into the pool where it stood.

It wasn't the Doctor, not really, but his body as a framework and the result was... _unsettling_.

“Whoa,” Mickey murmured.

Jack blinked. “That's new.”

With a voice that was heavy and viscous, the oil slick spoke.

“Doctor.”

“Níphikân, I assume,” the Doctor said, swallowing back his surprise with practised ease. “This wasn't what I expected when you agreed to speak with me.”

“To communicate through the plants would damage them irrevocably,” Níphikân said. “I'm unwilling to do that. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course.” He inclined his head. “You're the one who sent the message?”

“Yes,” it said. “A scream in the dark in the hope that you would hear and answer.” A heavy exhaustion settled over Níphikân as it spoke. “I've been calling out for so long.”

“I'm here now, I'm sorry it took me so long,” he said, curling his fingers around Zoe's when she slipped her hand into his. “We're here now. What do you need?”

“The dominant species on the surface are killing me,” it told him. “It's pulling life from me and won't stop. I've tried to protect myself but they keep coming. The plants – only the plants were able to slow them down but they still try to take from me. I'm dying, Doctor, and I need you to stop them before it's too late.”

Ermina shuddered. “This isn't possible. How is this possible? You're – what even are you?”

“This is Níphikân,” the Doctor said, words sharp. “The creature that you've been draining your oil from all these years.”

She shook her head from side to side. “No. It's not possible.”

“Use your eyes,” he snapped. “You can clearly see it before you. You and your people have been slowly killing an innocent creature since you first discovered it beneath the surface all those years ago.”

“What happened?” Jack asked. “ _How_ did this happen?”

“I've always been here,” Níphikân said. “From the beginning, I've been here. I slept beneath the surface and helped nurture those that lived on top: plants, animals, and all. We lived in harmony for a millennia but then they came –” an oily nod in the direction of Ermina sent small speckles of oil across the sand. “They came and dug deep into the surface and they found me. They began to use me – _brutalise me_ – and take what wasn't theirs; they turned it into death and began to destroy the planet. They kept taking and taking so I tried to hide but no matter where I went they found me and took more. I didn't want to hurt anyone. All I want is to live and be left alone. I tried to scare them away from me but they kept coming and so the plants helped me.”

Sadness and shame wrapped around Jula. “How?”

“Everything is connected,” it said. “All living things are connected to each other. It was the work of moments to change the soil to give them what they needed to become truly sentient. They grew to protect me and have kept growing ever since.”

“But what about the food?” Mickey asked, and the Doctor shifted, a reminder he hadn't told them the full extent of his conversation with the plants. “All that food was poisoned, it killed billions of people.”

“I know nothing of that,” Níphikân said. “I never wanted to kill. I only wanted to live as I used to: in harmony with the others.”

Ermina wet her dry lips, fingers trembling at her side, mind whirring as she tried to come up with something, _anything_ , to help her spin this to the world at large, to bring Pera Corp out on top. “We didn't know.”

“Liar,” Jula hissed, surprising them as she turned on Ermina. “You knew that oil was the problem, you knew that there was a link between the natural disasters and it but you're here anyway because you're greedy. You want to take this and turn it into money so that you have power when others don't. It's people like you that are responsible for all of this.”

“How dare you talk to me like that?” Ermina demanded, shaken from her fear and uncertainty by her rage at being spoken to in such a manner. “You're nothing more than a lab rat. You think you understand this? You know nothing.”

“I know this is wrong,” she argued, cheeks flushed from the heat and her anger. “And I know that if we weren't here then you would've found some way to bury this so you could keep making your money. I may be just a lab rat, but I'm also the person standing in your way.”

The Doctor blinked, dizzy, as the timelines strengthened around Jula.

_Huh_ , he thought.

“Yeah, I'm with Jula on this one,” Jack said, shifting to use his tall frame to bolster the fierce image of Jula standing with her fists clenched between Ermina and Níphikân. “If you don't have anything useful to say, you can leave. Now.”

Ermina opened her mouth to protest.

“He told you to leave,” Zoe said, her calm, cold tone more terrifying than Jack's physicality. “Do it before you regret staying.”

Her jaw clenched and eyes flashed but she strode away from the pit with as much dignity as making a dramatic exit across shifting sand afforded her.

“I'm sorry,” Jula said to Níphikân, her features softening with regret. “I'm so sorry for what my people have done to you. I promise, I'm going to try and make it right.”

“Please,” Níphikân said, its form wavering as its strength failed. “Help me.”

With a final shudder, it returned to the oil slick that rippled and then stilled.

“Well,” Rose said, breaking the silence. “This is shit.”

* * *

The kitchen seemed fuller. Jula, though quiet, was a noticeably addition to their normal quintet in a way that Jackie never was. The lack of familiarity with their new friend, and the importance of what they needed to do, left them precious little time to properly acclimate her into the rhythms of TARDIS life, not that she seemed in a hurry to do so. She simply sat at the kitchen table and accepted the food – leftover from the picnic – and drink they set in front of her as they discussed what needed to be done. Thoroughly untrusting of Ermina Pera, before leaving the oil well, they had created an electrical field around it so Ermina and her people weren't able to set about draining it during the time they needed to come up with a plan.

“I'm not sure how we can help.” Zoe popped a grape into her mouth and bursting it between her molars. “They've known about the problem for nearly fifty years and they haven't made a move to do anything about it. I don't see a way we can force their hand any more than Níphikân's already done, short of overthrowing the government.”

“Always an option,” the Doctor said.

“They know that oil's the issue but they don't know it's alive and sentient,” Jack said. “Maybe if they know it's another living being, they might stop.”

“You saw Ermina,” Mickey told him, pushing a piece of potato salad about his plate. “She didn't look like she wanted to stop.”

Waving a piece of beetroot on the end of her fork, Rose leaned forward. “The thing I don't get is the 3.4 billion people who died. If it wasn't Níphikân an' it wasn't the plants, who was it?”

“Yeah, about that –” the Doctor began.

“My people,” Jula interrupted, speaking for the first time. He paused, mouth open, and looked at her. “It was the government, wasn't it?”

He slowly closed his mouth and gave a small nod. “That's what the plants told me. I'm so sorry, Jula.”

“The famine happened when I was a child,” she said, carefully setting her sandwich down and folding her hands in her lap. “It started in the poorer countries first, those with the largest number of factories. They produced the food but they exported most of it, except without oil to help with the production the governments of those countries started keeping the food for themselves, for their own people. About a year or so after that, the food was poisoned. The Global Organisation for Cooperation said that the plants had changed their genetic structure. We didn't question it because it seemed like something that could happen given everything else, but they must've poisoned the food so that the rest of the world could keep eating. Kill the people hoarding the food, make it look like an accident, take over production.”

A heavy, horrible silence hung over the kitchen before Rose released a shaky breath. “ _God_.”

“3.4 billion people,” Jula said, softly, eyes turned down to the tight fists pressing into her lap, knuckles white with pressure. “Instead of finding a way to solve this problem, they killed 3.4 billion people just because they had the misfortune to be born in poverty.”

The Doctor reached for her and rested his hand palm up on the table, fingers lightly curled, ready to take her hand if she gave it to him. “I know you're angry –”

Her eyes snapped to his. “I'm not angry, I'm furious.”

“I know,” he said, gently. “Believe me, I understand the anger you're feeling right now, but we can't change the past –”

Jula stared at him. “You said this is a time machine. Can't we go back in time and stop this before it even started?”

“Time doesn't work like that,” the Doctor said with a small wince. “The paradox would be too big to maintain. We can only change the here and now. I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but it is.”

“The governments won't help,” she protested. “They've shown that they're not capable of doing what they need to because it all comes back to money in the end. I think...”

She trailed off , blinking with thought.

Mickey set down his fork and prompted her with a careful, “you think?”

“There are people like me all over the world,” she said, an idea forming in her mind. “People who will be horrified to know what's happened, what's _still_ happening. There's a movement that's been pushing for a switch to renewable energy for decades but the government keeps silencing them.” She bit down hard on her bottom lip and frowned. “I think they might be able to get the word out.”

“That's an idea: getting the word out,” Jack said with a nod. “If we could find a way to broadcast the truth to the population at large then that might just be enough to force the governments' hands. Even if it's not, it puts the truth out there.”

“What if we get Níphikân to speak on camera?” Rose suggested. “I'm sure there must be cameras or somethin' in here that we can use. We record it speakin', tellin' the truth about what's happened, an' we broadcast it out. Is that possible?”

The Doctor stroked his sideburn, half-splayed across the table as though he had had one too many ginger beers and was challenging Rose to an arm wrestle again.

“Yes. Maybe. I think that might work.” His eyes slid to his new friend. “Jula, this is your planet, you know your people: do you think that it'll make a difference?”

Her mouth opened, quivering, before it closed again.

“I'm just a lab rat,” she whispered. “Not even that. I'm a lab rat's intern. You shouldn't be asking me about this. You should be asking other people.”

“Other people aren't here,” the Doctor said. “You are. You're not just a lab rat, or the intern of a lab rat, you're Jula. That makes you special. And you live on this planet, which means you have every right to talk about this. You know your people better than we do, do you think spreading Níphikân's story in their own words will help?”

She hurriedly took a sip of her lemonade, eye twitching at the tartness, terrified of getting it wrong.

“Yes, it has to,” Jula said, the conviction in her chest failing to match the strength of her voice. “I know it doesn't look like it but we're good people. We just want to live our lives and be happy. Most of us only want enough money to lead good lives and to raise our families. Not all of us are like Ermina Pera. It has to be enough.”

The Doctor nodded and straightened up, rapping his knuckles on the table's surface. “Okay, that's what we'll do then. Mickey, do you know anything about cameras?”

“Not really,” he said, “but I can figure it out.”

“Good man.” He lifted his arms up and stretched, dropping his fingers down to scratch the top of his head. “There should be a video camera in one of the closets knocking about, the TARDIS will help you find it. If you can't find anything, we'll just have to use Zoe's phone. It might make the video wonky but it's better than nothing. Zo, can you find a way to tap into the planet's broadcast systems?”

She set her drink down. “Consider it done.”

“Jack, there's every possibility that when we start broadcasting, Ermina and her lot are going to try and stop us,” the Doctor said. “Anything you can do there?”

“I can handle that,” he said, already thinking. “A few discreetly placed non-explosive mines might do the trick; a couple of traps here and there. I could use some help though.”

“I'm in,” Rose said, eyes flicking to the Doctor. “Unless you need me for anythin'?”

“Nope, Jula and I can handle talking to Níphikân,” he said, pleased with how smoothly they came together. “All right. Let's get this started as quickly as possible then.”

When group split up in order to fulfil their differing responsibilities, Zoe retrieved her laptop from the library and made herself comfortable in the console room, sitting on the jump seat with crossed legs as she balanced her laptop against her calves. Wires extended from her computer and into the console to help her work at gaining access to the various broadcast systems on the planet. Unlike Earth, they had a global network that was used in the event of emergencies, presumably developed in the aftermath of so many natural disasters. The system was connected to all television sets, radios, and Wi-Fi towers on the planet so it had the best chance of reaching as many people as possible in the shortest possible time. The security restrictions presented a little challenge but, fresh off breaking into the Krillitanes' system, she felt confident at being able to do her part of the mission.

Emerging from the back of the TARDIS covered in cobwebs and sneezing dust out of his nose, a camera and a tripod in his arms, Mickey walked past her to set up outside. Not too far behind, Rose and Jack tumbled past with bags filled with non-lethal weapons that the Doctor didn't really like having on board but conceded were occasionally useful.

“Hey,” the Doctor said ten minutes later once everything was nearly set up. “Almost ready?”

“Nearly,” she said, keeping her eyes on her screen. “I'm just putting a few security measures in place to make sure that no one cuts us off mid-broadcast.”

“Good,” he peered over her shoulder before pressing a quick kiss to the skin beneath her ear.

She grunted and squirmed away, ticklish and distracted, typing a few more things in before she uploaded it to the TARDIS.

“All done,” Zoe said, turning her head to kiss him properly if a little quickly, aware that their friends could walk in at any time but unable to resist when he was so close. Judging by the way his lips twitched against hers, he felt the same. “Níphikân ready?”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes lingering on her mouth before he helped gather up the equipment they needed at the sight. “It's having a nice little chat with Jula. The two of them are getting on like a house on fire.”

“Good,” she said, tripping over her own feet and knocking her shoulder into a coral strut to which she muttered a quick apology. “I admire Níphikân's patience and restraint. I'm not sure I'd be so forgiving and quick to give second chances if someone had been killing me for years.”

“They can't even claim ignorance,” the Doctor sighed, holding the door open for her with his hip before they stepped out into the heat. “At least not everyone's like the people in charge. It's people like Jula who are going to make a difference when it matters.”

“I hope so,” Zoe said. “I really do.”

He looked at her, squinting against the sun's reflection off the sand. “Not like you to be so cynical.”

She huffed a laugh as they began their descent down the sand dune, cautiously given their previous experience. “Sorry, I don't mean to be. I just worry. More and more it seems like we're meeting a lot of awful people...or maybe they're just the ones who stay in my mind longer.”

“Some people are awful, no doubt, but there among the awfulness there are people like you, Jack, Mickey, Rose, Jula, Harriet, Alistair, your mum.” He raised his eyebrows as though surprised he includes Jackie in the list. “There's more good than bad, I'd say.”

She smiled. “I suppose you'd know better, what with being so old and all.”

“With age comes experience,” he said, eyes turning sly and heated. “And I know first hand how much you _appreciate_ my experience.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Uh-huh.” A grin was unfurling across his face that made desire throb within her. “At least I didn't hear any complaints about this morning's activities. As a matter of fact, I think it was _you're so skilled and talented, my handsome Doctor_.”

Her laugh was loud and bright. “Is that verbatim?”

“More the general gist of things,” he said, and her love for him made her want to tackle him back into the sand and kiss him until his respiratory bypass kicked in. “But am I wrong?”

She compressed her smile into pursed lips and sparkling eyes. “I think I might need to repeat the experiment later for a larger sample size, if you're available that is.”

Delight sprinkled itself over his features, and he opened his mouth to respond when Jack called to catch their attention, skin glistening as he worked without a shirt, distracting both Jula and Mickey in equal measure. Setting their flirtation to one side, they closed the distance to make sure everything was set up. Mickey, who looked up from peering through the video camera, took Zoe's laptop and plugged it in while she sat down on Jack's discarded T-shirt, tucking her dress over her bare skin so as to avoid sand burns. Rose and Jack had planted their non-lethal weapons around the edge of the oil well and were watching carefully to make sure that no one approached them; though, nothing would truly help if Ermina ordered her men to open fire as the bullets weren't able to be stopped.

Activating the programme and feeding it through the TARDIS and into the global broadcast network, Zoe nodded at a job well done.

“Whenever you're ready, Micks,” she said.

Mickey turned the camera on and Níphikân slowly grew out of the pit and took on Jula's form, distorted and vague as it was. Zoe stared at it, unabashed in her fascination, before the Doctor poked her in the back with his toe and she remembered she had a job to do. She wanted to listen but, as it began to speak, detailing who it was and what was happening, there was an immediate attack on the broadcast from all corners of the globe and she had her hands full trying to deflect them. It was a good sign though as it meant that the broadcast were getting out into the public domain, and by the time a nervous but determined Jula stepped into the frame and looked down the camera, sweat slicked Zoe's skin and made her wish for a parasol.

“Our governments have been lying to us for decades,” Jula said with Níphikân at her back like a sticky shadow. “The Great Famine wasn't caused by changes in the food supplies, it was caused by our governments deliberately poisoning the poorest of us in order to make sure that there was enough food for the wealthy. We've had decades to find new ways to live on this planet but they've held us back because of their greed and their desire to accumulate power. People like Ermina Pera haven't stopped working to bleed this planet dry, but Níphikân is giving us a second chance and we have to make sure that we do it right this time as we won't get another chance. I call on everyone to – _oh._ ”

Zoe looked up.

“Oh my god,” she breathed.

“Jula?” The Doctor asked, panic flaring. “ _Jula!_ ”

“Ow,” Jula said, touching her chest. Her fingertips came away tacky with blood. “What –?

Her knees buckled, blood spreading out across the surface of her long-sleeved T-shirt as the colour drained from her face, and Níphikân fell with her, disappearing back into the pool of oil. Rose reached Jula first, catching her in her arms and pressing her hands over the wound, a tight grimace of pain lancing across Jula's face.

“Jack, Jack!” Rose looked around wildly for Jack but he was at the top of a sand dune, Ermina Pera on the ground, her arm twisted behind her back, gun incriminatingly discarded at her side. She looked down at Jula, eyes wide. “Stay with me. Jula, stay with me, okay? Don't die. Please, don't die.”

Blood streamed from her nose and mouth, whites of her eyes flashing, as Níphikân reached out, black oil wrapping around a dying Jula, and pulled her into the well.


	28. Chapter 28

The cold from the winter's wind whistled through the slats in the house, signalling they needed to pack the hay and dry grass tighter into the holes in the morning, and Ermina's bare skin pimpled as she approached the door of her father's office. Careful, she avoided one of the many creaking floorboards and walked along the edges of the hall where the boards were stronger, tiptoeing along until she was able to peer through the small crack in the door. At his desk – a grand name for the shabby collection of boxes and empty package crates pilfered from his day job – Olan Pera hunched over a notepad, shoulders hitched up around his ears, muttering to himself as he worked. Ermina hadn't seen him for three days as he had taken extra shifts at the factory to pay for the hole in the roof the last storm had left behind. She knew she wasn't supposed to disturb him when he was in his office but she was bored and thought the risk of being caught was better than being in bed and failing to sleep.

Pressing herself closer to the door, the tip of her nose creeping into the room, the smell of stale coffee and tangy sweat hit her, her entire face scrunching up until she had to turn away to breathe.

That smell was a scent long associated with her father and she hated it; she hated the way it turned sharp and moist on his breath when he kissed her goodnight or loomed over her, red in the face, and she hated the way it lingered in every room of the house. It didn't matter how many vases of flowers her daddy put about the house, or how many times the windows were opened to chase the old air out, the stale coffee scent remained. Swallowing hard, she held her breath and looked back into the office. Part of her wanted to fling the door open and scatter the papers out of order, throwing them to the ground and into the fire, anything to make sure she had his attention but fear kept her limbs stilled.

Daddy always said not to interrupt Papa in his office.

_No – matter – what._

“Mina.” The childish lisp startled her, heart jack-hammering and a gasp sliding up her throat until she caught it, violently shoving it back down. Next to her, her little sister Perdia stood in her long, white night gown, teddy bear tucked under one arm, thumb jammed in her mouth in the space where her front teeth should have been. “What're you doing?”

“Nothing.” A hot flash of panic rolled through her. She jerked back from the door, hoping Papa was too deep in his work to hear their whispers. She abandoned her spot by the door to snatch Perdia up into her arms, hurrying away before he heard them. “Mind your own business. You should be in bed.”

Perdia's face crumpled into a frown, lips pouting around her thumb. “So should you.”

“I'm older than you,” Ermina said, firmly. “You shouldn't argue with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because those are the rules,” she lied. “You can't argue with me and Frea can't argue with you, that's just how it is.”

Perdia rolled the new information over in her mind. “Really? No lie?”

“No lie.”

Opening the door to the room Perdia still shared with Frea, they saw their sister was fast asleep on her back, small mouth emitting tiny snores, face flushed from the heat of sleep. She looked sweet and innocent, nothing at all like the little demon that had upended a flower pot and torn through the house naked only hours before, loudly and vehemently protesting bath time.

Ermina set Perdia down on her feet and gave her a small shove. “Go to bed.”

“But I want a story,” she whined.

Annoyance at the demand and worry at being caught out of bed made her nostrils flare and her cheeks redden. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who didn't go to bed and the monster ate her, the end.”

“That's not a story!”

“It's the only one you're getting, now _go_.”

Perdia scowled and yanked her thumb from her mouth only to stick her tongue out. The floorboards creaked under her careless steps, flouncing to bed, and she tangled herself in the sheets before glaring balefully at her as though bed time was something Ermina had created simply to make her suffer. Pulling a face right back at her, twisting her features grotesquely and earning only a giggle for her trouble, she stepped out of the room and shut the door as quietly as possible, wincing at the soft click that sounded much louder in between the breaths of whistling wind. She waited and exhaled before turning.

Her nose connected with something hard and unyielding; pain exploded through her face, and her nose throbbed. Crying out, she fell back only for ink-stained hands to catch hold of her. One hand cupped protectively around her sore nose, she squinted up through pained tears and stared into the stern face of her Papa.

_Oh, no,_ she thought, horrified.

There was a moment when she felt nothing – no fear, no anxiety, no panic – and all she could think of was of how rough his hands were. He didn't normally punish them with his hands, preferring to use other tools for reasons known only to him, and she started to tremble in anticipation of what he was going to do to her for being out of bed when she _knew_ she should be sleeping. There weren't many rules in the Pera household but the rules they did have were firm and had no wriggle room. She already regretted her careless confidence born from boredom when she knew how his punishments were.

Her thighs ached in remembrance of the time he had taken a leather strap to her bare skin because she scored only a 62 on her maths test, a test sat after her recovery from the Ulasian fever.

_Illness isn't an excuse for stupidity or laziness_ , he had said, setting her against his desk and lashing her thighs until welts appeared and blood started speckling her skin. _And you're neither lazy nor stupid._

His hands held her tightly, skin pinched between his fingers, as his dark eyes stared down at her and made her bowels turn to water. “What are you doing skulking about the hall, hmm?”

Nausea churning in her stomach as the smell of stale coffee washed over her, the sharp bitterness of alcohol hurrying in its wake.

“Perdy was awake,” Ermina whispered. “I was putting her back in bed.”

A solitary eyebrow lifted, and fear sliced through her. “And that meant you had to look into my office?”

“Papa, I...” her mouth was dry and she didn't know what to say to avoid punishment. She wanted to call out for Daddy but he had never stopped the punishments yet, and she didn't think he would start now. He sighed and released her arms. “Come with me.”

“Papa, no, I'm sorry.” She tried to twist away from him and pull her body out of his reach, but he took her hand in his and pulled her down the hall. Tears blinded her, choking as panic raged within her chest. “Papa, _please_ , I was only looking. I wasn't doing anything. Papa – don't – please.”

“Stop crying,” he ordered.

As though flicking a switch, her tears stopped. The bone-deep response to that particular tone of voice cut her tears off at their source and, though fear flowed through her like a river, she followed him in silence, teeth cutting into her bottom lip in an effort not to make a sound. His office door creaked open, and she caught sight of Daddy shadowed at the end of the hall, threadbare dressing gown on over his narrow shoulders, illness having made him thin and gaunt. She opened her mouth to call out but he turned away, slipping silently into his bedroom where the door shut with a painful finality that broke something fragile and irreparable inside of her.

Inside the office, Papa released her.

She immediately pressed herself up against the wall, attempting to make herself seem smaller, but his mind already on his work. Without looking, he beckoned her closer.

“Come, look at this.” Hesitation kept her rooted in place, and his fingers snapped impatiently. “Ermina, come _here_.”

Throat closed and limbs trembling, she inched forwards step by step, afraid to cry again in case she made the punishment worse but afraid to move too quickly in case she stumbled and angered him further for being careless. When she reached his side, her whole body tensed and a small sound escaped her throat as he lifted her into his lap. Limbs flailing, she immediately settled on his knee, stiff and afraid at whatever new punishment she was heading her way.

He tapped the notepad with his dirty fingernails.

“You want to know what I'm working on,” he said. “This is it. Look.”

Fearing a trick, she remained still until his hand slid up and pressed between her shoulder blades, forcing her forwards. With her heart fluttering madly in her chest, she stared at the notepad in front of her, everything blurred and unrecognisable in her panic. It was only when he didn't strike her, when his hand remained steady on her back, did her vision clear and she was able to make out what was scribbled in his messy handwriting.

Mathematical formulae that was beyond her by years.

Designs of things she had never seen before.

Longitude and latitude marks with question marks next to them.

And there, in the centre of everything, a blazing sun with two words written beneath it in heavy, block letters:

**PERA CORP**

Wary of her father's changeable moods, she edged a hand out onto the desk. When he didn't snap at her or knock her forehead against the surface, she let her fingers touch the words, feeling the press of them in the paper.

“This is our future,” he said, large hand covering hers, their fingers joined over their shared name. “It's going to be our business. It's what's going to make us rich, make it so we never have to work for anyone else again with the bowing and scraping and the yes, sirs. We're going to be in charge of our own destiny, and this is how we're going to do it.”

“Pera Corp,” Ermina said.

“Pera Corp,” he repeated. “We're going to be rich because of this, Mina, my girl. Money enough to pay Daddy's medical bills, get him proper care; to buy a house that doesn't let the wind in, one with enough space for everyone to have their own rooms. Then money left over to build more and more until people forget we were ever poor. This is what's going to save us.”

She didn't understand but he sounded certain of himself that she let herself dream of a room that wasn't an old utility closet with a bed stuffed inside; of shoes that didn't have holes in and kept her feet dry drying the winter; and a Daddy that was healthy and whole again.

His hand eased the pressure on her back. She sat up, slowly realising he wasn't going to punish her, and that knowledge emboldened her. “How? What does it do?”

“Sell oil,” he said with a smile she rarely saw. “Or it will, when we get it up and running. We're going to provide the world with its oil needs and then we're going to charge them a pretty penny for it.” He bounced her on his knee, joyful. “Everyone's going to know our name, and we won't be living like this for much longer. We'll be rich – the richest people in the world – and it's going to be because of this company.”

She twisted to look at him. “Can I help? I promise I'll work really hard – I do – I _promise_.”

“Of course you're going to help,” he said, and warmth bloomed through her. “Because this is going to be your company one day. You're going to be responsible for making sure it survives to the next generation so that our family will always be on top, so your children and Perdy's and Frea's will never know hunger or cold, but it's going to be your responsibility because you're the eldest. Can you do that for me? Whatever it takes, can you do that?”

She looked into his dark eyes to make the hardest promise she would ever have to make.

_Whatever it takes_.

“Yes, Papa.”

And seventy years later when a young, naïve botanist stood at the edge of the last remaining oil well on the planet and told people the truth, Ermina kept her promise and did whatever it took to ensure the continued prosperity of her family.

The Doctor towered over her, his shadow cutting across her body, flickering back and forth as he moved. The sand was like fire against the patches of skin that pressed against it, arms pulled behind her back, and she found herself laughing into the ground, shaking because, despite her best efforts, she truly was her father's daughter after all. If only he was alive to see her uphold the family business, protect it in ways he had always doubted she was capable of, and she wondered if he would have been so quick to turn to her husband if he had known of the steel running down her spine.

Not that it mattered.

Both he and her husband were dead now, two of the many who had underestimated her beneath her, and she laughed until she cried.

“How is any of this funny?” The cold, furious tones of the Doctor demanded. “Tell me, because you've just murdered an innocent, _good_ woman, and for what? For money?”

Ermina spat out a mouthful of sand and raised her head, squinting as the sunlight blinded her to him. “As though you'd understand.”

“Greed isn't a difficult thing to understand, Ms Pera.”

He shifted and crouched in front of her, anger etched like a marble carving onto the plains of his face. The look on his face sent a rush of fear down her spine. Her father was the only one capable of making her feel frightened, but there was something about the Doctor that set every forgotten instinct blaring at her like sirens, prickling her skin and sending cold cascading over her despite the heat. The urge to get away from him twisted her body but Jack hauled her upright, forcing her up onto her knees in the burning sand, her chest heaving, sand clinging to her face.

“You didn't have to do it, you didn't have to kill her,” the Doctor said, eyes sprinkled with gold flecks that caught the sun and made it look as though a golden fire raged within. “So, tell me, why did you do it?”

“Have you never had anything you wanted to protect more than anything?” She leaned back on her heels. “Nothing you wouldn't fight tooth and nail for?”

Disgust rippled across his face. “Your company.”

“It's not just my company,” she told him, looking at him. “It's everything it represents, and that stupid little –”

“ _Careful.”_

“She was in my way,” Ermina said, mouth dry but head lighter than it had been in years. “She threatened everything that's important to me. It was either her or me, and I always choose me. _Always_.”

“She wasn't going to kill you,” the Doctor told her. “She was just asking for help to stop your people killing the planet. You didn't have to kill her for that.”

“All my life, people have told me what I can and can't do,” she said. “Men, specifically, but women too. Older people who thought I was too naïve, younger people who thought I was too stuck in the past, I've heard it all. Everything that girl said –”

“Jula,” Jack interrupted, sharply. “Her name was Jula.”

“As if I care,” Ermina scoffed. “What I care about is my company. If I can't sell oil, if I can't control it, I've got nothing, and _Jula_ was about to ruin my life's work, my father's work. You think I was just going to stand aside just because you said so? I wasn't about to watch my entire life be traded away because some little girl got it into her head that she's right and I'm wrong.”

“And you killed her for it,” the Doctor said, disappointed; the tone rankled and her mind protested, _as though he has the right._ “You killed a young woman for speaking the truth. People are going to know what you did here, what happened today. Your name is going to be forever linked with this senseless act of violence.”

Her tongue darted out to dampen her lips. “To protect my company? I'd do it again, without question.”

“And that's what makes all of this so much worse,” he said. Placing his hands on his knees, he stood up, jaw tense. “Tie her up and keep an eye on her, would you, Jack? We'll take her to the authorities in a bit. Someone'll know what to do with her.”

“Copy that.”

Ermina watched him walk away, thinking of the last time she had seen her father before the same desert she was kneeling in swallowed him whole.

The memory faded as she was pulled to her feet and led away, _whatever it takes_ pulsing through her.

* * *

“This is very strange,” Jula said.

At least, she tried to say it. Opening her mouth was, she quickly discovered, an absolutely wretched idea because oil slicked its way inside and attempted to drown her before Níphikân pulled it back, leaving her with a sickening taste in her mouth. Trying to open her eyes was also a less than pleasant experience, and she wasn't entirely sure how she was still breathing – both because she was certain the bullet to her chest had killed her, or was at least in the process of doing so, and because she was deep within the oil well that was Níphikân. With speaking and seeing out of the question, she floated in the viscous mass and tried her hardest not to panic but every muscle in her body kept tensing before pain shot through her chest, forcing her to relax, only for the panic to return and the entire process to start again.

“Try and relax,” Níphikân said, directly into her mind.

Jula screamed and choked on the oil.

Níphikân sighed. “And try not to open your mouth. It's more difficult than I expected to maintain an oxygen bubble around you.”

“How –?”

More oil slipped inside.

“Think what you want to say,” Níphikân told her. “I'll hear it.”

Keeping her eyes firmly closed, she tried to form a coherent thought but it was difficult. Her day had not gone the way she thought it would that morning when her biggest concern was making sure she remembered the lunch her father had made her the night before as the food in the cafeteria was both disgusting and overpriced. She thought of her sad sandwiches sitting in her tiny locker with the broken lock and hoped someone cleaned it out before they started to rot. With how busy the last few hours had been, she hadn't had a chance to breathe and process but now she was wrapped in warm oil, feeling as though she was submerged in the most perfect – if foul-smelling – bath, she let her mind wander.

She was pretty sure the Doctor was to blame for her current situation.

Not that she blamed him for her death, if dying was what was happening for her; no, she blamed him for being charming and enthusiastic and full of curiosity, the way she had hoped Dr Erket would be before reality chased those quiet dreams from her.

Such wonder at the universe and a sincere desire to help was difficult to turn away from, so the blame she laid at his feet was that of being everything she had ever wanted from life wrapped up in the tall, slender form of a mad man.

_Still_ , she thought. _If this is dying, then it's not so bad_.

At least the pain in her chest was easing to a dull throb with each breath.

“You're not dying,” Níphikân said, startling her.

Instinctively, she made to open her mouth but stopped at the last second, pressing her lips together before carefully thinking, “I'm not?”

“No,” it told her. “You were dying but I brought you here so I could heal you.”

“Oh,” she said, moving her hand through the oil to touch her chest where everything was sore but as though she had been struck in the chest with a large rock rather than a bullet. “Thank you, that's...thank you.” It was awkward gratitude but she had never had the need to thank someone – _something_ – for saving her life before and didn't know how to do it. “And where am I exactly? Last thing I remember is we were in the desert.”

“We're still there, just beneath the surface.” There was a flash of an image in her mind, watching from Níphikân's perspective as she was shot, body crumpling before she was dragged into the oil well, Rose's face twisted in an anger as she reached for her. “I could have healed you on the surface but I was concerned there would be more violence.”

“No, yeah, good call.” Jula hadn't seen Ermina until after she was shot, and she doubted anyone else had either. “Getting shot hurts... _a lot_.”

Where a person might have made a sound of agreement, Níphikân was silent until it spoke.

“You're a fragile species,” it said. “It's interesting you don't experience more injuries than you currently do; though I don't understand the desire to inflict injuries upon one another. Why did she try to hurt you?”

“Same reason she tried to hurt you, I suppose: money, greed, fear of change.” Jula felt something shift beneath her fingers, hard metal nudging against her, and it took her a long moment to realise it was the bullet forcing its way back out of her body. She held it tightly in her palm when it was freed, trying not to panic again. “Am I going to die?”

“Someday, yes,” it said. “But not today.”

“Oh.” A sudden and overwhelming wave of exhaustion passed over her, pulling at her eyes and making her swallow a yawn until her jaw ached. Perhaps sleeping her way through the healing was the best idea, but she forced herself to continue the conversation, doubting she would get such an opportunity again. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

She huffed a laugh, small bubbles of air pushing their way through the oil. “You sound like my teacher. May I ask another question after this one?”

“Of course.”

Jula grinned, amused, before it faded as she pressed her thumb against the melted edge of the bullet, focusing on the feel of it. “Why are you helping me? My people have hurt you _a lot_ but you're helping me anyway. I guess I don't understand why you'd do that.”

Níphikân remained silent for so long that Jula feared she hadn't thought hard enough.

“Because you're of me,” it said, its calm, steady voice filling her with its presence. “Every living thing comes from me. You get your energy from me, your life, and I get you in your death when you return to the soil. How could I not help you?

“So...I'm like your child then?”

“An accurate analogy, yes.”

“Mother Earth has a different meaning for me now.” Something like a laugh warmed Jula's mind. “What happens now?”

“I finish healing you and then I'll return you to the aliens,” Níphikân said, and it was a mark of how strange her day was that being returned to her new alien friends was a positive rather than something to be afraid of. “What you choose to do after that is your decision.”

“I choose to help you,” she said without hesitation.

“You're a kind person, Jula.”

Jula smiled. “You're kind too. You could've hurt all of us a thousand times over but you haven't. You wanted us to stop, but you never _made_ us stop. Not really, not in the way you could've done if you wanted to. That was kind. Maybe too kind.”

A soft sigh filtered from Níphikân. “Perhaps, but everything is balanced. I need you as you need me. We're simply out of balance right now.”

“Lots of things are out of balance,” she said, muscles twisting sharply in her chest as they threaded back together. “Has been for a long time, longer than I know what to do with. To change what we need to? I don't know if that's possible. We'll have to completely alter our society, our way of thinking...I'm scared we won't do it, or there'll be people like Ermina Pera there trying to stop us.”

Níphikân's silence stretched between then once more, long enough for guilt to begin pricking at her skin.

“Will you not try then?”

That was the question.

Jula wasn't sure what she could do. Broadcasting the truth to the planet was one thing but she knew it wasn't enough, not when the stubbornness of politicians and corporations had led them to disaster in the first place. Institutions and systems of power were built around the fact that oil was the centre of their commerce; without it, those levels of authority and control started to crack and fold in on themselves. She didn't know what would be left if – _when_ – they were stripped away, but the alternative was losing the planet, losing Níphikân, and that was something that couldn't happen.

Without Níphikân, they would die.

If they kept living as they were, Níphikân would die.

And round and round the circle went until her temples throbbed and the lack of control she felt threatened to suffocate her.

“I'll try,” Jula promised, quietly. “But I don't know what good I'll do.”

“One person can make all the difference in the world,” Níphikân said. “When we're out of balance, one person can tip everything one way or the other through their actions.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It is something I know,” it said. “I've lived for longer than you can imagine. I've seen civilisations rise and fall on my surface, species that once stood mighty and proud but of which remains nothing now but dust.”

Excitement jerked Jula's navel at the confirmation of centuries' long speculation that there had been other civilisations before their own. She wanted to ask more but Níphikân continued speaking.

“There's nothing that surprises me about those that live on my surface, not anymore,” it said. “Even this refusal to listen was expected, if frustrating.”

“Then what do you think comes next?” Jula asked. “If you've seen it all, what's going to happen?”

“Change.”

“What kind of change?”

“That depends on who takes charge,” it said. “The first dominant species on this planet weren't all that different to you. Different colour and an extra set of arms but their character was much the same. It was a stricter society though, _harder_ , and they collapsed because a lack of understanding drove them into fear and war.”

She floated in the oil. “Not about resources though, right? If they were the first, there must've been so much for them.”

“Aliens visited,” it told her. “The fear of the unknown led to so much death and destruction. Blood soaked my soil until rivers grew out of it.”

A violent shudder washed over her. “And you want me to stop that happening again?”

“If you can.”

“I don't know how,” Jula admitted, turning the bullet over in her palm, rubbing it anxiously. “There's so much to do, so much that could go really, _really_ badly. I don't want to be the person who gets it wrong.”

The awful silence that made her feel judged spooled between them again.

“What if you get it right?”

Níphikân startled a laugh out of her, mouth opening only for her to choke, the taste of oil burning her mouth.

“You remind me of my granddad,” Jula said, scraping her tongue against the roof of her mouth in an effort to get soften the unpleasantness. “He was always saying things like that, pushing me to be my best. He' used to work for an environmental group, the type that didn't believe the government promises, and he understood the value of doing your best even when your best wasn't enough to change anything. I used to wonder why he worked so hard for absolutely nothing, but I think I get it now.” She thought of her grandfather's kind face, remembering the way his eyes twinkled with laughter and how his beard scratched her skin when he kissed her cheeks. Grief and sadness made a home in her throat. “I miss him. More today than I've done in ages.”

The sound of her heart beating was all she could hear, and she touched her fingers to her chest, checking her wound that was knotted tightly in a gnarl of scarred skin, sensitive to the touch.

“What's it like,” Níphikân asked. “Missing someone?”

Her hand fell away. “I'm sorry?”

“When things die, they return to me – their energy, their essence – so I've never missed anything or anyone before,” it explained. “It all comes back to me in the end. To have an absence is...unusual, so I'm curious: what does it feel like when you no longer have that thing in your life?”

“It's like...there's a hole,” Jula said, struggling to find the right words. “Like each person you love has a specific place in your heart they fill and you don't know it's there until they're gone and then that place is empty, filled with all the love you can't give them. It hurts because there's nowhere for that love to go so you're just left with this sore hole that can never be filled because the love can't ever be returned.”

Níphikân considered that. “It sounds painful.”

“It is,” she agreed, aching. “But you eventually learn to live with it. The pain stops hurting so much although it's still there. You sort of just...make room for it.” The pain of thinking about her grandfather made her throat ache, and she changed the topic. “Can I ask you another question? After this one, I mean?”

“Yes.”

Nervous, uncertain as to whether she was overstepping, she stretched her toes, curious if there were sides that she could feel but it felt like she was floating in nothingness. “You` feel everything?”

“Yes.”

“What's that like?”

“I don't know,” it said as though surprised by being asked. “I've never known anything different.” There was a small beat of hesitation. “I can show you.”

Jula stilled. “How?”

“By letting you feel a small amount of what I feel,” it said. “Too much and it would overwhelm you, but I can give you a taste if you want.”

“Yes, _please._ ”

The sensations rolled over her and consumed her as everything that existed slipped into her soul and spread out to her fingers and toes. From the plants in the earth and the birds in the sky to the people that filled the streets of every major city on the planet and in their homes isolated from the rest, she felt the living, breathing energy of them. All around her, she could feel the water in the oceans and that which ran over rocks through the forests, as well as the stones pushing out of the earth and the lava that heated the planet beneath the surface.

Life spread through every inch of her before it was gone, leaving her gasping and empty.

She trembled. “What was that?”

“That's what I feel.”

“You feel that?” Her head spun, and she tried to grab hold of something but there was nothing to sink her fingers into, a feeling of groundlessness threatening to pull her apart at the seams before the bullet in her hand helped to focus her. “All the time?”

“Yes.”

Jula laughed, delirious, bordering on deranged. “It's amazing.”

Níphikân paused. “Is it?”

“ _Yes_.” There was a heavy, calm certainty that she was never going to feel as wondrous ever again, and she clung onto the feeling for as long as she could before a thought struck her. “If you feel all the good, do you feel all the bad too?”

“Yes.”

She arched her back, chasing the dissipating remnants of pure joy. “So, when people die – when they're murdered, or when forests are torn down –?”

“I feel everything,” Níphikân interrupted, pained.

“And still you show kindness,” Jula breathed, her body tingling from the after effects. “Níphikân, I'm so sorry...for everything. For what my people have done, for all of this.”

“Thank you,” it said, softly. “But, tell me, how do you feel?”

“Good, great, actually,” she said, honestly, touching her chest where her fingers pressed against skin that was smooth and flat. “The pain's gone _and_ my knee doesn't hurt anymore. I hurt it when I was little and I've always had some pains but it's gone now.”

“I've healed you,” it said. “Not just the wound in your chest, but everything.”

“Thank you.” The gratitude was easier on her tongue now. “What happens now?”

The oil around her began to shift as Níphikân spoke. “Now I send you back.”

“Right,” Jula said, reluctant to leave. “I – you saved my life. Thank you doesn't seem enough in this case but thank you, for everything.”

Sunlight burst across her vision and comfort spread across her skin, and she knew Níphikân was smiling at her.

“You're welcome.”

“I'm going to heal you now.” The promise was heavy on her tongue and immediately settled on her shoulders, weighing her down. She didn't know how she was going to keep her word but it didn't matter, all that mattered was that she kept it, no matter what it took to do so. “I won't stop until you're safe.”

The complex warmth washed through her mind again but it was brighter, sharper, more intimate as Níphikân reached out and touched her mind, bathing her in a love that made her want to weep.

“Thank you, Jula.”

And then everything around her stretched and gaped before the dry, close heat of the desert hit her and light came into her world as she landed on the sand, spitting oil from her mouth. She clawed her way across the ground until strong hands grasped her and helped her sit up. The Doctor's concerned face swam in front of her, thick oil sliding into her vision, but she held onto him and swayed, getting her feet beneath her.

She had work to do.

* * *

“ _The global government has categorically denied any knowledge regarding the sentience of the oil that has identified itself as Níphikân. President Mauria said in a statement that 'if we had known, we obviously wouldn't have used it as fuel'. However, leaks of internal memos dating back decades show that officials at the time were aware of Níphikân's sentience as it had made five separate attempts to contact them before the Great Sand Earthquake. It's now known that former President Pazeth, who died from a stroke three weeks ago, ordered the destruction of the oil wells in the Sura Desert to stop Níphikân from communicating with us. This raises questions –”_

“ _...gave this information to us and was shot for it! Ermina Pera needs to be prosecuted but, more than that, we need to honour her sacrifice and make sure that all oil use stops immediately.”_

“ _Protests are breaking out all across the world in response to the shocking footage sent from the Sura Desert that shows us that the planet is sentient and we've been causing it harm with our drilling practices. The death of a university student identified as 20-year-old Jula Realo has been the catalyst for many people already angry at rationing and cuts in government funding. In Ulas, groups have stormed –”_

“ _...Ulas Navy has taken formation off the coast of Mura in response to –”_

“ _Joining us from outside her lab, Dr Krav Erket has this to say about Jula –”_

“ _New reports just coming in that the Pren government has resigned en-masse following demands from angry citizens to stand down in the wake of corruption allegations as information emerges that each member of the cabinet received a large amount of money from Pera Corp for reasons currently unknown.”_

“ _Breaking news from the Sura Desert. Environmental activist Jula Realo is alive and broadcasting from the oil well. We join her now.”_

* * *

_ Nine hours later _

Ermina didn't look good.

At least that was the Doctor's opinion from his vantage point on the fifth floor of the police headquarters in a city that Jula _had_ told him the name of but, distracted as he was by the large number of guns pointing at him – and more specifically Zoe – when he exited the TARDIS, he had promptly forgotten. He made out the top of her head, hair loose and dishevelled around her as she was jostled within the protective ring of police officers that surrounded her. Some of the crowd had broken through the barricades and were attempting to reach her – to do what, he could only imagine – but Jack was down there, an added measure of security to make sure she lived to face the consequences of her action. For someone who had been the most powerful business woman on the planet when she woke up that morning, she was handling her fall from grace with as much dignity as possible, even if her physical appearance had taken a bit of a battering.

Between Jack tackling her to the ground and then spending nine hours in the sweltering heat of the desert followed by a ride in the TARDIS, it was no surprise she looked rough around the edges.

“Where are they takin' her?” Rose asked, forehead pressed up against the glass, breath fogging it as she watched the events below them. “Is there a bigger police station?”

“Protective custody,” Jula said, attempting to pick dried oil from beneath her fingernails with little success. “She'll probably end up in a nice house somewhere secret until the trial so people don't try and hurt her. They'll keep her in the country though. They won't want to let the other governments get hold of her.”

“I imagine this will help whatever country we're in –”

“Ulas,” she supplied.

“Thank you,” Zoe said. “I imagine it'll help Ulas come out on top in the coming weeks and months. If they control Ermina's trial, they control the narrative.”

The Doctor looked at her. “Been talking to Harriet lately?”

“I can have a political thought without Harriet being behind her,” she said, primly. “But, yes, actually. She wanted my advice on what to wear to Mum's party. This theme's a pain in the ass.”

“Blame Jack,” Rose said.

“I do.”

“She's leavin',” Mickey said, drawing their attention back to Ermina who disappeared from sight, the van door closing behind her. “An' good riddance. Reckon she'll actually serve time?”

“Don't know,” Jula said, squeezing between the Doctor and Rose to watch the loud anger of the crowd outside. The streets were packed with people carrying makeshift banners strewn with their anger and one that boasted a fairly accurate representation of her face, which was unnerving. “But she's not our problem any more. Everyone knows who she really is. Pera Corp might survive but she won't be allowed anywhere near it, so small victories, I say.”

The Doctor pressed his elbow against her upper arm and grinned. “That's the spirit.”

On the street below, someone looked up and caught sight of Jula. A ripple spread through the crowd and faces turned up, arms stretched as people pointed at her, and the roar of anger changed into cheers and chants of her name. She recoiled from the window, tripping over her feet in her eagerness to get out of sight, and the Doctor laughed, falling back with her. Unperturbed by the glare she threw at him, his hands slid into his pockets as he rolled onto the balls of his feet.

“Someone's popular.”

“Don't tease her,” Rose chastised, pinching his side. “She's had a hard day.”

“I have,” Jula agreed. “I had a normal life this morning before you lot showed up. Now everyone knows my name and are painting pictures of my face on things. It's _weird._ ”

“Could be worse, could be tattoos of your face,” Mickey said.

“That'll be next,” Zoe grinned. “Your face on someone's chest, your name on their legs; they might even ask you to sign body parts if you're lucky.”

Jula stared at them. “You're awful. All of you.”

The Doctor laughed again, eyes bright, hair askew. “Oh, you'll be yesterday's news before long if you want it. People have short memories when it suits them. Keep out of the way for a few months and all of this will die down. Course, your name'll pop up occasionally but that's neither here nor there really. You could lead a nice quiet life if you fancy it.”

He gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder to conclude only to pull his hand back and wipe it down his chest, pulling a face at the flakes of oil that stuck to his hand. She hadn't yet had the chance to wash the oil well off her and it had hardened into a crust in her clothes and hair – the thought of trying to wash it from her hair made her stomach knot itself up with dread – and she was aware that she must closely resemble a swamp monster with kinder eyes. None of that bothered her though, and she kept her attention on the Doctor, narrowing her eyes at the far-too-innocent expression on his face.

“Why do I get the feeling you're trying to lead me toward some realisation?” She asked, suspicious.

Zoe choked on a laugh, ducking away as Rose helpfully reached around to pound her back when Jack emerged from the stairwell, door swinging shut behind him.

“Would you look at that,” he grinned, once again the only one who looked as though he hadn't spent the day sweating in the desert, a smooth tan stretched over his skin while Rose had bright patches of pink on the back of her neck and both Mickey and Zoe had darkened in colour. “She's known you all of a day and she's already got you pegged.”

“Piss off,” the Doctor said, pleasantly.

The hard cast of oil on her face cracked when she smiled, pleased that almost dying had cured her of her embarrassment at being under Jack's attention. “Did everything go okay?”

“Easy as pie,” he said, stretching to take Mickey's hand in his, swinging it between them with a smile. “I think she was still a little shaken she didn't manage to actually kill you but she was going on about getting a lawyer and calling her daughter. She seems to think she's going to be able to talk her way out of this –”

“Buy her way out, more like,” Zoe rasped, hitting her chest as she tried to breathe properly. “Pera Corp seems to have a bribery division.”

He blinked. “Really?”

“Not an official one, you muppet.” She rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. “I mean they seem big on the whole bribery thing but with the close attention everyone's going to be paying from now on, I doubt she'll be able to bribe her way into a nice prison cell let alone out of one.”

Jack bobbed his head. “Been speaking to Harriet lately?”

“I swear to God –”

Zoe threw her hands up and turned her back on them, raising her middle fingers at him over the top of her head.

Jack looked bemused. “What did I say?”

“It's a whole thing,” Mickey said, shaking his head.

“Right,” he replied, tearing his eyes from Zoe and focusing on Jula. He reached out and plucked at her shirt, the cracking sound it made echoed in the hall. “You need a change of clothes and a shower.”

“I know,” Jula said, looking down at herself. “I haven't been this dirty since I pretended I was a pig when I was five.” Even Zoe turned back to look at her curiously. She shrugged. “I was really into pigs.”

Rose pressed her lips together to hide her smile. “You're kind of strange, you know that, right?”

“Says you,” she grinned. “You're an alien from outer space. I'm not the strange one here.”

“She's got a point,” the Doctor said. “You are an alien.”

“You can be quiet,” Rose said, losing her battle against her smile. “But, seriously, you should shower soon. It can't be good to have that oil dryin' on you like that. Should've shoved you in the shower on the TARDIS now I'm thinkin' about it.”

“An alien shower?” Jula asked, hesitantly. Her new friends seemed clean and in possession of good hygiene but she wasn't sure what passed for a shower in their lives and, given how odd her day had already been, she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. “It doesn't matter. The person in charge here – er...I want to say Gren?”

“Iban,” the Doctor said. “How did you get Gren?”

“It's been a long day,” she defended, a grin to tugging on his lips at her exasperation. “And _Iban_ said there're some showers I can use downstairs but I still reckon I'm going to be smelling like oil for at least a week.”

Jack sniffed her. “Try two.”

“Great.” Her annoyed expression shifted when her liaison with the police, a woman who looked to be a decade older than she was, stepped out of the lift. A coil of dread and anticipation began to tighten within her, mouth turning dry. “Looks like that's my cue to go.”

The Doctor looked around, mouth twisting downwards in disappointment. “Oh, yeah, suppose it is.”

“Feels strange to be sayin' goodbye,” Rose admitted. “Figure you'll be fine though. After today, I don't think there's much you can't handle.”

Jula lifted her eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Course,” she said. “Aliens an' sentient planets an' nearly dyin'? Trust me, everythin' else is goin' to be really easy after this.”

“It's true,” Zoe said, gesturing at the Doctor. “When I first met him, it was kind of a day like today with all sorts of things happening. Normal life didn't seem so overwhelming once he'd come in and messed everything up.”

“ _Hey_ ,” he protested. “I didn't mess things up.”

“You blew up Downin' Street, mate,” Mickey reminded him.

“To save the planet,” he argued. “And, technically, I didn't do that, UNIT did.”

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” Zoe dismissed. “You can't argue that you didn't completely upend my life though.”

“Well, no, I did do that,” the Doctor said, leaning into her. “Any complaints?”

Her mouth twitched. “As of yet, no.”

“You're both extremely weird, all of you are,” Jula informed them, earning bright smiles from around her. “And even though you've turned my life upside down, I'm glad I met you lot today.”

“We're glad we met you too,” Rose said.

“That's very true,” Zoe said, leaning against the Doctor with a smile. “But, before we go, you've got to tell us: what're you going to do now?”

That was the question that Jula needed to answer, knowing it was one that was going to be asked of her again and again and again over the next few days, but it was difficult to find the right words with which to do so.

There were so many things that needed to be done, each of them with increasing urgency, and when her mind lingered on the sheer volume of things that needed to be resolved sooner rather than later, her chest began to tighten and she started having difficulty breathing. Instead of letting the panic and anxiety consume her though, she held tight to her conversation with Níphikân and used that to keep herself from falling apart at the seams.

“I made a promise to Níphikân,” she said, finally. “And I'm going to keep it.”

Jack released a low whistle. “That's a lot of work for one person.”

“I'm not alone.” Jula gestured to the people outside who were roaring again as Ermina's van inched its way through the crowd. “It's like Níphikân said, we're all connected, none of us are alone. I'm going to start by contacting this environmental group my granddad used to work with, Dr Erket as well –”

“Good luck with that,” Mickey said, absently rubbing his thumb over Jack's knuckles. “No offence, but she didn't seem to like you that much.”

“She doesn't – I don't think she likes anyone all that much, really – but she's got a lot of connections so...” she trailed off into a shrug. “There's too much to do that I can't afford to ignore people who annoy me.”

“Would that you could, eh?” Zoe gave her a sympathetic smile, eyes flashing with amusement. “Still, you're the best person for the job. Níphikân likes you, everyone already knows your name...” the crowd roared again, and her head tilted towards it. “Judging from the volume outside, it seems like you've got a platform and a half to make a bit of a difference too.”

“I hope so,” Jula said, scratching flakes of oil off the back of her head, distracting herself from the hope in her next question. “Don't suppose you want to stay, do you? You're all really useful to have around.”

The Doctor's smile stretched across his face.

“Afraid not,” he said. “I'm generally a bit flexible when it comes to the non-interference policies that my people had but even I have to draw the line somewhere and tearing down and redesigning an entire political system is where that line is.”

“That's the line?” Rose turned to him, eyes creased with laughter. “Good to have boundaries.”

“It is,” he nodded, missing her amusement, shifting his attention back to where it belonged. “So our apologies, Jula, but we really should be off.”

Jula didn't want them to leave and found herself holding her tears in her throat as Rose hugged her tightly, chunks of oil falling to the ground as she embraced her, murmuring encouragement in her ear before releasing her with a nod. A fist bump with Mickey and a hug from Zoe later, she found that she wasn't quite as immune to Jack's charm as he thought. Red heat blazed her skin beneath the oil encrusted there as he took her dirty hand in his and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. Her vision swam and her lungs forgot how to draw in oxygen, his eyes fixed on hers, and she found her gaze dropping to his mouth before remembering herself.

It was unfair for someone to be that attractive _and_ be a genuinely nice person.

“It's been a pleasure,” Jack said, releasing her hand to slip a small piece of paper with his number neatly inked on it into her pocket. “And if you need us, call us. We'll be here.”

Remembering how to breathe, she nodded and croaked, “thanks.”

Taking pity on her, the Doctor rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently as he spoke to the others. “Give us a few minutes, would you? I'll meet you in the TARDIS in a bit.”

“Don't get into trouble without me,” Zoe said, fingers touching his stomach on the way past.

He rolled his eyes. “It's going to be five minutes at the most.”

The look on her face told him _exactly_ what she thought of his ability to stay out of trouble for five minutes, and he grinned at the back of her head as she walked away, delighted with how well she knew him. He waited until the door to the TARDIS closed on his friends before letting his hand drop from Jula's shoulder, shifting so that he stood in front of her rather than looming above her. With the others gone, some of her good cheer faded and there was a look of quiet exhaustion and worry layered beneath the oil.

“Are you sure you're going to be okay?” Part of him was eager to leave Níphikân now that the immediate threat was taken care of, his usual restlessness making his feet itch, but part of him wanted to stay with Jula for a bit longer, not willing to leave the easy friendship that had bloomed between them behind yet. “I can stay a little longer if you need it.”

She scratched behind her ear. “What about boundaries?”

“I can flex them.”

Jula huffed a laugh and looked down at her feet, smiling, before meeting his eyes. “I really want to say yes but I'm going to say it's okay. I think...I think this needs to be something we do without any alien interference. This isn't your mess to clean up, it's ours.”

He nodded slowly. “I suppose you're right but, consider this: is it alien interference if you don't know I'm an alien?”

The growing desire for sleep fogged her brain and she frowned, turning his question over, answering with an uncertain, “yes?”

He snorted. “You're probably right.”

“It feels strange,” Jula said, pulling her shoulders up to her ears, trying to shake the feeling from her as her liaison began to grow impatient, clearing her throat in an effort to bring her conversation with the Doctor to an end. “Everything looks the same but it's all so different.”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “That tends to happen.”

“I've no idea what's going to happen next,” she said, making the most of him while he was there with her. “I know what needs to be done and I know it's not going to be easy and I'm really scared of getting it wrong, but I've got this feeling, right here.” She rapped her fist against her chest, knuckles knocking against where the bullet had ripped through her chest. “I've never felt it before. It's like...it's like I _know_ this is the right thing to do. I'm not doubting myself like I usually do. Everything's so clear to me that fixing this mess and protecting Níphikân is what I'm supposed to do.”

“Clarity of purpose,” the Doctor said. “It's a hell of a drug. Most people live their lives and die without ever experiencing it.” She hummed, thoughtful, and he tapped her ankle with his foot. “The important thing is to protect Níphikân. Now you know the truth, it's your responsibility to get others to do something about it as well. You're smart and more than capable. I don't doubt you can do it.”

Jula took in the sharp lines of his face and the genial chaos of his hair and felt as though something was slipping from between her fingers.

“I thought...” the words lodged in her throat, embarrassed at the presumption, but she forced herself through the rest of her sentence. “I thought that maybe you were going to ask me to come with you in your spaceship thing.”

“Just spaceship,” he said, mouth twitching. “And timeship, even though you don't believe that.” She snorted. “And I was going to ask you. At least, I wanted to.”

Delight and regret fizzed beneath the surface of her skin. “Then why aren't you?”

“Would you say yes?”

“No.” The answer surprised her with its intensity. “I mean – I want to, of course I do, but...” she sighed, shoulders drooping. “I can't.”

“Because Níphikân needs you,” the Doctor said, gently. His hand rested on her shoulder again, fingers stretched around the curve of her joint, thumb pressing against the back of her neck, and she felt steadied and cared for. “It wouldn't be fair to take someone as brave and as smart as you from this planet when it needs brave and smart people to fight for it.”

The universe retreated from her grasp and her fingers ached from not grasping it.

“It's a shame,” Jula said, clearing her throat to rid herself of the emotion there. “I think it would've been the best thing ever.”

“It would've been amazing,” he promised her. “But you don't need amazing out there when you've got amazing things to do here.”

“Maybe you can stop by one day and say hi,” she said. “Make sure I'm not making a mess of things.”

He laughed. “I think your messes will probably be better than many people's successes.”

“Shut up,” she grinned, embarrassed, before rising up onto her toes and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Doctor, for everything.”

A warm smile spread across his face. “Thank _you_ , Jula, and good luck.”

Stepping away and taking his cool warmth with him, she watched him return to the TARDIS where he paused in the doorway and raised a hand in one final farewell. The door clicked shut behind him. She wanted to run forward and bang on the door, beg him to take her with him, but she remained where she was and waited, ignoring the call of her name from the liaison. Barely a minute later, a deep wheezing, groaning sound filled the air and the Doctor's strange and wonderful ship slowly faded from her life, the force of it whipping her hair back.

Only when the air around her had settled did she turn to face the liaison who stood, mouth agape and eyes wide, staring at the space where the TARDIS had been.

“Right then,” Jula said. “Time to get to work.”

* * *

“How's Rose?”

“Sunburnt and snoring,” Zoe said, closing the door behind her, resting against it, eyes lingered on him. He was reclined on their bed, ankles loosely crossed, one arm tucked behind his head as he drummed a beat against his flat stomach. “I rubbed some of that gel on her and she was a little dehydrated but she'll be fine by morning. Nothing a good night's sleep won't solve.”

In the hours after leaving Jula behind, Rose had grown steadily grouchier until Mickey realised that her sunburn stretched down the expanse of her back, sun stroke setting in. Snapping and growling at anyone who came close, Zoe was the only one immune to her bad temper and had bundled her off to the medical bay in order to set her back to rights. At some point between then and now, Jack and Mickey had slipped off to be by themselves leaving the Doctor at a loose end and too many thoughts. He was already missing Jula, regretful that she wasn't on the TARDIS with them but sure it was the right choice; her timelines were rooted to Níphikân, thick golden tendrils sunk deep into the planet, and taking her away would have destabilised the existing, tenuous situation.

“She gets very growly when she's sick,” the Doctor commented, eyes following her with interest as she shimmied out of her dress and tossed it into the laundry hamper. They swept over her body, watching her remove her bra and rummage through the chest of drawers for a T-shirt to sleep in. “Just like her sister.”

She pulled the T-shirt on over her head and rolled her eyes. “I'm not that bad.”

“You're dramatic,” he said, letting his head drop back as he mimicked her. “I'm going to die, this is awful. Remember me well. Tell my family I love – _oof_!” He pulled her bra from his face and grinned, letting it dangle from the end of his finger. “Fancy tossing your knickers at me too?”

She laughed and disappeared into the bathroom.

When her knickers remained resolutely on her body, he returned to staring at the ceiling, fingers playing with the strap of her bra as he listened to the sound of her pottering in the bathroom. The day had felt longer than it usually did and there was a pleasant tiredness settling into his muscles that meant he was hopefully going to sleep well. All in all, he considered, it was a job well done. Níphikân was safe in Jula's capable hands, he had met a sentient planet, had a pleasant chat with some plants, and helped overthrow a global government, all things that he enjoyed greatly. The only downside to his day was that he hadn't spent much of it with Zoe and he was beginning to feel impatient when she returned, rubbing the remnants of her moisturiser into her elbows.

“Are you coming to bed?” She asked, setting her phone down next to her current book. “Or do you have things to do?”

“Bed,” the Doctor answered, letting her bra fall to the floor as she pulled the covers back. “Today was long.”

“Yeah, it was.” A yawn threatened to take over but her eye twitched as she pushed it back. “You might want to change if you're going to sleep. You know you get grumpy sleeping in the suit.”

He frowned. “I don't get grumpy.”

“You really do,” Zoe said, rearranging her pillows before lying on her side facing him. “Besides, I want a strip tease. Take it off, Doctor. Show me what you're working with.”

A grin stretched, and he rolled towards her. “You know what I'm working with. In need if a refresher? You know I'm happy to provide one.”

“Such a generous Time Lord,” she teased, pads of her fingers brushing over the hollow of his throat as she worked his tie loose. “Quicker you get naked, quicker you can remind me. You know what my memory's like.”

“Excellent and nearly eidetic?”

She laughed and gave him a small push. “Clothes, now.”

“Yes, sir.”

The weight of her eyes made him feel giddy as he shed his clothes, half putting on a show and half simply undressing. Time Lords' appreciation of physical appearance was limited to nature, art work, and architecture, the way people looked was considered of little importance and there were no standards of personal beauty on Gallifrey the way there was around the universe. His appreciation of other people's appearance had been considered yet another of his oddities and an example of why Time Lords should be kept under strict observation else they might end up with perversions like him. He hadn't had a chance to experience what it was like to be the object of someone else's desire based on his appearance until Zoe entered his life and his bed. It was intoxicating to know that she found him physically attractive and that all he had to do was smile at her a certain way or roll his shirt sleeves up his arms to ignite desire in her.

The soft message alert from her phone derailed his plans to remind her – slowly and thoroughly – of what he had to offer, and he bit back a sigh as he got into bed with her, stretching to turn off the main light. They each had a lamp on either side of their bed that cast the room in a pleasant glow and he settled down, glancing up at her, watching as she tapped a response to whoever before she muted the notifications and set her phone face down on the bedside table.

“Drew,” she said, although he hadn't asked. “From my book club. The date's changed for next month. He was just letting me know.”

Reaching for her, she settled against his side, looping a leg over his, and he pressed his nose into her hair. “What book are you reading for it again?”

“The Boleyn Inheritance,” Zoe said. “One of those faux-historical novels about Anne Boleyn. It's not bad but it's also not accurate.”

“Purist.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, turning her face into his neck and breathing him in, skin erupting in small goosebumps at the brush of her nose against him and the warmth of her breath ghosting across his skin. “You smell good.”

He closed his eyes and smiled. “Thanks.”

“I can hear your cogs whirring from here though.”

“Sorry,” he apologised, fingers spanning her ribcage as he curled his arm around her. “Occupational hazard.”

“I don't mind,” she said, rubbing her nose against his shoulder. “What's on your mind?”

“Níphikân, Jula, Ermina.” It was difficult to contain the heavy sigh that wanted to push out of him so he didn't bother, letting it roll out of him with relief. “All of the above.”

“We helped,” Zoe told him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Quite a bit, actually. And they have Jula to guide them now.”

“I know,” he said. “It was a good day. A victory, definitely, if you ignore people getting shot and nearly dying.” Her hand automatically rubbed his chest, easing the knotted guilt that lay there, the image of Jula sinking to her knees as blood spilled into the sand flashing to the front of his mind. “Shame Jula had to stay behind. She'd have been fun to have on board.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “The two of you got on like a house on fire.”

A smile wrapped in fondness curved his mouth. “We did, didn't we?”

“Like two peas in a pod,” she said, pressing a kiss to his arm, fingers tracing an abstract path on his chest. “You were going to ask her to come with us.”

His eyes popped open. “I thought about it, yes. I wouldn't have done it without talking to you first though.”

“I'm not asking because of that, I'm just curious about the why.” She shook her head. “No, that's wrong, the how.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“How do you decide who travels with you?” She asked, thumb rubbing over his nipple, the touch pleasant and distracting. “You meet so many people you like, why don't you ask everyone to come with you? Why not ask Cleopatra or Elizabeth I or people like Jula?”

“I try not to bring historically relevant individuals along,” the Doctor said, moving his hand down to settle on her hip while he shifted, lying with his head next to hers, body turned to face her. “People like Cleo and good queen Bess are far too busy with their own lives to bother with me, and I don't want to run the risk of changing history in case something happens to them.”

A small, thoughtful sound left her throat. “Can you always tell who's important to history? Earth history isn't your history, so do your Time Senses give you a warning or something?”

“Something like that,” the Doctor said, amused at the term _time senses_ ; rather like _time tots_ , it was a Zoeism he enjoyed. “It's the timelines. I try to stay away from people with the more established timelines, the ones that are firmer than most, as it means that they have something important to do, like Harriet.”

She blinked. “Our Harriet?”

“After Downing Street blew up, I finally recognised what her timelines were telling me,” he said. “All that night they'd been firmer than yours, more focused, but it was only that morning that I realised she was the Harriet Jones I'd heard about.”

Fascination was etched across her face, and he realised it had been a long time since she had peppered him with questions like this. He found himself oddly nostalgic for it.

“Do you see it for everyone?” She asked. “Their timelines, I mean.”

“Most,” he said. “Sometimes it's stronger, sometimes it's weaker, it depends on a lot of factors. It helps when I spend more time around a person. Like you, the day we met your timeline was all over the place – there were so many different directions you could go, which is normal for young people. They're still fresh out the oven. Babies are the best because they're little glowing balls of opportunity.”

Her mouth caught in a smile. “So if proximity and intimacy helps you, what do you see about my timelines now?”

Breath catching in his throat, sudden panic filling him. “I – well – to be honest, I haven't looked.”

“You haven't?”

“Not for you,” he admitted, swallowing. “Not since Mondas and that was only to make sure everything was back as it should be. When I'm close to someone, it can be... _distracting_ to look at the timelines.”

“I didn't realise you could turn it on and off like that,” she said.

“It's not like a switch.” The path of her fingers left trails of fire in their wake, and he wondered if there was ever going to come a day when she touched him and he didn't feel overwhelmed. “But we learn not to focus on it at the Academy. It's like breathing, you do it without thinking about it and it's natural – you know you're doing it but you don't pay attention to it.”

“You fascinate me,” Zoe said, touching his mouth and tracing the shape of it. “There's so much to learn about you.” Her nose crinkled. “Is it wrong that I kind of want to take you apart and have a poke at your brain?”

He kissed her fingers. “Only a little.”

“Tell me then.” Arousal stirred in his veins at the way her hair fell over her shoulders and the neck of her T-shirt gaped, revealing the newly-freckled skin beneath. “How do you know who you're going to invite?”

“I don't, not really,” he said. “I never know why or how, I just know _who_.”

The Doctor felt stripped naked under Zoe's gaze before she removed her fingers and replaced them with her mouth, pressing him back into the bed, leg sliding over him, and he kissed her back, letting the press of her body against his chase away lingering doubts. He went with her when she pressed him back, sliding so that her knees pressed on either side of his hips, kissing him all the way, fingers knotting with his, lifting his arms above his head and held his hands in place against the pillows, pulling back to look down at him. Her hair fell about her in a tumble and he couldn't see her face, a travesty considering what a lovely face it was, but her mouth kissed just beneath the soft hollow of his throat and his eyes closed, happy and content to be with her.

A small rumble of satisfaction worked its way through his chest, and he felt her smile against his skin, looking up from beneath her mass of curls, smile visible.

“Happy?”

“Exquisitely so,” he said, truthfully. “It's hard not to be happy when I'm with you.”

Something melted behind her eyes, knees press tighter on either side of his waist. She lifted herself up and closed the distance between their mouths. There was something wonderful at surrendering control to her, letting her take the lead, guiding him to where she wanted him, taking him _how_ she wanted him. He tilted his head back, deepening the kiss, her tongue sliding into his mouth in an effort to map every inch of him, drawing both hands above his head so she was able to hold him loosely with one, freeing the other to cup the back of his head.

The feel of her fingers in his hair made his thighs twitch.

“You know what I love about you?”

Her lips moved against his, words slipping into his mouth, no space between them, and he was intoxicated.

“My hair?”

As hoped for, her fingers scratched against his scalp and gave a little tug that sent a frisson of pleasure through him.

“It's definitely part of the attraction,” she said, drawing his bottom lip between her teeth and tugging. A pleading whimper burned its way up his throat. “But no. One of the many, _many_ things I love about you is how safe you make me feel.” She shifted down his body until she was able to rest against his chest, forehead pressed between his hearts, holding his arms in place. “It feels like nothing bad will ever happen to me when you're here.”

His eyes slid open and stared down at the top of her head, slow arousal giving way to something more concerned. Her grip was so light that his wrists brushed through her fingers and her body shuddered when he wrapped his arms around her, tangling her up before rolling her onto her back, pulling the covers with them to keep her warm. She often complained the temperature on the TARDIS was too cool, and they tended to keep their bedroom at a higher temperature but she found comfort in the heat, and she looked so fragile as he looked down into her face that he wanted her to have every comfort she needed.

“What is it?” His hand smoothed her hair back, her eyes shuttering at his touch, muscles tightening as her nostrils flared. It was easy to recognise her efforts not to cry when he was a master of her face. “Zoe, love, what's happened?”

She shook her head, swallowing. “It's silly.”

“Nothing you'd ever say would be silly, not to me.” He dropped his forehead and rested it against hers. “Did something happen today? When you were with Jack, did the military –?”

“No, no,” she said, quickly. “Nothing like that.”

His breath ghosts over her forehead, hands pulling her thighs around him, letting her feel connected to him.

“Tell me.”

“There's...a man.”

It rushed from her, as though it was a secret she had been holding onto for too long but he knew her, knew when she was keeping secrets and when she wasn't. She was holding something back with regards to her sudden interest in neurobiology but the way she spoke wasn't like that, edging around the subject in the hopes he wouldn't ask too many questions; rather, she spoke as though only realising the truth for the first time as the words left her mouth.

“I keep seeing him, again and again.” Her fingers clenched and unclenched against her side. “He was at my graduation, then again at Torchwood House – he said something but I didn't think anything of it at the time, thought he was just a racist and I was in pain from the werewolf, but he said _too soon_. Then I saw him again on Kutlib and again today. He wasn't close, not like the last two times, but I know it was him. He was standing across the field and he waved at me, but not a friendly wave – it was sort of like...it felt like he was mocking me. I don't know why. And then he disappeared. He's using a Vortex Manipulator, I know that much. He's – I don't know who he is but he's following me. I know he is.”

The Doctor smoothed his thumb across the cheekbone beneath her left eye and stroked the soft hair on her temple as worry gnawed at him.

He didn't like this.

Not one bit.

“What did he look like?”

“Blond. Tall. Handsome in a traditional sort of way,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “All broad shoulders and square jaw. The sort of bloke you imagine working in finance and then surfing at the weekend.”

His mouth twitched. “Specific.”

“Wanted to paint a picture.” Her fingers splayed over his chest, looking young in a way she hadn't since before France. “Tell me this isn't something I need to worry about. Tell me it's just...I don't know, a friend from the future coming back to speak with me about something but keeps getting the date wrong.”

“That is possible.”

She looked up at him. “But...?”

“No buts,” he said, smoothing her hair from her face. “There's not enough information to form a theory. All we know is that some financial surfer is travelling back to speak with you but keeps getting the date wrong. Not unlikely considering he's travelling by Vortex Manipulator.”

She tugged on his chest hair. “Why would he be so rude though? In Scotland he pushed me.”

He stroked her temple in an effort to control his anger at the fact someone had put their hands on her and _pushed._ “I don't know.”

“And he could at least say hello if he was a friend, it's not like I haven't met someone out of order before.”

“Right...” his mind blanked. “I want to say Alice but that feels wrong.”

“Amelia.” Her eyes flashed to his, worry settled on her face. “But she wasn't wandering around my timeline with a grudge. Has anyone done this with you? Sort of followed you through your timeline?”

“Not really, not that I know of at least, but it's not unheard of.” He carefully untangled himself from her and lay on his side, arms around her body pulling her close; she turned, curling herself to match him. “I did once meet a friend out of order. Mel. She was brought to my trial before I'd even met her. He could be following you for any number of reasons.”

Her forehead pressed against his shoulder. “I wish he'd stop.”

The quiet admission cut through him. She didn't easily speak her fear – not anymore at least, not since the Game Station – and he held her tighter, trying to make her feel safe in his arms.

“We'll figure this out,” he told her. “I promise.”

She shook her head. “I'm being stupid.”

He huffed, disturbing her hair. “Not an adjective I'd use to describe you.”

“I don't know why he's making me feel like this,” she said, frustrated with herself. “I've dealt with worse than some asshole stalking me. I had to deal with the Corsair on Skaro and she wasn't exactly friendly. Thought she wanted to leave me behind a couple of times, but I managed it.”

“She wouldn't have left you behind,” he said. “Not permanently anyway.”

Zoe huffed and tilted her head back. “I still shouldn't need you to make me feel protected. I'm not a child.”

“I don't think there's anything inherently childlike in wanting to feel safe,” the Doctor said, spreading his fingers against the base of her spine. “And I like that I make you feel that way. You make me feel safe too, you know.”

Her face dropped into a thoughtful, surprised pout. “I do?”

“Always.” He rubbed his nose against hers and hummed, feeling her soften against him, worry starting to drip out of her. “Being here with you, like this, I feel safer and more loved than I have in a long time.”

“Good.” The touch of her fingers against his cheek was as light as a feather but as powerful as an electric shock. “Because I do love you.”

“You've mentioned once or twice.”

“It deserves repeating.”

“As often as you like,” he told her, rolling onto his back and pulling her with him, tugging the blankets up her bare back. “I won't ever tire of hearing it.”

She angled her head and kissed him before she sat up, knees bracketing his hips again, his eyes drawn to her breasts before settling on her face.

“Tell me not to worry about him,” Zoe said, fingertips bracing herself against him. “Tell me everything's going to be fine.”

“Everything _is_ going to be fine,” he assured her, thumbs smoothing over her hipbones even as his mind considered what it meant to have someone following her through time, a heavy, cold weight settling in the pit of his stomach. “Don't worry about him.”

Her mouth curved, worry finally giving way to amusement. “See, even though I know you can't make promises like that, I do feel better.”

“Then my job here's done,” the Doctor said, grinning up at her.

“Well...not quite.” Her hands smoothed up his chest, thumbnails catching on his nipples on the way past, a jolt of pleasure shooting through him. “I do have some plans for you, if you're amenable.”

“I could be persuaded.”

“Oh, could you?”

His hand slipped up her back and pulled her down.

“Absolutely.”


	29. Chapter 29

Steam rose from the saucepan and slowly warmed the kitchen that was unusually cold that morning, suggesting one of the temperature circuits was out of alignment. Not particularly minding the cold but conscious of his humans' disdain for cool temperatures, the Doctor cranked the cobbled-together heating system – put in place for Zoe Heriot who was prone to violent shivering at the oddest moments – and stuck a post-it note on the fridge as a reminder to check on the circuits later. He had plans for the morning and he wasn't inclined to change them because of a small switch that would probably take him hours to unearth if he was lucky. Although, considering that his plans hadn't initially included Jackie Tyler, he considered that crawling through the TARDIS's bowels wasn't the worst way to start his morning.

What had started as a simple message asking for her ginger cake recipe had culminated in him having to find a way to mount his phone to the wall so his girlfriend's mother could peer down at him from her living room in London as she talked him through the steps of making it. Vehemently polite protests falling on deaf ears, he had resigned himself to her comments and company but not without a snarky comment at the glass of wine she poured herself even though it was late evening for her rather than the early hours of the morning as it was for him.

There wasn't a force powerful in the universe that would ever make him admit that he was glad she was there supervising him but he was: melting sugar was something he found... _difficult._ An unfortunate incident with an attempt at caramelisation and no shirt had led given him a burn that made him eyes water and skin blister. After that, he was somewhat skittish around attempting to bake with melted sugar. Jackie's occasionally pleasant presence meant that he was able to hold the saucepan up to her eyes for approval or alteration and only have to suffer one or two light insults about his intellect and general personality.

Standing in front of the stove, hyper vigilant in his efforts to avoid burning the sugar, butter, and treacle mixture _again,_ he kept one ear on Jackie. Tales of life on the estate once would have bored him but now he knew who everyone was – Bev, Deano, Big Dave, Little Dave, Shareen, Fat Jack, and all – he found himself actually interested in what was happening in his absence. While wasn't sure how long it was for Jackie in comparison to their weeks in the TARDIS, having not asked, he was sure she would let him know at some point. She had taken to sending him daily reminders – daily for her, at least – of how long it was until her birthday, thoroughly untrusting in his ability to bring her daughters back on time.

“...course that means Howard's knockin' boots with Deirdre now,” Jackie said, bringing her glass of wine to her mouth and taking a healthy sip that reminded him Zoe's drinking was come by honestly rather than an affectation from France. “An' she's worried I'm goin' to make a big fuss of it because me an' him were together.”

“Are you?” The Doctor carefully stirred the mixture, poking at the butter that hadn't fully melted, breaking it into small pieces with the edge of his wooden spoon. “Upset, I mean.”

Stuck to the wall with one of the rubber adhesive he used to stop from slipping in the shower, his phone screen framed Jackie as she rolled her eyes.

“ _No_.”

“Well, that's good, isn't it?”

“Yeah, but it's got people askin' all sorts of questions.” Behind her, the view out of her living room showed the rain lashing against the window, and he wondered if her flat was as cosy as it looked right then. “Because it's not like I haven't raised hell in the past when an ex started shaggin' a mate.”

“Is Deirdre a mate though?” As everything was coming together nicely, he risked a glance up at her. “I know she's no Bev or Ru but I don't remember seeing her around much. Just the New Year's Eve party, actually.”

“She's kind of a mate, like a mate's mate, I s'pose,” she shrugged. “Rose an' Zoe went to school with her daughter an' they were friends until Chantelle went an' got herself knocked up by a chef. She lives over in Camden now an' doesn't Deirdre think she's the bees knees with it?”

The Doctor stirred the contents of his pan. “Is Camden the place to be?”

“Nah.” Fresh wine made its way into her glass. “But it's distance, y'know? She can pretend her son-in-law – not that they're married, mind – is doin' better than he is. Bev was over there before Christmas an' she says he's only a chef at Wetherspoons an' Chantelle is workin' the tills at Spar but Deirdre's walkin' around like the big 'I am' because of it. Pretentious cow.”

He looked up, amused. “Sounds to me you might not be all right with her and Howard after all.”

“Oh, what do you know?” Jackie scowled. “You're an alien.”

“Ah, yes, but let's not forget that I'm 900, give or take a few decades.” At the reminder of his age, her face scrunched up, making her look exactly like her daughters. “I've got some wisdom in me.”

She snorted. “Not enough to stop your treacle burning.”

“What? _Shit_.” Swiftly removing the mixture from the heat, he peered down at it, uncertain. “What do I do now?”

“Milk, eggs, an' bicarb,” Jackie read out of her recipe book that she pulled forward into her lap, wiping clean the drops of wine that fell on it. “Do it slowly though, you don't want scrambled eggs.”

“Right.” The Doctor whisked the wet ingredients for a final time before slowly adding it to the hot treacle, wrist twisting as he stirred everything together. “You know, you could've just sent me the recipe.”

“An' miss this? No thanks.”

The sigh that built up in his chest rattled around his ribcage.

He had no one to blame for himself for his current Jackie-infused situation. He was the one who had reached out to her asking for her sticky ginger cake recipe. It was one of Zoe's favourites and one he remembered with great fondness – not that he recalled eating any at Christmas – as the memory of how it tasted in Zoe's mouth when he kissed her in the small bathroom, pressing her up against the door and wedging a knee between her legs, skin thrumming from regeneration and _her,_ was a strong one. Considering the near-Pavlovian response he seemed to have develop whenever the taste of ginger burst across his tongue, making his trousers uncomfortably tight as that memory played itself on a loop, he tended to avoid ginger-based food and drinks for fear of embarrassing himself in public and giving Zoe something to tease him about.

_Not_ , he considered, _that I'd mind that._

Yet, watching Zoe toss and turn through the night before falling into a restless sleep only a few hours earlier cemented a desire to do something to put her back together after the startling realisation that someone was following her through time. Cake was normally a good place to start with her when she was feeling out of sorts, and between her restlessness and Jack's seeming inability to sleep for longer than two or three hours at a time for reasons known only to him, the mood on the TARDIS had shifted after their victory on Níphikân.

Not even a trip to the Library had been enough to shake Zoe from her thoughts, fingers absently trailing over the spines of books, a look of alarm shared between him and Rose when she didn't check anything out – normally, she left with at least four of five. And then there was Jack who remained on the edge of grumpy even after a day spent in the Cicatrizian Rainforest on Mandaroh Minor, a well-known and well-respected wild bird sanctuary. Attempts at finding out what was wrong with him were met with deft avoidance and a small tightening of his jawline, a warning not to push too far. So far it was a warning the Doctor had respected but it was getting to the point where he felt he was going to have to push, concerned about Jack's mental health if he kept what was bothering him to himself for much longer.

There was consolation in the fact that Rose and Mickey seemed fine.

If all four of his humans started to break, he wasn't sure what he would do.

The Doctor poured another portion of the wet ingredients into his bowl and stirred. “Why's it strange?”

“Why's what strange?” Jackie asked.

“You not kicking up a fuss,” he said. “You were saying that people think it's odd you're not bothered about Howard but it's not like you were in love with him, were you?”

“No,” she agreed, tugging her cardigan tighter around her neck, eyes drifting from him to stare at the wall. “I don't know. I was thinkin' about it earlier an' me an' him only broke up about six weeks ago in his mind, but for me, it's been...I don't know... _longer._ ”

“Ah.” Understanding filled him. “Right, that'll do it. You've had more time to accept the end of the relationship so you're further on ahead than everyone else.”

“Yeah.” Her thumb rubbed against the rim of her glass, eyes glancing back to him. “An' I didn't even think about him when I was gone, so when the gossip started that he was seein' Deirdre, I don't know, I kind of forgot I'd dated him.” Her body slumped in a sigh, mouth twisting. “Isn't that horrible? He's a nice bloke an' I just clean forgot about him.”

“Well, it's not great.” He added the last of the wet ingredients into the bowl and dragged his spoon around the edges before stirring. “But it's not the worst thing in the world you're not broken up over it. What do they want you to do, weep into your cornflakes?”

She snorted. “It's what I've done in the past.”

“Oh, we've all had a good cry over lovers every now and then.” His eyes flashed with amusement as he looked at her. “When I got my hearts broken the first time, I told my parents my life was over and locked myself in my bedroom listening to orchestral music, which was kind of the emo music of your time.” Her eyes rolled. “They tried to talk me out of my room but I said I was embracing the life of a hermit since that's all I was clearly suited for.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows, mouth twitching. “What'd they say?”

“They said that that was a lot of lives to spend alone and they happened to know the perfect person for me,” the Doctor replied, slowing his movements until he stopped, lost in the memory of his long-ago youth. “It's how my marriage was arranged, actually. I didn't realise it at the time but they'd been having discussions with my wife's parents for a while and only told me about it to get me to stop moping about the house.”

“Did it work?”

“Not really,” he said. “Designed the first sonic screwdriver though, so that was something.”

“God, you're a nerd, no wonder Zoe likes you.” A grin split across his face at that before she spoke again. “You had an arranged marriage?”

“Now, now, Jackie, is that judgement I hear?” He teased, lifting the wooden spoon from the wet ingredients to make sure there were no lumps _or_ half-scrambled eggs; when he baked human recipes, it was known to go either way. “As you're so keen on reminding me, I am an alien: different customs and all that. Arranged marriages are common on Earth too as well mind.”

“I know that,” she said, annoyed. “Surprised you went through with it, that's all. Figured you'd have kicked up a fuss about bein' told what to do. Rumour has it you don't like bein' forced into things.”

“Spoken to Alistair lately, have you?”

“Sarah Jane, actually, an' don't change the subject.” The tone of voice was the one she used with her daughters when they were being particularly evasive and he was irritated to find it worked on him as well. “Arranged marriage?”

“A fairly common arrangement among my lot.” He held the bowl up to the camera. “What now?

“Got your dry ingredients combined?”

“Yup.”

“Fold that in.” He set the spoon down and found his bowl. “You tellin' me that all you weird Time Lords had arranged marriages?”

“Most of us, yeah.” Talking about his people made the memory of home stronger, and the TARDIS kitchen faded until he was standing in his old kitchen in the home he had shared with his wife; if he strained his ears, he might hear the children playing outside. “My people lived for a very long time, each regeneration can hold thousands of years with careful living, and we have twelve of them. It made sense to think carefully about who we married. The elders always said that love was fleeting and that marriage should be based on compatibility as that meant love could come later.”

Jackie sipped her wine, gaze unusually thoughtful. “Sounds dry.”

“Yeah, it was a bit.”

She watched him stir the mixture, his gaze focused on the bowl. “Did you want to get married?”

“Not really,” the Doctor admitted. It wasn't as though it was a secret he had been reluctant to marry, both of them had been until they met and started falling in love; they were the lucky ones, the ones who found love early and built it up higher and stronger with each passing decade. “But then I met her and you know how it goes.”

“You're a romantic,” Jackie accused.

“Shamelessly,” he grinned. “But those arranged marriages were only for the Time Lords. Gallifreyans got to choose who they married. For them, arranged marriage was an outdated practice and an example of how out of touch we were.”

“Wait, what?” Her brow crinkled in confusion. “What's the difference?”

“Think of Time Lords like a social class,” he suggested. “Gallifreyans were normal, everyday citizens and the Time Lords were sort of the elite class: aristocracy but a bit more useful. We're the ones who looked into the Untempered Schism and went to the Academy. The Gallifreyans had better sense than that.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “The Schism. That thing that nearly killed Zoe?”

“The very same.”

“Why'd they make you look at it?” She asked. “Isn't that dangerous?”

“Very much so, painful too,” he said, flour bursting across his shirt when he stirred too hard. “It was an initiation ceremony. The actual reason behind why we had to do it was lost to time – ironic, I know, what with us being time travellers – but it was tradition by that point. My children –” a thick lump settled in his throat. “I refused to let my children go through it. When their time came, I couldn't let them experience that. It was one of the biggest fights me and my wife ever had. She'd been inspired when she looked into the Schism, whatever she saw in there filled her with – I don't know – joy, purpose. When I looked in though...”

The great, yawning maw of the Untempered Schism appeared in his mind and his muscles seized with remembered fear. The images he had seen in there – Gallifrey burning, people screaming and dying, the universe in flames – had all come true, to an extent, but he had only been a child and confused and terrified by the devastation; running had been the only thing he could do. The thought of one of his children seeing the same images had made him put his foot down and risked his marriage until Levokania agreed – reluctantly and with a lot of anger – not to let the children look until _they_ were old enough to decide.

“I don't blame you,” Jackie said when it was clear he wasn't going to continue. “I'm never goin' to forget what it was like with Zoe. How old were you when you looked?”

“Eight.”

“Eight?” The pitch she reached threatened to summon dogs, and he winced. “You were a baby!”

Finishing combining the flour, he looked up at her. “Sympathy for the devil, Jacks?”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You're hardly the devil. An ass, a sod, a stupid alien, but not the devil.”

The Doctor laughed. “Why, aren't you positively charming tonight?”

She swore at him before telling him to mix the stem ginger in.

“Have you met anyone else?” He asked in the lull that came with scrapping the ginger into the mix. “Zoe and Rose haven't said but I'm not sure you'd tell them if you have. I definitely never told my kids I was seeing Romana and that was centuries after their mother died. Although, they did find out, nosy buggers that they were.”

Jackie poured the last of the wine into her glass, shaking it to get the dregs out. “I'm not. Not lookin' either. Speakin' of exes though, I did have coffee with Sarah Jane yesterday.”

He sighed.

“She's not an ex, we never dated.” She waved her hand dismissively, and he let the point go, knowing that if he rose to the bait he would be giving Jackie exactly what she wanted: his annoyance. “How is she?”

“Fine, wanted to talk a bit, that's all.” Jackie watched him. “Alistair called too. Said to tell you to call the next time you're on Earth. Doesn't want to hear about you from buildings blowin' up on the news.”

He stopped stirring and stared at her. “ _Two_ buildings. It's not like I go around blowing stuff up for fun.”

“Don't you?”

“You know what, Jackie?” He pointed his dripping spoon at her, threateningly. “I –”

The sound of bare feet padding softly against the floor stopped the half-hearted threat in his mouth. Zoe shuffled into the room, his hearts sinking as it had only been a few hours since she fell asleep, meaning she wasn't properly rested, and the fact that he was having a morning chat with her mother was something he had hoped to avoid her finding out. She would be delighted he was getting along with Jackie but it was the teasing he didn't want to deal with.

Heavy with sleep and face pouting in exhaustion, she didn't register Jackie watching her from the phone as she moved towards him. She was dressed in one of the jumpers she had kept from his previous regeneration, the sleeves falling down over her hands and the hem skimming her thighs; her hair was messier than his on a bad day, and a line ran across her face where the pillow had creased her skin. The Doctor thought she looked breathtaking and he wanted to sit her on the counter and show her exactly how beautiful he thought she was but Jackie was right there and he was wearing a _kiss the cook_ apron, and Zoe had yet to resist following that instruction whenever she saw him wearing it.

Rubbing her face, she padded towards the coffee machine. His body relaxed, relieved Jackie wasn't going to find out about them from a sleepy kiss, when her hand reached out to squeeze his arse on the way past. The jump that rolled through him made the spoon clatter from his fingers to the floor and he dropped to his knees to retrieve it, leaving Zoe with an unimpeded view of her mother mounted on the wall.

“Mornin', love,” Jackie said.

Zoe paused and stepped back, squinting. “Mum?”

“You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards.”

“What –?” She looked down at the Doctor in tired confusion, her hand resting on the top of his head, absently stroking his hair. “Are you two –? Do you normally do this?”

He managed to get to his feet, clumsy in his embarrassment. “Do what?”

“Talk, video chat...” her hands flapped. “ _Gossip_.”

Colour pricked his cheeks. “Er...sometimes?”

“He needed a recipe,” Jackie said, saving him from himself. “An' it's not like I've got anythin' better to do tonight. Middle of the bloody week, isn't it?”

Zoe rubbed her knuckles into her eye. “Is it?”

“Have your morning coffee, sweetheart,” she suggested with a fond smile “Might get your brain workin'.”

“Is this some sort of nightmare?” Zoe asked, confused. “Am I still asleep? Is this because I ate those cheese things last night? People say you shouldn't eat cheese before bed because of nightmares and I guess they're right.”

The Doctor reached around her and set the coffee machine to grind. “She's helping me make a cake.”

“A cake?”

He tilted the bowl towards her. “Ginger.”

“I love ginger cake.”

“He knows,” Jackie said, rolling her eyes as though his knowledge of Zoe's cake preference was odd. “Said you've been feelin' a bit down lately an' he wanted to cheer you up. You all right?”

“I...yeah.” Her eyes slid to the Doctor in a quick, stinging reproof for telling her mother about her mood; he developed a sudden and intense interest in the cake batter. “It's nothing, really. I just got spooked by someone that's all and it's making me worry.You know what I'm like, there's not a situation I can't make worse by worrying about it.”

“I know you don't worry for nothin',” Jackie said, ignoring her attempt at levity. “If something's spooked you, trust those instincts of yours, but' try not to worry. The Doctor's not much good for a lot of things –”

“ _Hey_!”

“But he's good at keepin' you girls more or less safe,” she finished, talking over him, and he marvelled at the fact that, not too long ago, she wouldn't have trusted him to make a cup of tea let alone keep her daughters safe. “An' Jack an' Mickey are there too. Reckon you're in good hands.”

A soft smile touched Zoe's lips. “Thanks, Mum.”

“Anytime, love.” She finished her wine and set the glass down. “Now you're awake, make sure he doesn't burn the cake. I'm off to watch Big Brother. It's all kickin' off in the house. Huge race row goin' on – bleedin' racists – but I've got a tenner on the eviction tonight so fingers crossed.”

“Good luck,” the Doctor said before adding a sincere, “thanks.”

“Anytime, love,” Jackie said. “See you soon, darlin'. Love to everyone.”

Zoe raised her hand in a small wave. “Bye, Mum.”

The screen blinked, and Jackie was gone.

_Three._

_Two._

_One._

“Since when do you have early morning chats with my mum?”

The Doctor grimaced and avoided her eyes. “Since I wanted to make you a cake to cheer you up a bit? Please, don't make a big deal out of it.”

“I won't,” Zoe said, taking her coffee from the machine and having her first sip of the day, eyes shining with amusement over the top of her mug. “No promises about Rose though.”

Running a hand over his face with a groan and wrapping an arm around her when she stepped into his space and did as his apron instructed, he considered that the inevitable mockery from Rose was worth it as long as it kept that smile on Zoe's face.

* * *

“I don't get it,” Rose said later that morning after waking to find her not-quite-younger sister leaning over her – a startling sight at the best of times but terrifying first thing in the morning with no context. “They were just... _talkin'_?”

“Chatting like old friends,” Zoe said with the look she got on her face when imparting particularly juicy gossip. “I didn't hear much because I was still half asleep and hadn't had my coffee yet but they were rabbiting away like nobody's business.”

“But – _what_?” Sat in front of her vanity mirror, she saw the headache start as an ache that drooped one eye. Pressing the heel of her palm against it, she rubbed Zoe's deft fingers making quick work of a French braid in her hair. “Like actually talkin' to her? Not arguin' or insultin' her or anythin' like that?”

“I'm telling you, I walked in and the two of them were making a cake together.” Zoe tied off the end of the braid before running her fingers through the loose blonde hair on the other side, separating three pieces out. “Mum's ginger cake that we love? He was making that and the two of them were talking like they're old friends. He's told me that sometimes they have a bit of a chat but I always figured that was them texting about Eastenders or something. I didn't know they had these long, early morning chats.”

Rose stared at her in the mirror. “This is weird. D'you think they're possessed?”

“What, both of them?”

“Have to be, right?” She leant forwards and set her cup down, tugged back into position by her hair. “If the Doctor just started bein' nice to Mum, she'd suspect somethin', an' if Mum started bein' nice to the Doctor, we'd definitely have heard about it. My bet is that they've both been snatched an' replaced with aliens or somethin'.” Her eyes went wide. “Alien doppelgängers.”

Zoe's hands paused halfway through the second braid. “ _Zygons_.”

Rose snorted, pulling her knees up as she laughed. “Could be. Maybe they're both hangin' upside down somewhere an' we don't know about it.”

“I wouldn't put it past the bloody Zygons,” she grumbled.

“You an' the Zygons, honestly,” Rose laughed. Zoe opened her mouth but she held up her hand, cutting her off. “Please, it's too early to listen to a rant about them.”

“Fine,” Zoe sighed. “But if they do turn out to be Zygons, I'll be ranting then.”

“Fine by me,” she said, grinning before it dripped from her face, sudden panic taking its place. “You don't think...? God, no, forget it.”

Zoe tugged her hair, chastising. “Don't do that, tell me.”

“You don't think...” she paused, the thought of putting into words what had rushed through her mind making her feel nauseous. “That – y'know – him an' Mum?”

“ _Jesus_.”

“It was just a thought!”

“Why would that even cross your mind?” Zoe demanded, disgusted, a shudder running through her. “God, why would you even put that in _my_ mind? I can't get it out now, it's there like a bloody brand.” Her face pulled and her tongue stuck out, gagging, before she stomped her feet and shook her head. “For fuck's sake.”

“Who knows what he likes?” Rose protested. “For all we know, Mum could be just his type.”

“I swear to God, if you don't stop talking, I'm going to find a supernova and shove you into it.”

She started laughing. “Can you even imagine what'd be like?”

“ _Rose_ ,” Zoe whined, sounding like she was thirteen again. “Stop. It's gross.”

“You're right.” Her shoulders twitched in a fine shudder. “The two of them'd kill each other before long. I'm not sure them bein' friends is better though. What do they even talk about?”

Zoe sighed, relieved that the topic of their mother and the Doctor having secret sex was over. She mulled on the decision as to whether or not to mention it to the Doctor before deciding, ultimately, not to. Talking about her mother and sex in the same sentence was the surest way to make him contemplate the life of a monk, and as she wanted to have sex with him again sometime in the next decade, it was best if he knew nothing about the depravity of Rose's mind.

“I don't know,” she said. “He didn't say.”

Dodging all her attempts to find out what they were talking about before she entered, he had distracted her with a very pleasant and very thorough morning kiss before dashing from the kitchen with an instruction to check on the cake in forty-five minutes if he wasn't back by then. She had been left standing in the kitchen, well kissed and deeply confused, but never one to allow cake to burn when she could prevent it, she remained in the kitchen until he returned. By that point, Jack was up and about and she hadn't been willing to embarrass him in front of Jack, so she let the matter drop for now.

It wasn't as though he wouldn't tell her eventually.

She needed only a little patience before he inevitably broke and spilled his secrets into her lap.

“Strange,” Rose concluded. “But he's always been a little odd.”

She laughed and tied off the end of the second braid, running her fingers down them to make sure they were straight and level with each other. “ _That_ is very true.”

“Have you decided on an outfit for the party yet?”

Zoe sighed. “No, don't nag.”

“Zo,” Rose nagged. “It's in a week _._ ”

“Then that means there's plenty of time to have a look,” she said. “I've got time.”

“Don't leave it to the last minute,” Rose warned. “You know you'll get stressed.”

“God,” she complained, stepping back from the chair to pick up her second cup of coffee that had turned lukewarm in her absence. “You sound just like Reinette.: _planning an outfit takes time, darling, you can't just throw things together and expect it to be suitable._ She made me think about outfits _months_ in advance. It was torturous.”

“It's sensible,” Rose said, checking her hair before standing and pushing her sister into her seat. Zoe slumped down like a sulking child but a pinch behind the ear made her straighten up. “If you won't listen to me, listen to your wife.”

A mulish pout appeared. “I didn't always listen to her.”

“An' don't you regret that now?”

“Shut up.”

Rose pulled on a curl. “Make me.”

Zoe sniffed. “Shan't. Too tired.”

“You've been tired a lot lately,” Rose noted, separating the curls with her fingers, her touch gentle as she remembered years of doing Zoe's hair for her that felt like yesterday. Nostalgia took her by surprise and the hot tears that burned her eyes made her duck her head, an intense focus on the hair in front of her helping to shake the feeling of something lost from her shoulders. “You okay?”

“More or less,” she said, leaning back and propping her feet up on the vanity. “It's just that guy I told you about. He's been on my mind recently.”

“Creepy surfer man,” Rose nodded, pulling sections up and clipping them back so that she could put thick braids in. “It's probably nothin'.”

“That's what people keep telling me,” she said, sighing. “I haven't been sleeping well because of it, that's all. After you went to bed last night, I had the Doctor take me to a lecture on the neurobiology of memory.”

Rose looked at her in the mirror. “Did that put you to sleep?”

“No, it was too stimulating,” she said, making Rose smile. “I ended up with more questions than answers.”

“Pretty much sums you up,” Rose said, relying on muscle memory to place the first cornrow in as it had been a while since she had done Zoe's hair, the thickness a challenge compared to hers. “Why don't you ask the Doctor for somethin' to help you sleep?”

“He's offered,” Zoe admitted, twisting a hairband around her fingers. “But I'm fine. I am. I'm just...hell, I don't know.”

“Fixatin'.”

“Excuse me?”

“When you were at uni, I read a lot of books on psychology an' stuff,” she said with a shrug. “Not just that self-help stuff Mickey thought it'd be funny to get me to read.” Zoe hid her smile. “One of the books said fixation is an element of anxiety. Are you feel particularly anxious?”

“Only when I'm awake.”

Rose poked her shoulder. “Have you spoken to Yatta about it?”

“Now you sound like the Doctor,” Zoe complained.

“God, you're a pain in the ass,” she said, annoyed. “Aren't you supposed to be thirty or somethin'?”

“Not for another week according to the Doctor,” Zoe sniped. “Anyway, what does my age have to do with the price of milk?”

“It means you know something's botherin' you but instead of doin' somethin' about it, you're fixatin',” she told her, pointedly. “Either get the Doctor to knock you out or speak to your damned therapist about things. That's what she's for, right?”

“I'd just like to point out the irony of you telling me to talk to someone when you never spoke to anyone about Jimmy – _ow_!” She gave her hair a sharp yank, and Zoe's eyes went wide, hand flying to the top of her head. “Rose, that _hurt._ ”

“Therapy's expensive an' the wait list for the NHS is fuckin' long,” Rose said, eyes flashing angrily, fingers looped into Zoe's hair, keeping her in place. “An' just because I didn't tell you doesn't mean I didn't speak to anyone.”

Hesitant and cautious, Zoe met her eyes in the mirror. “You did?”

“Mickey found someone for me to talk to.”

Slowly, she lowered her hand and the grip on her hair relaxed, Rose's fingers returning to the braid. “You never said.”

“You were fifteen,” Rose told her, angry colour slashed across her cheeks; she had forgotten how infuriating Zoe was capable of being at times. “I wasn't goin' to tell you the shit Jimmy did to me. You didn't need to hear it.”

Zoe met her eyes in the mirror, apologetic in look if not words. “I'm not fifteen anymore. You could tell me now, if you want.”

“No, I'm good,” she said, swiftly, a tight iron band of anxiety squeezing her chest, and she sank her toes into the rug, grasping the material before releasing, trying to calm herself. “No sense draggin' up old ghosts. Anyway, we're talkin' about you.”

“We can talk about you,” Zoe offered. “I really don't mind.”

“Shut up.”

“You're mean.”

“No I'm not, I'm lovely,” Rose said. Zoe grinned, the brief tension between them fading as it always did. “Point is, you should –”

“I said _leave it_.”

The sharp words froze them mid-conversation, eyes blinking owlishly at the unexpectedness of hearing an angry male voice on the TARDIS. By their very natures, the Doctor, Jack, and Mickey were easygoing men who were more inclined to laughter than anger and neither Zoe nor Rose were able to remember if any of them had raised their voices in anger before. Zoe recalled a heated conversation with the Doctor back when they were still getting to know each other and their relationship teetering on familial rather than romantic, but that had – so far – been a one off. The sound of angry words approaching Rose's door made Zoe sit up straighter, feet dropping to the ground as she listened, a frown dug onto her features.

“Is that Jack?”

“Sounded like him,” Rose said, troubled, fingers still in Zoe's hair. “'cept I've never heard him sound like that before. Who's he talkin' to?”

Zoe shrugged. “Either the Doctor or Mickey, it's not like there's a lot of choice on board.”

“I don't need you fussing over me like a mother hen,” Jack said, the crack in Rose's door that Zoe hadn't shut properly when she entered earlier letting the words in. The frustration in his voice was obvious, and they looked at each other. Jack was never frustrated, at least not on the TARDIS; occasionally annoyance seeped into his tone in the middle of a tense situation but he was so laidback that hearing him genuinely annoyed and irritated was unnerving. “I just had a bad night's sleep, that's all.”

“That's all,” Mickey repeated, hot and annoyed, their footsteps growing louder as they came closer to Rose's room. “You woke up screamin' an' not for the first time.”

“If it bothers you, I'll sleep somewhere else.”

“That's not the point an' you know it,” Mickey snapped. “The nightmares've been gettin' worse, or maybe they've always been this bad an' I didn't know about it, but will you please talk to the –?”

A burst of angry air filled their ears as Jack exhaled. “I'm not talking to the fucking Doctor.”

“Then talk to someone because –”

The argument faded as they moved further down the corridor, leaving Zoe and Rose in stunned silence.

“Right,” Zoe said. “That was new.”

“I didn't know Jack even knew how to fight with someone like that,” Rose breathed.

“Relationships, I suppose,” she shrugged. “Think he's okay?”

“No idea.” Rose worried her bottom lip and began to move her fingers again, returning to the forgotten braid. “He's like you, he likes to pretend everything's fine.” Zoe rolled her eyes at the dig. “I know he hasn't been sleepin' well though. He's told me he has nightmares about Gray. I thought they'd stopped though. Apparently not.”

“I get that,” Zoe said, quietly. “If you died...” she paused, uncomfortable. “I get it.”

“Yeah, me too,” Rose said, thinking of how damaged Zoe had been after Mondas and how close she had come to losing her. She tied off the last cornrow and rested her hands on her sister's shoulders, curving her fingers around the rounded joints. “Will you please get the Doctor to give you somethin' to help you sleep tonight? For me?”

She sighed. “That's playing dirty.”

“I know. I don't care.”

“Fine, for you.”

“Thank you.” Rose kissed the top of her head, resting her chin there as they stared at each other in the mirror. “With those two arguin', think the Doctor's picnic's goin' to be fun now?”

“I'm sure it'll be fine,” Zoe replied. “It's just a picnic.”

* * *

_ The Gamma Forests, _

_ Five hours and eighteen minutes later _

Splinters of wood snapped away from the building that was woven into the tree like thread in a tapestry. Great chunks of sod gave way beneath the pressure of the collapsing structure, roots ripped out of the ground, the tree buckling beneath the weight of itself; the roots disappeared into a black swarm, the soil writhing and twitching as though alive itself. Those still trapped inside screamed in terror, sunlight breaking through the leafy canvas to cast a light over the scene. Children scrambled out of windows, jumping rather than remaining trapped inside, parents desperately reaching for them; in their desperation, they rushed through the black swarm, mind blank with fear and panic, only for flesh and muscle to be stripped from their bones, death taking them. Those that were able to keep their heads furiously tried to force light into the area, beating back the leaves above them and shining large portable lights into the fray, sending the swarm swinging and scattering back into the darkness.

Clinging to a branch, the Doctor looked down on the chaos and watched as a child – no older than eight – fell from the window and passed through the swarm, their white skeleton shattering on impact. Flinching, he looked away, sickened, before steeling his nerves and launching himself to the opposite branch and swung himself through the window, startling the group inside who screamed at his appearance; he spun on his heel and shoved his head back out.

“Stay out of the shadows,” he yelled a reminder, barely audible above the screams. “Get to the light! Quickly, get to the light!” He swore and pulled his head back in, turning straight into Jack who appeared at his shoulder, face tight. “What –?”

“There are too many people,” Jack said, words clipped and cutting to the heart of the matter. “We can't make it out, not with the swarm below.”

“If we don't get out, then this is where we die,” the Doctor said. “They're coming whether we like it or not. The TARDIS is too far away and your Vortex Manipulator can't take everyone.”

Jack pushed his sleeve up and began unstrapping it from his forearm. “You take it then. Go on, get the TARDIS, then come back.”

The Doctor placed his hands around his, stopping him. “I can't risk them getting into the TARDIS. You think it's bad now, imagine what'd happen if even _one_ of them got into the TARDIS's systems. It would take centuries to scrape them out and if we missed it, we'd be releasing it onto an unsuspecting world. They multiply, Jack, like that.”

He snapped his fingers.

“Then what do we do?” Jack dropped his sleeve back over his arm. “I can't take everyone one at a time but it might be better than nothing.”

“We need to get into the light,” the Doctor said, urgently. “They live in the shadows. If we're in the light, we're safe.”

Jack's eyes flicked out the window and looked up at the broken canvas of leaves, frowning. “Sun's going down. We don't have long.”

“One problem at a time, captain,” he said, turning his gaze onto the group of frightened children that huddled behind Jack for protection. “We need to get this lot out first before anything else.”

Jack nodded.“Where are the others?”

A muscle in the Doctor's jaw twitched.

“Don't know,” he said, worry making him gruff. “Come on, let's move.”

Jack peered out of the window to the ground below and work his jaw, fearing that the sharp drop would shatter the bones of the children and make them incapable of running. It was bad enough to risk death in the building but worse still to be incapacitated and knowing that a painful death of being eaten alive was coming for them. Swearing, he pulled his head back in as the wood around the window started to crumble; it wasn't just their tree-building that was collapsing but the whole village was being destroyed. The sound of the trees creaking made his ears hurt: it was like wet rope that kept tightening and tightening. Somewhere in the noise below, he heard Rose's voice, and he turned, hopeful, catching a flash of her blonde hair as she rushed across the ground and grabbed the hands of weeping, grieving parents, pulling them to safety.

He wasn't sure where Zoe and Mickey were but he had to believe that they were okay; the thought of their skeletons lying on the ground, flesh and muscles torn away by tiny teeth, made panic threaten to overwhelm him. Jack looked at the small, frightened faces and at the tight line in the Doctor's jaw that spoke of his worry and prayed that the stupid argument he had picked with Mickey wasn't the last thing they were going to do together. As he considered his stupidity from that morning, the surface beneath his feet suddenly weakened.

He fell through the floor.

The Doctor's startled expression was the last thing he saw before he plummeted, twisting his body to protect himself on impact, but he jerked, grunting in pain, before the Doctor – a tight grip on the lapels of his coat – _heaved_ him back up, stronger than he looked.

“Be careful, would you?” The Doctor snapped, a tight, cold expression on his face.

There was a time when such an expression would have lit a fire of fear within Jack, sending him twirling into a vortex of anxiety as he tried to figure out what he had done to put it there. Now though, nearly a year after first meeting him and the girls, he knew the Doctor well enough now to know that he was angry at the situation and not at one particular person. There was a smear of blood on his temple, though Jack had no idea where it had came from, as it wasn't as though the creatures were leaving behind anything to dirty them: they ate the flesh, muscles, nervous systems, organs, and everything, leaving only the bones behind, consuming even the hair.

“We're not all going to get out,” the Doctor said, voice pitched low and urgent. “There are too many children.”

“We can't leave them,” Jack replied, body recoiling in horror at the thought of abandoning the children to save themselves. There was a time he would have done just that but he liked to think he was a better man than he used to be. “You said we need light, would fire work?”

A muscle beneath the Doctor's eye twitched. “Yes.”

Jack realised the Doctor had wanted someone else to come up with the suggestion and a flash of anger slammed through him at his friend's reluctance. It was gone as soon as it appeared but a sharpness around his mouth that lingered at having to be the one to speak the idea aloud.

The Doctor glanced away and gathered the children in one corner as they set fire to the tree. The flames caught quickly, far quicker than either of them expected, and they pulled back when the heat burst towards them, swallowing the room whole. The screams in the room grew louder and higher in terror, and Zoe appeared in the doorway, hair wilder than normal and missing the light jacket she had been wearing. Her skin was bruised with finger marks and soil marks were streaked down her thighs but the look she gave them was pure annoyance.

“You set a fire?”

“Zoe,” the Doctor breathed, relieved. “You're alive.”

She ignored him. “You set _fire_ to this very wooden building in this very foresty-forest?”

“It's getting dark and we need the light,” Jack said, grabbing a child and tossing them to her. She caught the small, living projectile easily. “Where's Mickey?”

“Safe,” she said over her shoulder as she picked another child up into her arms, balancing them against her side. “Come on, get a move on.”

Turning back to the burning stairwell, she disappeared into the thick smoke.

It took the three of them – Zoe returning with smoke streaked across her skin and ash clinging to her hair, eyes rolling in impatience at how slow they were moving – to pull the children physically from under the desks and drag them out of the building. As the only thing worse than creatures that ate all of their organic matter in a matter of heartbeats was being left behind, those that weren't immediately picked up ran after them crying.

Bursting out of the flaming tree, Jack set the child in his arms down and shook the one from his back, coughing when his reflexes kicked in, trying to clear the smoke from his lungs. A great cracking sound sent a flinch jumping through him. Behind him, the tree canted to one side, splintering and crumbling, until it fell into the neighbouring tree, the fire spreading as expected. The wave of heat from the flames pushed him back, stumbling over the children, parents, and stray animals that fled the flaming trees in search of safety.

It was a dry, hot day, and the fire was going to spread throughout the Gamma Forest, burning it to a cinder.

The greatest forest in the Milky Way galaxy was going to be turned to ash because of him.

His stomach heaved.

Twisting, he emptied his lunch onto the ground.

“Jesus.” The blissful sound of Mickey's London tones reached him, a hand settling between his shoulder blades. “Are you all right?”

Jack looked up at him and nodded, relieved.

Mickey's hair had turned grey from the ash in the air and dark smoke streaked his skin, trails of sweat cutting tracks through it; his jacket was long gone, lost to the chaos, and his T-shirt stuck to his body. Jack straightened and drew his sleeve across his mouth, spitting onto the ground, the sharp tang of vomit in the back of his throat and nasal cavities. He staggered into Mickey and allowed himself the luxury of sinking into his warmth and the strength of his body, tears pressing against the back of his eyes.

The Gamma Forest was going to burn and he had lit the fuse.

The damage he had done was close to irreparable. He might have saved a roomful of school children, but he had condemned the planet to ecological ruin if the fire wasn't put out. Even if it was, people's homes would be destroyed and lives would be lost.

“I'm fine,” Jack lied, hauling himself upright by Mickey's shoulders, not at all convincing. “You?”

“Bit winded,” he said. “One of the kids kicked me in the stomach.”

A low, buzzing started in Jack's ears. Thinking it was a mosquito, he slapped a hand to his neck before the sound built to a deafening crescendo. Mickey's eyes widened at what he saw over Jack's shoulder, mouth opening in warning before he was cut off as another burning tree crashed to the ground, the reverberations knocking them from their feet. Jack landed heavily on his back, the air knocked out of him, but he didn't waste time trying to catch his breath. He scrambled onto his feet and grabbed Mickey under the arms, dragging him away from the shadows descended on them, catching the edge of their clothes.

As another tree caught fire, a wall of heat and flame cut through the middle of the village, separating them from their friends.

“Jack!” Rose appeared through the hazy heat, arms raised as she waved at them. “Mickey! Over here!”

“Go,” Jack shouted, pulling a child back from the fire. “Get the TARDIS and find us! _Go!_ ”

Her face twisted, distraught at leaving them behind, but she nodded. _Stay safe_ he read from her lips before she disappeared. Backing away from the heat, he turned his face up to the sky. It was still pale blue but that wasn't going to last long. Nights in the Gamma Forest fell quickly and with very little warning. Mickey was gathering the children unlucky enough to be separated from their parents close to him and Jack strode over, sweat sliding down the back of his shirt and pooling in the small of his back.

“We need to run,” he said. It wasn't the best option as there were things that lived in the Gamma Forest that meant death if their paths crossed but as it was either take their chances with the forest-dwelling creatures or remain behind and burn to death, there was little point in worrying about it. “We're losing the sunlight _fast._ We need to follow the light. If we head south-east along the fire, we can keep the sun with us and the fire at our back.”

“We can't outrun the sun,” Mickey said, hefting a small child up onto his hip. Thin arms wrapped around his neck and scared blue eyes looked out at Jack who was abruptly and unpleasantly reminded of Gray. “An' there's a wall of fire between us an' the TARDIS. We won't get there in time.”

“We have to try,” he said. “You with me?”

“Course,” Mickey nodded, turning to the children's upturned faces. “All right, kids. We're goin' to have to move nice an' quick now. Hold onto each other's hands an' follow Jack, okay?”

“But those things,” a girl of about ten or eleven cried out. “They're going to get us!”

“Not a chance.” Jack knelt down in front of her and took her small hands in his. “What's your name?”

She sniffed. “Lorna.”

“Lorna,” he repeated. “That's a lovely name. Now, Lorna, listen to me. I know you're scared – I'm scared too – but all of us are going to have to be really brave for the next few hours until our friends can come rescue us in our ship, okay? Can you help the others be brave?”

Her bottom lip quivered with fresh tears. “I don't know.”

“Here,” Jack said, reaching into his pocket and pulled out a plastic sheriff's badge that he kept meaning to take out. It was a silly souvenir from their visit to Disney World months ago where he had taken on the role of the town's sheriff in a simulation that had cast Rose in the role of town prostitute, much to the delight of Zoe who filled the role of bartender. “This badge is a special badge. It gives the person who wears it as much courage as they need. I'd like to keep it for myself but I think you need it.”

“Is it magic?”

“Absolutely,” he lied. “All the best things are magic. Here.” He pinned the badge onto the front of her pinafore dress and straightened it but it fell crooked anyway. “There we go. Sheriff Lorna. Feeling brave?”

Sniffling and drawing her arm across her nose, snot smearing across her skin, she nodded.

“Good girl.” He took her head in his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Now, go help the others be brave.”

“It's going to be okay,” Lorna said, moving away to take the hand of a crying boy. “Stop crying, Gretu, we're going to be okay. Captain Jack and Mr Mickey are going to help us.”

Mickey stood at his shoulder. “That was adorable.”

“Shut up,” he murmured, grinning.

“You know which way to go?”

“I've got my manipulator,” Jack said, tapping his wrist. “I can find us a path through the forest. I'll broadcast a signal so the TARDIS can trace us.”

“All right then,” he said, hitching the child up higher. “I'll stay at the back an' make sure no one falls behind.”

Jack hesitated before leaning in a pressing a kiss to Mickey's dry lips, the child between them going wide eyed. “Make sure you don't fall behind too, please.”

Mickey's lips twitched upwards towards his hazel eyes. “Copy that, cap.”

Following the ribbon of fire, Jack led the way, his tall, strong form a comfort to the children that trotted along in his wake. At regular intervals, he looked back over his shoulder to make sure Mickey was safe behind him and tried not to think about how he would be pleased as long as Mickey was safe, uncomfortable with what being willing to lose the children before losing Mickey said about him. Their walk passed in a silence that was broken only by the sound of the fire burning fiercely off to one side and the occasional sobs of a scared child for which Jack was grateful as it was proving more difficult than expected to make their way through the forest.

Earlier, the Doctor – acting as an overenthusiastic tour guide to make Zoe laugh – told them that the Gamma Forests were the biggest and mightiest forests in the galaxy. The people of the Forests, known only as Gammas, were so at one with nature that it was difficult to know where they began and the planet ended, which meant that off-worlders were advised not to venture into the forests alone as they would get lost without the Gammas innate knowledge of nature. It was a unique culture that was unlike anything the Doctor had shown them before and had been beautiful and peaceful until the shadows started to move in the corners of their eyes. Zoe had been flat on her stomach examining a flower, chattering away to it in French as she was wont to do in her garden, when the Doctor tossed a sausage roll past her head and yanked her back by her ankle when the meat was stripped from it, panic making his voice sharp as he ordered them back to the TARDIS.

A small grunt behind him made him whip around, finding Mickey untangling himself from a root, child dangling from his neck.

“Micks?”

“I'm fine,” was the immediate reply. “Keep going.”

Jack hesitated before he pressed on.

Mickey freed his foot from the root and readjusted the child against his side, hurrying to catch up. He wasn't sure how long they walked for before Jack decided that enough was enough.

The sky was completely dark, cloud cover concealing both of the moons, and the fire kept spreading, blocking them off from crossing over to the side where the TARDIS was. In the end, it made sense to simply stop and wait. Though not thrilled with the idea of waiting for rescue, Mickey quietly accepted that they were stuck until the others got to them. Walking into darkness when the danger lay in the shadows was a foolish endeavour, and he helped Jack clear a large circle where they dug a shallow trench, filling it with broken branches, dry leaves, and grass. Ushering the children within the circle, they lit a flame above it and watched the fire spread, sending light spilling across their faces.

“All right then,” Jack said, shrugging out of his coat to lay it on the ground for some of the children to sit on. “We're just going to wait here until our friends come and get us. A shame we don't have marshmallows.”

“I'd love some s'mores right now,” Mickey said. “With that chocolate Zoe likes from the planet with the tentacles.”

“Grafas.”

“That's the one,” he said. “I'm still freaked out by the tentacles comin' out from beneath the eyelids though. I keep seein' them in my dreams.”

Jack snorted. “It was a bit much.”

“You doin' okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” he said, every inch of him drawn tight with tension. “I don't like I had to set the fire but what's done is done.”

“You saved us back there,” Mickey reminded him. “Those things were comin' out of everythin'. The fire helped.”

Jack looked at his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. No matter how hard he tried, the blood that once drenched them remained slicked across his skin. _Out damned spot, out_ , he thought bitterly to himself, Zoe's introductory course to Shakespeare – which consisted of her dumping a pile of dog-eared plays on his bed with an instruction to read – gave him a larger vocabulary from which to draw from as he considered the sins of his past. The guilt over the fire came at the worst possible time. Having slept poorly the night before due to nightmares of missions gone wrong that always ended with Gray dead at his feet, the last thing he needed was _this_ ; he felt as though his entire being was an open bruise and the slightest touch sent rivers of pain through him.

Exhaustion pulled at him, his eyes aching, and he knuckled his eye.

“Jack –”

“Don't.” He hated how sharp his voice turned. He knew Mickey was pressing because he cared and was worried about him. It was a small miracle the Doctor and the girls hadn't yet made it their business to try and fix him, but he knew it was only a matter of time before his restlessness and bad temper forced their hands. “Just...don't.”

Mickey's mouth tightened, hurt flashing through his eyes that cut into Jack.

“Micks,” he began, regretful. “I –”

“What are they anyway?” Mickey interrupted, eyes that hid his feelings poorly settling on Jack's face. “I didn't catch their name when the Doctor said it.”

He hesitated, the air delicate between them, before he followed the subject change. “Vashta Nerada. I've heard of them before but this is my first time coming across them.”

“But what are they, an' why can't we see them?”

“They're microscopic,” Jack explained, smoothing his palm over his thigh, absently trying to clean the non-existent blood from it. “So small that they're invisible to the naked eye, even in swarms. They live in the darkness, in the shadows, which is why we need light to keep them away. Individually, they're not _as_ dangerous though you definitely don't want to be around them, but in swarms? Well, you've seen what happens when a swarm gets going.”

Mickey swallowed his fear down. “This feels like a bloody nightmare. How do we even know if they're comin'?”

“We don't,” he said, unhelpfully. “It's really difficult to tell when they're around. The reports from the few survivors they leave behind is go that they move like a shadow cast by nothing; they mimic the shadows of their prey to get close, so I suppose we need to watch out for two shadows from one object. Light helps keep them away, but if the swarm is big enough...”

He trailed off into a hopeless shrug.

“So we just have to sit an' wait an' hope that the others get to us before the swarm does?”

“Afraid so,” Jack replied, his face pale and eerie in the light of the fire. “We've been in worse situations before though.”

“Have we?”

“Well...I have,” he said and decided to risk the rejection by reaching for him. The tension in his shoulders eased when Mickey turned his palm up and linked their fingers together, quieting the storm raging inside his mind. “We'll be okay, I promise.”

“You're so full of shit.”

He barked a laugh before coughing, muttering an apology to the children. “Yeah, I know.”

“But I reckon we'll be fine,” Mickey said, squeezing his hand. “Between the Doctor, Zoe, an' Rose, don't think they'll let anythin' happen to us.”

“You're right,” Jack agreed. “Comforting, isn't it?”

“Just a bit.” The child in his arms shifted and Mickey looked down. “You okay there, kid?”

The little boy sniffed. “Scared.”

“Yeah, I bet you are.” Mickey looked out at the other children and remembered what made him feel better when he had been scared as a child. “You lot want to hear a story?”

Jack made space for the children next to him and in his lap as they scrambled closer, eager for anything to take their minds off the darkness and the threat that lay there. He let the rise and fall of Mickey's voice lull him into calm, eyes soft as he regarded his boyfriend – _partner, companion, semi-lover,_ they hadn't settled on a term yet, avoiding the subject with a delicacy that Jack associated only with the 21st century. He was sat cross-legged with two small children squeezed on his lap, the others clustered around him; even Lorna, who was doing her best to be as grown up as possible, shuffled in close, a bare arm tucked around a child in pink.

“...an' Peter, Wendy, an' the boys stepped off the window ledge an' flew off into the night,” Mickey said some time later, weaving the story around them. “Over the city, they flew through the air on pixie dust –”

“What's pixie dust?” One of the children asked.

“It's magic.”

“Ssh,” Lorna hushed. “Let him finish.”

Jack exchanged a small smile with Mickey and lowered his head, pressing a kiss to the tiny Gamma that was curled in his lap, breathing in the smell that only seemed to be connected with children.

Between the heat of the fire and the easy cadence of Mickey's voice, he felt his eyes grow heavy. Despite the situation, he grew relaxed and found himself absently wondering whether Mickey wanted children: Rose adored them, face lighting up in delight when they came across the stray group here and there on their travels, and the Doctor was besotted with them, soft and gentle in a way he often wasn't, while Zoe seemed to hold a healthy and amusing suspicion of them, dodging their sticky hands with little success even as she smiled.

Jack wanted children: not immediately and not for a very long time, but he wanted them. He liked the idea of filling a home with children who got underfoot and looked like him or his partner – of late, those dreams of future children had his eyes and Mickey's dark skin. He hadn't thought that was a possibility for him, not for years as the Time Agency didn't encourage their agents to have families due to the conflict of interest, and all agents were sterilised upon joining the Agency to ensure that no _accidents_ happened when in the past. It was easily reversible. All he had to do was ask the Doctor to have a look or go to any hospital in the 51st century to have the procedure reversed but there was no rush. Nothing that –

_Snap._

Jack jerked his head around, wide awake again, and he stared into the darkness, something shadowed moving between the trees. The Vashta Nerada didn't make noise when they moved but there were other things that lived in the Gamma Forests and the last thing they needed was a tree dragon descending on them with large bony wings and scales that oozed poison – beautiful to look at from a distance but terrifying and deadly up close. He looked up into the thick branches above him, afraid of the possibility that round, glowing eyes would be staring back at him but there was nothing.

By the time Mickey finished the story, most of the children were asleep and the edge of wariness had faded a little when nothing leaped out at them. Even Lorna's head lolled on her neck, mouth dropping open before she jerked awake and looked around, confused and afraid; Jack was able to persuade her to lie down, tucking her arms around the children that were clinging to her, and he wished he had something to tuck over them but most were lying on his coat. In the firelight, Mickey looked older than he was and heat pooled low in Jack's body.

“What happened to Peter?” Jack asked, quietly, fingers stroking through the soft, downy hair of the golden-haired boy in his lap.

“Hmm?”

“After he took Wendy and her brothers home?” He asked. “What happened to Peter?”

“Oh, he went back to Neverland,” Mickey said. “Found some new Lost Boys an' never grew up.”

“This is a children's story in your time?”

Mickey muffled a laugh. “Yeah. I think the films are probably less traumatic than the book.”

“Sounds a little like the Doctor,” Jack mused thoughtfully. “Peter, that is.”

“Does that make us the Lost Boys?”

“I suppose so,” he replied with a curve of a smile on his mouth. “I was definitely lost before the Doctor and the girls found me.” Mickey looked at him, the flames dancing across his face, before a yawn stole whatever was on his mind. “You're tired.”

“I'm fine.”

“Mickey –”

“It's just the heat,” he said, frowning. “An' you're one to talk about bein' tired.”

“I –” Jack sighed, the fight draining from him; his shoulders slumped in defeat. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

“Don't –” annoyance stole his words. “Don't apologise. Just – I don't know – if you won't tell me what's wrong an' you won't go to the Doctor for help, I don't know how to help.”

“I don't need help,” Jack said, their words treading dangerously close to their argument from that morning. “I'm sorry I woke you –”

“ _Jack_.”

“I know, I know, that's not the point,” he said, quickly. “Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll give myself a sedative tonight. Knock myself out properly, okay?”

Mickey eyed him. “That's the best I'm goin' to get, isn't it?”

His stomach tangled itself into knots. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Fine,” he said. “But I think you're bein' an idiot about this.”

“Duly noted,” Jack said. “But you might as well get some sleep while we wait. I'll keep watch.”

“I'm not sure I can sleep knowin' what's out there,” Mickey replied, looking out past the ring of fire, shadows shivering around them. “Sometimes, this isn't as fun as I thought it'd be.”

Jack hummed an agreement. “It's fun most of the time though.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “It is.”

* * *

Fifteen kilometres away, Zoe slammed the door shut behind her, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath; it wasn't the run that caused the tight pain in her chest but rather the fact that she had been carrying a child like it was Yoda. The child slithered from back and scurried over to the others where a large group of them were clinging onto their teachers and the few parents that had been able to reach the school before the tree went down. Every one of them were streaked with smoke, sweat, and ash, the latter of which had turned into a thick paste and clumped on their skin. Zoe herself was hardly better off and she stripped out of her shirt, wiping her forehead and face clean before tossing it to one side when an unpleasant odour made her nose twitch.

“What – what is that?” Muscles in her thighs twitching rapidly, she pulled herself up the ramp and looked around. “It smells like –”

Her stomach turned when she found Rose slumped by the jumpseat, legs splayed out and head resting against the railing as her stomach sizzled painfully.

“Oh my god. _”_ She closed the distance between them and dropped to her knees, hands hovering over her side where her T-shirt had been burnt into her skin. “Shit, Rose. This is – you're going to be okay.”

“Why would a tree dragon breathe fire?” Rose complained, white beneath her smeared makeup. “What sort of fucked up shit is that?”

For a species that had evolved in the depths of the Gamma Forests, it was an unusual ability to have; fortunately though, the fire-breathing tree dragons had proved inadvertently useful in combating the Vashta Nerada, distracting the swarm long enough for the fearful Gammas and their rescuers to get through the trees to the TARDIS as the skeletons of the tree dragons fell to the ground behind them.

“Are you both okay?”

The Doctor popped his sooty face around the Time Rotor, eyes red-rimmed from the smoke and hair that was covered in ash; there was a streak of blood on him from somewhere or someone but he was, otherwise, in one piece.

“I'm fine, Rose is injured,” Zoe said, grabbing the emergency medical kit and jabbing a painkiller into her sister's side, ignoring her sharp hiss. “Can you find Mickey and Jack?”

“Eventually,” he said, eyes already skidding away from her. “This would be easier if I'd put trackers in you lot long ago: do it while you're sleeping so you can't complain, then I wouldn't have to figure out a way to track you down when you go missing as you all inevitably do because I've yet to meet a human who doesn't know the meaning of _don't – wander – off_.”

Zoe and Rose share an exasperated look, his frustration bleeding over into them.

“Try Jack's Vortex Manipulator,” Zoe suggested, coughing to clear the smoke from her lungs before slapping a temporary bandage over Rose's wound, sealing it against her side. “He was messing with it this morning, something about adding a few new apps or whatever. If he's –” _still alive_ , she didn't say. “He'll broadcast their location on it.”

“Right, yes, good point,” he said, frustration disappearing. “Who'd have thought a Vortex Manipulator would be useful for something?”

By the time Zoe finished putting Rose temporarily back together, the Doctor had pinpointed Jack's exact coordinates and he flung the TARDIS into action. Heavy on her feet but refusing to stay seated, Rose staggered to the door and threw it open before the TARDIS had finished materialising, the world distorted before it reformed itself. Within a blazing circle of fire, their skin slick with sweat, Mickey and Jack were sat with children huddled close to them, their wide eyes staring at the TARDIS in terror and amazement. Grabbing the fire extinguisher that was always close to hand in the event of an emergency, Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and extinguished a path out of the flames.

“Come on,” she called out. “Hurry!”

Zoe and the Doctor appeared in the light, and they all worked together to get the children into the ship. A shadow passed nearby, catching on the corner of Jack's vision, and he looked up, stomach tightening when he saw that nothing had cast it. He glanced around, making sure all the children were in place, counting them again and again; Lorna was at the back, trying to carry a child with the twisted ankle, and Mickey and Jack doubled back for them. As Mickey lifted the small child into his arms, Jack took Lorna by the hand.

“Come on now,” he smiled down at her, the edges tight. “We're almost –”

A flash and crackle of dry energy stopped him in his tracks, and blank horror slammed into him as the face of his handler from the Time Agency appeared before him.

“Hello, Javic,” Agent Pyl greeted, flint in her eyes. “You're under arrest."


	30. Chapter 30

_ Guadalajara, Earth, 5093 _

The force of exiting the Time Vortex threw Jack from his feet, knees crashing to the ground, the impact making his teeth clack together as his hand was ripped from Lorna's. Bungling the landing landing – unexpected travel by Vortex Manipulator tended to scramble one's mind –, by the time he had twisted himself into a defensive position, the muzzle of a gun was pressed against the nape of his neck, cold and authoritative. Somewhere behind him, Lorna was being sick. The wet sound of her upending the contents of her stomach on the floor made him angry, and his fingers twitched for the knife he kept on his person; since the Doctor didn't allow him to carry guns – a small price to pay for the life he now led – he had taken to slipping small, near undetectable weapons on his person.

A knife here.

A garotte there.

Just little things discreetly placed about his body so as not to disturb the fit of his outfit.

Jack considered that what the Doctor didn't know couldn't hurt him and, in the event of a life-threatening emergency, he wanted the security that weapons gave him.

“Move for a weapon and you won't speak for a week,” a dark voice threatened.

Slowly, Jack raised his hands.

“Where's Lorna?” A small whimper and a choked off sob reached his ears. He tried to turn his head but the gun dug into him, twisting his skin. Gritting his teeth, he stilled. “If any of you hurt her, I'll –”

“What?” The same dark voice, filled with anger and brushed with familiarity, scoffed. “Kill us? That's your MO after all, isn't it? Unlike you, Thane, we don't kill the innocent.”

Jack twitched but the gun kept him in place. “What the hell are you talking about?”

A snort. “Like you don't know.”

He really didn't, though he wasn't about to hand them that information yet; let them think he held more cards than he did and he might figure out a way to get him and Lorna to safety. Not pursuing the conversation, he risked turning his head to catch sight of Lorna who looked terrified. Holding out his arms, she dashed past Pyl, who was flicking vomit off her shoes with a look of disgust on her face, and threw herself against Jack, pressing her face into his neck; too terrified to scream or cry, her breath took on a thin and reedy nature, a panic attack certain to sweep over her if he didn't do something. Cupping the back of her head, he murmured soothing nonsense, letting the tone of his voice wash over her as his eyes flicked around the room he was in.

Cold fear sent his stomach plummeting to his aching knees as he recognition set in.

_Arrivals_.

For nearly ten years, mission after mission had brought him back to this very room with its landing pad that was specifically calibrated to soften the landing. Back when he had been a respected Time Agent – though some would argue he had never been particularly respected given how often he bedded fellow agents, admin officials, cleaning staff, and prisoners – he would have already stepped off the platform and handed his Vortex Manipulator over to the waiting technician so they could recalibrate it and make sure he had only gone where he was ordered to go. The sound of him chatting merrily if the mission had gone well wouldn't have been unusual, nor would the sight of him stalking off with dark clouds on his face if the mission had been a failure, leaving his partner behind to deal with the preliminary reports.

As he knelt on the hard ground, Lorna trembling in his arms, he searched his mind and tried to remember everything he could about the room and think of a way out.

“Thane.” Agent Pyl dragged the top of her boot over the edge of the pad, scraping off the remnants of vomit, her eyes sweeping over Jack, who tightened his grip on Lorna, keeping her face turned away. “Your Vortex Manipulator.”

“I'd rather keep it.”

“I'm sure you would,” Pyl said, unamused. “But it doesn't belong to you. Now hand it over, unless you'd like us to take it from you?”

A muscle beneath Jack's eye twitched.

Reluctantly, he reached around Lorna and began the laborious process of unbuckling the manipulator. It was his only sure-fire way out of his situation and when he surrendered it, he would be left without his surest means of escape; however, he was acutely aware that they were quite willing to cut it from his arm if he refused. Vortex Manipulators were the single-most important piece of technology the Time Agency possessed and he had stolen his when he left – or so he assumed; his actual departure remained a mystery to him, falling as it did within the two years of his life that were missing from his mind but he doubted they had simply let him walk out with one.

Tugging on the buckles, it loosened from his forearm and slid down into his waiting grasp. Letting it sway from his fingers, he extended it towards Pyl and flashed her a sharp grin over the top of Lorna's head.

“It's a little sweaty,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

Pyl took it, her delicate nose wrinkled, and she passed it to –

“Well, I'll be damned. _Mila_ , is that you?”

A short woman with red hair that was turning grey at the temples gave him a small wave as she carefully pocketed the manipulator. “Hey, Javic.”

“Agent Opuan.” Pyl's anger snapped through the room like a whip. Mila jumped, face dropping into serious lines, eyes skidding away from Jack's. “He's here to face charges, _not_ to have chats with old friends.”

“Yes, ma'am; sorry, ma'am.”

Jack glanced up at Pyl. “Can't we do both?”

“You will be silent until you are spoken to, Agent Thane,” she warned him, stepping onto the platform and crouching, putting them nose to nose. Jack's hand tightened on the back of Lorna's head, her body stiff and his side warm where her terror had loosened her bladder. “We've waited a long time to bring you to justice. Your silver tongue won't be able to help you now.”

“If I remember correctly,” Jack said, voice pitched low and mouth curving with faint mockery that was making the Doctor roll his eyes somewhere. “You enjoyed my tongue once upon a time.”

His head cracked to one side, cheekbone knocking against the top of Lorna's skull, and pain echoed along his jaw. Pyl stood up and unclenched her blood-speckled fist, angry colour slashed high across her cheeks.

“Be quiet,” she hissed.

Slowly, Jack brought his head back around, smoothing his hand over the top of Lorna's head to soothe the impact. Eyes locked on hers, he mimed zipping his mouth.

“Move,” she ordered.

With sharp stabs of fire shooting down his legs and Lorna clinging to his neck, he managed to get to his feet. The fury of pain in his knees made him long for the TARDIS's medical bay but the thought of home sent his mind skidding in the direction of Mickey. The world spun at the thought of Mickey in the Gamma Forest, gaping at where Jack had been as the Vashta Nerada descended on him; he hoped that the Doctor, Rose, or Zoe had enough sense to keep their heads about them and only panic once they were safely inside the TARDIS. His fingers tightened on Lorna, hefting her higher up his body, pushing those thoughts away. If he let himself think on Mickey and his friends, he risked losing the control he needed if he was going to survive whatever the Time Agency had in store for him.

Stepping off the raised platform, he glanced behind him to put a face to the person holding a gun to him and paused. “Harlan?”

“Fuck you,” Harlan replied.

Jack stared, taken aback, before turning back around. He used to go for drinks with Harlan every Thursday when they were in the same time period and had introduced him to his wife, serving as best man at his wedding, but the look of hatred rooted in his old friend's eyes unnerved him. Off to the side was Mila Opuan who was only a few years older than he was and shouldn't be greying yet; then there was Uriel who had never particularly liked him but who appeared to like him even less now. Only four of them were in the room with him and the lack of noise outside the doors bothered him, even as he kept his thoughts from his face.

Whenever he had let himself think of what might happen when his past caught up with him, he hadn't imagined a warm welcome but he also hadn't expected it to be so frosty.

Mouth throbbing from Pyl's fist, he turned his face into Lorna's hair and spoke quietly. “How you doing, sweetheart?”

“I'm scared,” Lorna whispered, tears tracking a path down her face, fingers clenched tightly in his shirt. “And I peed.”

“Ssh, it's okay.” He pressed a kiss into the smoke-scented warmth of her hair, trying to chase away the shame as Pyl nodded at the other agents and the door opened. Something sharp and painful jabbed him in the back – Harlan's gun – and a grunt fell from his throat before he started moving. “None of that matters. I promise nothing bad's going to happen to you. I won't let it, okay? I'll get you home.”

She whimpered and clung harder. “But what about the shadows?”

_Mickey._

The thought of him sent an aching desperateness that made every part of his body.

“My friends are taking care of it,” Jack said, hoping that was true. “You don't need to worry about that either. All you need to think about is what sort of ice cream you want when we're done here. Any flavour, it's yours.”

Lorna sniffed. “What's ice cream?”

“You don't know what ice cream is?” She shook her head and looked up at him, cheek resting on his shoulder. “Well, that means you're in for a treat. When all of this is over, I'm going to take you for the best ice cream in the universe. How's that sound?”

“Good,” she whispered.

“Hmm, what was that?” The gentle tease helped lift his own spirits, and the smile that slipped across his face warmed the cold parts of him. “I didn't hear you.”

“Good,” she said, louder.

Jack caught a laugh before it left his throat, delighted by her smile that remained visible for only moments before she remembered herself and tucked her face back against his shoulder. Arms wrapped around him, he kissed the top of her head and hoped he was going to be able to keep his promise. With her settled, fears temporarily soothed, Jack turned his attention back to his surroundings.

The building he was in was as familiar to him as the TARDIS was becoming but the differences to when he was last there were pronounced. In his time, the headquarters of the Time Agency was one of the most beautifully designed buildings on Earth; its architect had spent twenty years simply designing it, sketching and sketching and creating 3D images until she was happy with the final product, yet even during construction she would tweak things here and there until it was an aesthetic marvel. The first time Jack saw it as an eighteen-year-old recruit, he had been stunned and unable to walk inside until Pyl, laughing at his expression, took his arm and pulled him into where the interior decorating was purposefully aimed at making people feel comfortable.

The Time Agency was a public organisation and, as such, they offered tours to the general around the less security-heavy facilities, so they knew the value of appearances.

That was why Jack knew something was wrong.

Even though he was in the headquarters – and he knew that he was –, his surroundings were filthy, _decayed,_ and scorched. On the walls, black marks were seared into the solid stone from what looked like blaster fire but as there were doorways that crumbled in on themselves, archways slumped, and rubble spilling out of filled rooms.

Jack guessed that a bomb had gone off.

To his eyes, it looked as though a war had taken place within the confines of the building and the thought was startling. Due to the nature of their work, the Time Agency was capable of detecting threats against their existence with ease because they rewrote their timelines; whenever a threat breached the door, one agent – no one knew who in order to protect them from betrayal – would travel back in time to prevent the attack using a series of codewords to verify the truth, thus erasing themselves from existence as the timelines shifted. The fact that someone or something had attacked headquarters and somehow prevented the chosen agent from travelling back in time to change the outcome was frightening.

Jack had always thought the Time Agency invulnerable. It had been a gleaming beacon of human achievement. The mastery of time travel and then the subsequent legislation of it opened avenues of exploration and endeavour that had previously been cut off to them and helped propel the human project deeper into space through the recovery of lost knowledge and ideas. To be picked to join the Time Agency was one of the highest honours and the competition was fierce: millions of peoples from across the colonies applied for only a handful of positions and Jack remembered the day Pyl had come to his door to recruit him with painstaking clarity.

His application happened on a whim. Looking for a job as his mother had stopped working years before, grief making her unreliable and his father's pension only stretched to the barest of necessities, he had found work in one of the factories that made bolts for land vehicles, a dull but moderately well-paid job that helped him pay off a few of his mother's debts and allow himself a handful of luxuries.

Desperate for something more and an escape from the grey atmosphere of his home, he submitted his application during a shift break and thought nothing more of it until Pyl appeared. No one had ever told him why his application had been successful enough to invite him to the initial testing – as only a few hundred were – but it didn't matter at the end of the day. He had passed the first test consisting of a personalised visit to measure his reaction to the news of his success; had he burst into tears or displayed any excessive emotion as some did, he would have been immediately cut from consideration as the Agency liked their employees in all departments to be calm and collected in the face of extremes.

Jack had opened the front door to Pyl, listened to where she was from, and responded with a single, less-than eloquent, “ _huh_.”

“What happened here?” Jack asked, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the empty, damaged corridor. “Was there an attack?”

“ _Javic_ ,” Mila hissed, skin flushing. “This isn't a joke.”

“I wasn't making one,” he said. “What happened – _ow_! Stop hitting me, Pyl!”

Blood trickled from his nose that joined his jaw in a throbbing swell of pain.

“No one wants your sense of humour, Thane,” Pyl informed him, dust drifting in the sun that flowed through the shattered windows. “Keep quiet unless you want the situation made significantly worse for you.”

Harlan scowled. “Why are we even bringing him in? You should've killed him on sight.”

“The Director's orders,” Pyl said, sharply. “If you've a complaint, you're free to take it up with him.”

Brief discourse over, they continued walking and Jack felt a small hand touch his face before the blood was dabbed from beneath his nose. Glancing down, Lorna had taken the top of her dress and was pressing it delicately against his bruised nose, letting the blood soak into the material. He smiled and murmured his thanks, her kindness a sweet thing amidst the uncertainty, though it did little to relieve the knot of dread that tightened in his chest at the growing idea that _he_ was being blamed for the Time Agency's destruction.

And it wasn't as though he knew if it was true.

From the moment he had woken up in a grimy medical centre strapped to a biobed with a painful gap in his memories, he had known his past was going to catch up with him. He hadn't waited to see who else was in the building, afraid he was under attack; stripping the medical equipment from his body, throwing on his jacket, and leaving via the window, he had disappeared into the streets of Hong Kong, hidden by the bright lights and busy crowds. Lying low had been difficult but necessary, the pain in his head worse than anything he had felt before. Worried as he was that people were chasing him, not knowing who had done what to him, he had rested for as long as he felt was safe before the fog and pain in his mind lifted long enough for him to activate his Vortex Manipulator, taking himself to the 29th century where he had spent a further three months recuperating in Islamabad, trying to piece together what had happened to him.

Shopping in the local market one day, haggling with a vendor over the price of some fried tofu, he had caught sight of Pyl moving through the streets and panic seized him. Pyl typically dealt with the 35th to 39th centuries and it was too early for her to be walking around 29th century Pakistan; leaving the vendor abruptly, he ducked behind the outdoor shops and set his manipulator to random, disappearing into the 18th century for a very short stay as the lack of plumbing in Poland at the time made him uncomfortable and frustrated.

And around and around he bounced, never staying in one place too long, making sure to cover his tracks, never entirely sure why he was running from his fellow time agents but knowing, in his gut, that it was the right thing to do.

Then he had met Rose Tyler.

Jack was only supposed to have been in the 20th century for a few weeks, long enough to fell his merchandise – _such as it was_ – and then he planned to go somewhere warmer and away from Earth for a time, explore the colonies as best he could. But Rose Tyler hanging from a barrage balloon had been so unusual and so unexpected that he couldn't help but find out what she was doing, letting himself get swept up into her life with her mad friend and baffling sister. Had the Doctor not immediately thought himself capable of something better, disappointed in him without even knowing him, and had Zoe not greeted him like an old and cherished friend, perhaps he wouldn't have stayed but they were intoxicating and he had fallen in with them like he had always promised himself he wouldn't do.

_Better alone_ was how he used to live until he crossed paths with the TARDIS and her occupants.

Day by day, the Doctor, Rose, and Zoe had chipped away at the barriers erected around him until he had been folded into the messy, loving family like he had always been there. Their love had made it easy to forget what he was running from, and he had started to get complacent; his new life on the TARDIS gave him a false sense of security as he stood in the shadow of the Doctor's protection. Very few people were willing to risk the wrath of a Time Lord once they knew what he was but there was no sort of life to be had living in the Doctor's shadow forever, and part of Jack was relieved that his past had finally caught up with him as it meant he no longer had to look over his shoulder every time he left the TARDIS.

_I've had a good run_ , he thought, willing himself not to cry as the life he loved threatened to slip from his fingers. _Done more than most, seen things people back home wouldn't believe. It's been fun._

“Questioning your life choices, Thane?” Harlan whispered in his ear, the hot moistness of his breath making Jack's skin crawl. “I would, if I were you.”

“If you were me, you'd know I've got no regrets,” Jack replied. “How's Lydia, by the way?”

“Fuck you,” Harlan growled, pressing the gun into the small of his back and twisting. “Get her name out your mouth.”

Jack arched his back away from the gun. “Oh, come on. You're not upset I slept with her first, are you? It's not like you didn't know that when you started dating, or has she finally told you about that weekend in Cancún?”

“Harlan,” Mila warned from the side. “Don't.”

“He deserves it,” he spat.

“That's for Raphio to decide,” she said, speaking as though she was taming a beast. “Come on, I'll take him from here.” Harlan didn't move. “I can make it an order if you want, but I'd rather not.”

“Fine,” he said, furious, reminding Jack of a bull preparing to charge. “But don't go all soft on him or I'm coming after you.”

“Threaten someone who cares.” Mila took up position behind Jack as Harlan stalked off, shouldering past Pyl in his rage. “You might want to start choosing your words more carefully. Harlan's been pushing to kill you since the beginning.”

“I just asked him about Lydia,” Jack said. “I don't see the harm in that.”

“Lydia's dead, Javic,” she said, a crack of surprise snapping through him. “She died in the attack. Harlan found her body beneath the rubble. He hasn't been the same since.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” he breathed. “That's awful.”

Mila pulled a face. “Come on, man, don't be like that. You had to have known your actions would have consequences. You're not an idiot.”

“Mills, I'm telling you, whatever caused Lydia's death, I'm not responsible for it,” he argued quietly, cautious of catching Pyl's attention. They were waiting outside what had once been the cafeteria and Uriel was murmuring something into his Vortex Manipulator; clearly, they were waiting for something or someone. “She was my friend. You know that.”

“I don't think you meant to kill her,” Mila confessed, “but I also don't think you lie awake at night torn up about it. After what you did...hell, I'm not sure I ever really knew you. I'm not sure any of us did.” Jack tried to make sense of her words, frustrated there wasn't enough information to form an accurate picture. “Just don't rile Harlan up too much, okay? He's been the most determined in the efforts to capture you and has pushed really hard for your execution.”

“You mean that's not been decided on?”

“Not yet,” she whispered, looking at Lorna's small face, startled when she realised the child was watching her. “Listen to me, if you want to have any chance of living to see tomorrow, if there's anyone you love like Harlan loves Lydia, then keep your mouth shut and be respectful. You don't have to die today if you're clever, so be clever, Javic. _Please_.”

Jack swallowed. “Why are you helping me?”

Her laugh was soft and tired. “We were friends once, I don't believe everything they've been saying about you, I'm tired of constantly being dragged back to the Agency...pick a reason, it doesn't matter. If you die today or not, it's not going to change my life, so I can give you a little kindness.”

“It's appreciated,” he said, softly.

“Make the most of it.”

Rubbing a hand absently up and down Lorna's back, he thought of Lydia with her blonde hair and wide smile and absolutely _filthy_ laugh. The knowledge she was dead struck him hard. The memory of her twirling around the dance floor at her wedding was pushed to the forefront of his mind, along with how happy and besotted Harlan had looked as he said his vows. Losing her explained the angry, brittle Harlan that now existed and Jack found his mind drifting to Mickey again, wondering how he would take it if Jack turned up dead. Unable to bear the thought, he closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of Lorna's hair.

It wasn't fair.

He and Mickey were just getting started. A few months was long enough to plant the seeds of what was to come but not so long as to see them sprout and grow into anything sturdy and rooted; it was love between them – at least Jack was in love – and the memories of their evenings and nights together where he patiently let Mickey set the pace, enjoying the tentative exploration of his body with hands and mouth, Mickey shying away from actually having sex but getting closer and closer the more his desire grew and the more confidence he gained that Jack wasn't pulling some twisted and elaborate prank on him. He thought of the conversations they had that ranged from the ridiculous to the intimate, loving how Mickey's fingers would absently play with the back of Jack's hair, not realising he was doing it only to blush when he did, yanking his hand back as though burned.

He wanted more of that.

He wanted more of everything.

And not just with Mickey but with the Doctor and Rose and Zoe and Jackie too.

It had been so long since he had anyone he wanted to call family and then he met three wonderful idiots in a beautiful blue box and got everything he had ever dreamed of and more.

_It's okay_ , Jack thought, wishing they could hear him. _I love you, and it's okay._

Of course none of it was okay. If Mila was right and he kept quiet – unlikely given his current understanding of his character – then the chance of him getting out alive of whatever awaited him was higher than immediately suspected; however, he doubted that the Time Agency – at least whatever remained of it – would have gone to such trouble tracking him through time and space simply to let him go. He might survive what was to come but his freedom was lost to him, and he supposed the best he could hope for was a comfortable prison cell where the Doctor might be able to track him, if he was lucky.

If not...

“He's ready,” Uriel said.

Jack opened his eyes.

_Shoulders back, chin up_ , he thought, giving Lorna a reassuring squeeze. _Don't let them see your fear_.

The doors opened to what had once been the cafeteria. Able to seat up to 1000 people at a time, the room echoed as they walked in. Part of it had opened onto the street outside, the slight shimmer of a perception filter stopping people from peering in, and he considered simply jumping out of the gaping hole as a potential escape route but without his Vortex Manipulator and with Lorna to think about, he wouldn't get far. Instead, he turned his attention onto the man behind the table.

Director Cal Raphio.

Jack could count on one hand the number of times he had spoken with Raphio in his near decade at the Agency and his presence now was not a comforting one. At his side was Nia Kahn, one of the youngest and more talented agents in the agency's history; Jack remembered meeting her for the first time when she was a bright-eyed recruit and the memory made him think of Zoe the first time he had met her – not the older version of herself but the younger, sweeter one. In the shadows behind both Raphio and Kahn, Harlan lurked like a caged beast waiting to be let out, and Jack was sharply reminded of the werewolf at Torchwood House.

He tightened his grip on Lorna, arms aching, and came to a stop before the table.

Silence cloaked the room, and Jack wondered who was going to speak first.

“Javic Thane for you, director,” Agent Pyl said as though he wasn't capable of seeing what was before him. “As ordered.”

“Good work, agent, thank you.” Raphio examined him over the desk before rising, the once hard muscle of his body having given away to something softer and more comfortable. He rested large hands on the table and stared at him. “We've been looking for you for some time, Thane.”

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Jack said.

“Still with that smart mouth of yours,” Raphio noted, stepping around the table. His eyes flicked to Lorna. “Someone take the child. She's in the way.”

“She's not going anywhere,” Jack said, angling his body defensively “I don't trust any of you with her.”

“We're not you, Thane,” he replied. “We're not murderers.”

Jack snorted. “None of us have clean hands. We've all killed in the line of duty.”

“Not like you,” Raphio said. “Not any of own.”

“Listen, I feel there's been a misunderstanding here, so why don't we – _ow.”_ He was able to avoid knocking his head against Lorna's that time but pain pulsed in his cheek, Raphio's fist impacting in the same spot Pyl's had. Blood filled his mouth, and he took a quiet joy in spitting it on the floor between their feet, tentatively probing with his tongue to feel that his teeth were still in place. Between his cheek and his nose, he was beginning to get a headache. “That was rude.”

“Stop hitting him,” Lorna exclaimed, voice high and reedy. “Leave him alone.”

“Shut her up or I will,” Raphio threatened.

“It's okay, Lorna,” Jack said, words slurred from the swelling on his face, tearing his eyes from Raphio to manage a bloody smile at her. “Some people never grow out of hitting others. It's very rude and not something for you to do.”

“Watch yourself, Thane, lest you make the situation worse for yourself.”

Jack caught the roll of his eyes in time – a bad habit picked up from the Tylers – and tried to ignore the pain running across his face. Getting punched was one of his least favourite activities to do with a fist and he was vain enough that he worried about fractured cheekbones or dislocated eye sockets or – even worse – a broken nose, but everything felt more or less all right; at least Lorna didn't scream when she looked at him. He watched Raphio retake his seat, silence pulling around the room again; Jack waited, needing more information before he figured a way to get Lorna out of danger and to safety.

“Fourteen years,” Raphio said, words echoing around the room. “That's how long it's taken us to put back together what you broke.”

_That_ was surprising. “It's been fewer for me.”

“I imagine it has,” he said, twitching his fingers and throwing a picture of Jack hanging out of the TARDIS in Cardiff the day Margaret Blaine tried to tear open the rift. He was grinning and gesturing at the Doctor – whose big ears and leather jacket twisted nostalgia through him – and Mickey, who he had only just met, was standing with his arm around Zoe as Rose chewed on the end of her long scarf. “It appears you've been keeping yourself busy. That was quite the night in Cardiff. 21st century, I believe.”

“Do you know who that man is?” Jack asked, not beneath using the Doctor as a shield. He might be all fluff and light and wounded puppy when someone teased him but he was also the Oncoming Storm and the Last Time Lord, there was weight in his name that the Agency would be fools to ignore. “The one in the leather jacket?”

Raphio picked up a data PADD. “A renegade Time Lord known as the Doctor. The last of his kind according to this information.” An eyebrow lifted. “An interesting protector you've found yourself: someone as equally reckless with the timelines as you are.”

He laughed. “Say that to his face, I dare you.”

“The only conversation I intend on having with the Doctor – should he decide you're worth an attempted rescue – will be a full and frank discussion of your crimes,” Raphio informed him. “Renegade he may be but I can't imagine he'd welcome a traitor and a murderer onto his ship.”

“You'd be surprised,” Jack snarked even as his chest hurt.

His first night on the TARDIS, long after Rose and Zoe had gone to bed, the Doctor had cornered him and, with polite efficiency that had left him feeling cold and _fucking terrified,_ informed him of exactly what would happen if he turned out to be less than what the girls believed he was. And the lingering doubt that made him question his welcome even after everything they had been through together whispered poison into his mind: he was too much work, the Doctor didn't want him around the girls, and Mickey would never love him.

“Sir,” Pyl said. “We're wasting time.”

“You're right,” he nodded, flexing his fist. Jack blinked rapidly, pulling his head back when a bright light shone on him, making sure he was the centre of attention for a grand total of six people: wasteful if dramatic, and Jack did appreciate good theatre. “Javic Thane, you stand accused of treason, sabotage, theft, abandonment, and the murder of sixty-two members of this agency. How do you answer these charges?”

“I'm sorry, what?”

“Your actions had consequences,” Raphio said, repeating Mila's words with a sharp bite, giving him the impression it was something they had said a lot to each other over the years as justification for tracking him down and bringing him to whatever passed for justice in their minds. “Did you expect no one to die when you threw your pathetic little tantrum?”

The treason, theft, and abandonment charges Jack had expected but the mass murder was an unpleasant surprise.

“If sixty-two people died, maybe _tantrum_ isn't the best way to describe what happened,” he said.

“If he speaks out of turn again, cut his hand off.”

“Whoa – _hey_! That's –” Pyl stepped close and removed a laser knife. Jack turned Lorna away from the red heat of the weapon, forearm braced across her. “Never mind. _Fuck._ Just thought the escalation was a bit uncalled for.”

“Your actions were uncalled for,” Raphio said, holding up his hand to still Pyl. “How do you answer these charges?”

“Not guilty, obviously.”

“Liar,” Harlan spat, surging forwards, restrained only by Kahn spinning on her heels to put her body in the way. “You're a fucking liar, Javic!”

“I didn't kill Lydia,” Jack argued. “Why would I? She was my friend and I loved her.”

“Shut your fucking –” he struggled against Kahn who shoved him back into the shadows. “Get off –”

“You deny that you walked into this facility and destroyed the main computer?” Raphio said, speaking over Harlan's increasingly incoherent rage. “That you deliberately and knowingly stranded agents throughout history? Do you deny setting the bombs that killed sixty-two of our personnel? Do you deny that your actions brought about the destruction of the Time Agency?”

The volley of information – new pieces for the jigsaw that was the blank canvas of his missing memory – stunned Jack but he kept his face fixed and controlled, refusing to let them know he had no idea what they were talking about.

“I imagine you're accusing me of these things because you have proof,” Jack said, choosing his words carefully. “And it's clear your minds are made up. I was guilty the second you sent Pyl after me. Why even bother with this trial?”

“For personal satisfaction.”

“That's hardly practicing the enlightened thinking you liked to tout,” Jack pointed out. “The last fourteen years must've been rough for you.”

“You can't even begin to comprehend what I've had to do to ensure the survival of this agency,” Raphio said, anger buried in the lines on his face. “You tried to destroy us and you failed.”

Jack held his eyes, Lorna a heavy weight in his arms that grew heavier with each passing moment.

“Sounds to me that if the government found you at all useful, you wouldn't have fallen so easily by the wayside. Because this –?” He gestured with a hand lifted from Lorna's back, her arms briefly tightening about his neck. “This isn't the Time Agency. This is you clinging onto something that gave you purpose. From the looks of all of this, the Time Agency is over.” Raphio's jaw twitched, and Jack's eyes narrowed in on the small giveaway. “I'm right, aren't I? They shut you down, turned you into a failed relic, but you didn't like that. Not that I'm surprised, I suspect you enjoyed controlling time a little too much. Made you feel important.”

“Pyl.”

_Rule one of dealing with people who want you dead, don't antagonise them_.

Jack had told Zoe that often enough – her mouth and quick mind getting them into trouble about as much as it got them out of it – and he was glad she wasn't there to watch him ignore his own lecture.

His knees buckled and his arms spasmed around Lorna, grunting in pain as he was forced to his bruised knees. Pyl dug a hand into his hair and jerked his head to one side. The heat of the laser knife warmed his skin before a searing, blinding heat made his vision white out and his throat turn rough from screaming as Pyl sliced his ear off in one clean swipe. Hot blood gushed down his neck before the knife burnt the skin shut, stomach heaving with pain-induced nausea, and he fell forwards, dry heaving, Lorna's feet touching the ground, her thin arms wrapped around him protectively.

“Leave him alone! Just leave him alone!”

“Lorna, I'm okay,” he rasped, spitting bile onto the floor. His hand wrapped around her shoulder and, using her body to straighten himself out, he glared up at Raphio. “What the fuck was that for?”

“A reminder of your place,” Raphio said, coldly.

Pyl threw his ear down in front of him, making a soft, wet noise on impact. Lorna started crying again, which – now that Jack only had one functioning ear – made it difficult for him to hear what was being said.

Dragging the back of his hand across his wound, trying to assess the damage, agony lanced through him as he rubbed against the cauterised flesh. “Torture's illegal.”

“Illegal for the Time Agency that was run by the United Earth government,” Raphio said, a pleased smile playing at his lips. “And as you've so helpfully pointed out, we're not under their jurisdiction any more; therefore, the laws don't apply to us.”

Jack leaned back, wiping his bloodied fingers across his chest. “That's not how laws work, you idiot.”

“Do you want to lose your other ear?”

“Leave him alone,” Lorna shouted, small foot stomping against the ground. Jack appreciated her defence but wished she would lower her volume as his remaining ear rung. “You're all bullies, all of you, and I _hate_ you!”

“You can be quiet too,” Raphio snapped.

Jack pulled her back into the shield of his arms. “Leave her alone.”

“It's like a fucking echo in here,” Pyl muttered, exasperated.

“You're right.” Eyes swung back to Jack who, in an effort to take the attention of Lorna, decided to throw himself headfirst into the accusations for it wasn't as though he hadn't suspected he had done something reprehensible, believing the memory wipe to be a punishment of sorts. “I don't deny what I've done, but Lorna's innocent.” On his knees, it felt as though he was begging for mercy and he hated that feeling. “And, right now, I want to see her safe before you continue with this kangaroo court. If you give me back my manipulator –”

“No,” Raphio interrupted, sharply. “I'm not stupid, Thane. Do you really think I'd let you send a message to your Time Lord friend before _we're_ ready to receive him? And it's not your manipulator, you stole it. It belongs to the Time Agency.”

_Which doesn't exist any more,_ he thought, frustrated by Raphio.

“I only want to send Lorna somewhere safe,” he said, calmly.

Raphio dismissed his concerns with a wave of his hand. “When we're done here, she'll be returned to her time period in the place and time she left it without any memory of what's taken place. It'll be like nothing ever happened for her.”

“You can't,” Jack argued, panic distracting him from the pain in his knees. Rose had always accused him of having bony knees but he hadn't realised how true that was until all he felt was the rub of them against the hard ground. “Her home's been invaded by the Vashta Nerada. You send her back there and she'll die.”

“That is not our concern,” Raphio said. “She's of the past. If she's fated to die on that day, then so be it.”

Anger surged through him and loosened his tongue, recklessness surging through him. “I'm glad the Time Agency's gone. You once said that it was our duty to protect the innocent and to seek out lost knowledge, but here you are willing to let a little girl die. You're a monster.”

“Says the man more monstrous than us all,” he said, simply. “You let your own brother die.”

Jack flinched.

There wasn't an inch of his past that wasn't recorded in his agent's file somewhere in the bowels of the Time Agency. Complete transparency was required to be a time agent to make sure there were no hidden skeletons that might cause problems; Gray's death and Jack's guilt around letting go of his hand and not realising it, nearly scuppered his admission to the Agency.

It took five psychiatrists and two hidden tests for him to be signed off as mentally stable before he was allowed to be given a Vortex Manipulator under training conditions, but every six months he was back in the psychiatrist's office answering questions about that day and allowing them to feel certain he wasn't about to steal a manipulator and try and save his brother. It wasn't that Jack had never thought about it but his hand had always stayed its course, never inputting the coordinates, never allowing himself to think too deeply on the _what ifs;_ he had forced himself to push Gray and the guilt that shrouded his memories into a small, dark corner of his mind that, recently, had started to grow larger and larger until it was interfering with his life.

As such, his past was an open book to the Time Agency; yet, until this moment, Gray had never ben used as a weapon with which to inflict damage.

Jack let go of Lorna and lunged off his knees, reaching for Raphio who was behind his desk and, as such, out of reach. Pyl cracked her gun across the back of his head. He fell, twisting into a roll and ending up on his back; bracing against the floor, he slammed his feet into her stomach, sending her off falling back. Harlan surged forward, eager for the opportunity to attack, but Jack dodged the attack by flipping onto his feet, grabbing a handful of the back of Harlan's shirt and _throwing_ him into Kahn. Taking Mila by surprise, he looped an arm around her neck and dragged her, applying pressure as he did so.

“Lorna, _quickly_ ,” Jack ordered.

Lorna dashed behind a dusty, cobwebbed table that was lying on its side. Jack joined her, carefully placing Mila's unconscious body on the ground. Unholstering her weapon, he aimed a shot above the table and succeeded in setting Pyl's shirt on fire before ducking back down, free hand frantically searching Mila's pockets until he found his Vortex Manipulator.

He thrust it into Lorna's hands. “Put this on, hurry.”

“I don't know how!”

“Hand through the hole, tighten the straps around your forearm and wrist.” Jack popped his head over the top only to yank it back down again. Pressing the barrel of the blaster against the edge of the table, he opened fire, letting it spray haphazardly in a line to create confusion. “Quicker than that, please, that's a good girl.”

“Thane!” Harlan's roar shook the dust in the air. “I'm going to kill you!”

Lorna shook, fingers trembling as she tightened the straps. “He's very angry.”

“Well, his wife's dead, and that sometimes makes people angry,” Jack said, opening up another stream of fire and a pained yell let him know that he had hit someone; a quick peak around the side told him it was Uriel. “Almost ready?”

“I – yes, yes, I think so.”

“Good, you're doing really well,” Jack said, encouragingly. Quickly grabbing Mila's knife that was hidden up her sleeve, he caught Kahn as she threw herself over the top of the table, the trajectory of her body dragging them both back. He slammed the knife into her thigh, and Kahn headbutted him before roaring her displeasure. “Ow, _fuck!_ ”

Scrambling for his gun, he kicked Kahn in the head and knocked her unconscious. He made it back behind the table just in time to cover Lorna with his body as Harlan tossed a sonic grenade behind the table. He pressed his hands tightly over Lorna's ears and took the brunt of the damage, his one good ear throbbing and ringing, the understanding that he wasn't getting out of there settling in his bones. Without wasting any more time, Jack pulled Lorna's wrist towards him and activated the emergency travel programme that he had updated the location on only recently – _thank his lucky stars_ – and held his thumb down over the button as Pyl appeared behind him, arms looping around his neck, choking him.

Lorna screamed and Jack released the button.

She disappeared in a crackle of dry energy and the fight immediately left him.

“No!” Raphio stepped around the table, fury visible in the hold of his body. A painstick – illegal in all civilised societies – pressed deep into his chest; he bucked and screamed, trying to twist away from the pain. Withdrawing the stick, Raphio crouched before him, nostrils wide, cheeks ruddy. “I should kill you.”

“Do it,” Jack spat, blood speckling the director's skin, attempting to remove Pyl's arm from around his neck but the pain weakened him and Pyl had always been strong. “If you don't, I'll kill _you._ Finish what I started.”

Mila began to stir, twitching on the ground behind Jack; Kahn dragged herself over, leaving a bloody path left in her wake, while Harlan twirled a knife in his hand, eyes gleaming.

“I believe you,” Raphio said, tilting his head back. “But after everything you've put us through, you're due for a little pain yourself before you die. Pyl, take him to the Sensation Chambers. Let's hear him scream.”

Jack laughed, bloodied saliva wetting his chin, fear crawling into his gut.

“Of course you brought in the SCs,” he said, gritting his teeth. “You've given up all pretence of a legal operation, haven't you? Does the government know you still exist, or are you completely under the radar?”

“Get him out of here,” Raphio ordered, turning his back on him. “Kahn, patch yourself up and then see to Uriel. Opuan –” he sighed and shook his head. “What's the fucking point of you?”

Mila scowled even as her skin flooded red with embarrassment, rubbing her neck. She caught Jack's eye as Pyl and Harlan half-dragged, half-carried him to the Sensation Chambers, and looked away, shamed.

_Lorna's safe, she's safe,_ Jack repeated to himself as he was manhandled into a room filled with upright cylindrical tubes that were about as spacious as a coffin and shoved inside.

“Maybe Raphio's right,” Harlan said, hand on the door. “Maybe hearing you scream will be more satisfying than your death. And if it's not?” He shrugged, careless. “I can kill you just as easily in an hour as I can now. Enjoy your _sensations_ , Thane.”

Harlan's face smirking down at him was the last thing he saw before the door closed, sealing itself shut, plunging him into a bright, painful light before his nerves were set on fire, flayed open, and he screamed.

* * *

_ Powell Estate, London _

_ January 24th 2007 _

The crash and subsequent scream was so loud that Jackie thought aliens were attacking again.

She shot up out of her bed and was on her feet, grabbing the baseball bat she kept in the corner for security purposes – or ex-boyfriends who refused to take no for an answer – before she reconsidered the wisdom of attacking whatever alien had decided it was a good idea to invade her flat. In all likelihood, it was just the Doctor. The number of coffee tables his ship had destroyed because of his insistence of parking in her living room – _it's convenient!_ \- was getting ridiculous, but there was something that made her hold her breath and pause even as her downstairs neighbour thumped on the roof with an angry order to keep it down. Resting her hand on the door handle, she pressed her ear against the door and listened for the telltale sounds of the Doctor's loud fumbling and the girls laughter and Jack and Mickey's baritones.

All she heard was the weeping of a child in distress.

She cracked the door open, wary. “Doctor, that you?”

The weeping continued.

“If this is a trap,” she called out, “I'm not goin' to be happy.”

Tightening her fingers around her bat, she slipped out of the room and quickly unlocked the front door in case she needed to make a run for it. Edging closer to the living room, she considered how much easier her life was before Rose had dragged home her alien. There was never any need to worry about what might appear in her flat in the middle of the night, or in her washing machine after _someone_ 'fixed' it; she didn't have to worry about her daughter's brain breaking or the safety of both of them as they did whatever it was they did when they travelled through time and space. She missed the days of having normal worries about her children and general life instead of wondering what dark and dangerous things were hidden around the corner.

Swinging the bat up over her shoulder, she surged into the room and froze, staggering at the sight of the small, dark-haired child sitting among the ruins of her coffee table _sobbing_.

Jackie stared. “Oh no.”

The child looked up and scrambled back, kicking pieces of the coffee table out of the way, pressing herself behind the armchair, cowering in the corner.

“Oh, honey, no, it's okay,” Jackie said, dropping the bat and hurrying forwards, swearing as splinters made a home in the bottom of her feet. Hopping over the ruins of another coffee table, she knelt by the chair. “Sweetheart, hello. Hi. I'm Jackie. It's okay. I won't hurt you. C'mon now, it's okay.”

The child's mouth opened and a lyrical, incomprehensible language flooded from her mouth.

Jackie reeled back, surprised. “Right. Okay. This has the Doctor written all over it.”

Stepping around the mess on the floor, she found her phone and thumbed the Doctor's name, lifting it to her ear. For the first time since she received his number at Christmas, he didn't answer; it rang and rang before clicking over into a rambling answerphone message that segued into a conversation with Jack before the time elapsed and the message beeped.

“Doctor, call me now.”

Hanging up, she tried Zoe then Rose then Mickey then Jack and grew steadily more concerned when no one answered. It was unusual for none of them to pick up their phone, and she rubbed her chest to try and ease the worry that settled there.

_Something was wrong_.

* * *

_ Stormcage Prison Facility _

_ Three Weeks Later _

“Rise and shine, Agent Thane, it's shower time.”

“You're always so eager to get me into the shower,” Jack mused, swinging his legs off his narrow bunk, ignoring the way his back ached, as he had just come off three days of _questioning_ by Raphio and was feeling it. Lifting his head, he grinned at the guard. “See something you like?”

“Bruised and battered doesn't really do it for me,” Carlos, one of the nicer guards, said before he unlocked the cell door. “Come on, unless you want to shower with the others.”

Normally, a group shower was a pleasant way to start the morning but Jack had met some of the other prisoners in their twice-daily hour's exercise and he wanted to steer clear of them. Murderers, rapists, terrorists, and more inhabited Stormcage and while he was able to get along with most people he didn't want to befriend any of them.

Heaving himself off the bed, he followed Carlos down the quiet corridor, the others still sleeping, and he stepped into the cold turbolift; the prison outfit that had been on his bed when he arrived was supposed to be thermal but it certainly didn't feel like it.

Ignoring the shiver as he ignored his pain, it was on the tip of his tongue to fill the silence with conversation but he was tired and missing Mickey more today than he had yesterday, though he was sure he was going to miss him even more tomorrow as well. Every part of him ached – one part even gave an unpleasant _twang_ every time he breathed – but nothing hurt more than not being around Mickey and not knowing if he was safe and well. He had grown used to waking up next to him, to turning over in his bed and seeing him there, mouth open with the occasional snore slipping out. He missed the ratty T-shirts with old oil stains on them that couldn't be washed out and that Jack might have stolen once or twice because they smelt like Mickey. He missed the rough edge of London that Jack had initially found slightly off-putting when he first met Rose, never having heard an accent like it, but now was a marker of his new home.

“You've got five minutes,” Carlos said, outside the shower facilities.

“I'm allowed fifteen.”

“Not today you're not,” he said with a small, apologetic grimace. “Orders from on high.”

“I'm amazed at the level of influence Raphio has here,” Jack said, dryly, attempting to hide his disappointment. “Stormcage is supposed to be overseen by the Shadow Proclamation.”

“I'm sorry,” Carlos said. “It's just the way it is.”

“Torture and a lack of rights?” Shamed colour spread across the guard's face, and Jack's eyes dropped to his neck where a thin chain hung. “You're with the Church.”

Carlos lifted his hand to cover his religious symbol, colour deepening. “I'm a believer, yeah.”

“So are a lot of other guards,” Jack pointed out, three weeks being long enough for him to get a lay of the land, and he didn't like what he saw. “Unusual, isn't it?”

“Not really,” he said. “Lots of people are believers.”

“Every single person in this place?” Jack attempted to lean against the wall but his shoulder was swollen and bruised from being dislocated and then put back into place; he straightened up and coughed, concealing his pained groan. “You know, a friend of mine likes to say never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. Thankfully, I'm not busy. Why the hell is the Church providing guards for Stormcage? Where's the Judoon contingent of the Shadow Proclamation?”

“I –” Carlos floundered, mouth moving, before his features hardened. “I don't have to answer your questions. They said you'd do this. They said you'd try and seduce me –”

Jack laughed, delighted. “This isn't a seduction, but I can try that if it'll get me answers.”

“Don't.” Carlos brandished a painstick between them to stop his approach. “I have orders to incapacitate you if necessary.”

“What would that even look like?”

Ten minutes later, Jack regained consciousness ten minutes in his bunk and realised that a painstick to the throat was what Carlos viewed as appropriate incapacitation. _Asshole_ , he thought, glumly, carefully touching his swollen glands, surprised he hadn't died from oxygen deprivation. Though, he wasn't sure what was worse – the fact his throat was swollen as though he had a watermelon lodged there or the fact he hadn't had a shower and crusty bits of blood were sticking to him. Fumbling his way back to a generally vertical position, he did the best he could in cleaning himself up in the small wash station tucked into the corner of his room – sink, mirror, toilet – before giving it up for a bad lot.

_Fuck this, fuck that, fuck you._

It was a familiar refrain from Zoe's studies. Not said to anyone in particular but rather as a method of de-stressing that didn't involve running until she dropped or eating her body weight in whatever food she found in the kitchen, she had gone around the TARDIS muttering it to herself on the rare occasions she allowed herself a break. As he stripped out of his uncomfortable clothes to lie on his bed and wait for his throat to go down, he stole the phrase from her and repeated it again and again, surprised to find it actually worked.

Three weeks had passed since Pyl appeared before him in the Gamma Forests – far, far out of the Time Agency's usual travel paths but Jack had discovered that someone was financially backing their small, chaotic revenge plan during his interrogation sessions – and snatched him and Lorna away.

He felt every single moment of those three weeks.

The only bright spot was the knowledge they hadn't been able to track Lorna. They had got as far as Jackie's flat only to find it empty and Jackie gone. He knew that because Harlan wanted to know where she might have gone and had been _displeased_ by his steadfast refusal to answer and the stinging critique of his mother's sexual skills.

Not that Jack had ever slept with Tamara but that was neither here nor there when it succeeding in getting Harlan so angry the veins in his forehead bulged.

Wherever Jackie was – and he hoped it was in the TARDIS – he knew that she had Lorna with her and both of them were safe; it also meant the Doctor probably had a good idea of what was going on. He didn't want to feel the hope that washed through him; yet, with the Doctor knowing who had him, there was now a chance he was going to get out of his rather painful and exhausting situation and see Mickey again before Raphio lost his temper and killed him.

All Jack wanted was to go home, bury his face in Mickey's neck and breathe him in.

If anyone could figure out where he was and how to get there, then it was his friends, but Stormcage was set on an oscillating time rotation pattern that kept it out of sync with the rest of the universe and made it impossible for people to escape _and_ for people to break in. As much as the hope in his chest hurt him – remembering that wonderful day not too long ago when he was certain he was about to die and then Zoe appeared and fixed all his problems – he wasn't able to kill it.

“You look like shit,” Pyl's unwelcome voice said from the door. Refusing to move, Jack pointed at his throat and she laughed, a hard, grating sound. “Yes, I read the report. I guess you're not as charming as you think you are.”

_Not a seduction_ , he repeats in his mind, frowning at the impact of a packaged tablet on his chest. He held it between two fingers and lifted it questioningly to Pyl.

“Put it in your mouth,” she ordered. “I want you to be able to talk. This'll help.”

Doubting she would choose to kill him with poison, he unwrapped the square tablet and popped it onto his tongue. The relief was instantaneous, the swelling reducing and the pain ebbing. He coughed, sharp pain like glass grating against his throat, but it was better.

“Why are you working with the Papal Mainframe?” Jack rasped, his voice sounded as though it had been sanded down and left out to dry. “They never approved of our work.”

“We have similar goals at this moment in time,” Pyl said, simply. “You should choose your friends more carefully.”

“The Doctor,” he frowned, “This is about the Doctor?”

“ _This –_ ” she gestured, “is about you. Your Time Lord friend doesn't concern us.”

“But he concerns the Papal Mainframe?”

“When you left, you took with you important information,” Pyl said. Jack rolled his eyes and folded his hands across his stomach. “Where is it?”

“The same question _every_ time,” Jack complained. “Don't you get bored?”

“Don't you get tired of this act?” She snapped. “You might've fooled your new friends with this laissez-faire attitude but I recruited you. I know who you are.”

“Clearly, you don't.” He stretched his toes towards the bars, satisfied when his ankles popped. “What do you care about this information anyway? You've survived fourteen years without it. It's clearly not that –”

“I saw your mother recently,” Pyl interrupted, her tone shifting until it was conversational. Jack went still, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “She still lives on the Boeshane Peninsula, still in the house you grew up in as a child, still waiting for your father and brother to come home.”

Rage stormed inside Jack.

“What are you doing?” He asked, pleased at how calm his voice remained. “Are you trying to make me angry? You know I haven't seen her since I left with you. If you're trying to use her to threaten me, it won't work.”

“When I saw her, she spoke about you.” Jack's heart fluttered with hope. “Told me how disappointed she was that you survived when the others didn't.” The hope shattered. “What must it be like to have a parent who wishes you dead?”

“Barely an inconvenience,” Jack lied, the rasp of his throat covering his emotions. “And I'm long past the age where what my mother thinks of me makes a difference.”

Pyl made a small, curious sound in her throat. “Interesting. I wonder if you'll react the same when we have Jackie Tyler in –”

Jack was off the bed and had a hand wrapped around her throat before she finished speaking. She spluttered, grasping for balance as the sound of guards came running; he slammed her against the bars.

“Touch her and it'll be the last thing you do,” Jack growled.

Satisfaction gleamed in her eyes before he released her, stepping back to avoid the painsticks.

“Little lost boy searching for his mummy,” Pyl laughed around a cough. “You're pathetic.”

“Fuck you.”

It was a break in his display of calm.

He had delivered Lorna somewhere he thought was safe and hadn't had time to think about the danger that would put Jackie in; he only put the emergency coordinates into the TARDIS because he thought _he_ would be the one using the manipulator and he was capable of keeping Jackie safe even if he was injured. Lorna was a scared child and Jackie was capable but still not accustomed to the life her daughters had thrust upon her. If something happened to her because of him, he would never forgive himself, and never seeing Rose or Zoe again wouldn't be a problem as the thought of facing their grief made him shudder.

Jack didn't worry about his own mother. She sounded as broken as she was the day he left the Boeshane, and, though he wanted no harm to befall her, the thought of her death didn't fill him with agony like the thought of Jackie dying; instead, there was a sense of relief that her death would bring, a breaking with the past and an opportunity to turn completely towards the future.

While she lived, he was tethered to his childhood in a way that hurt.

Pyl's footsteps faded, yet the tension of her visit remained in his body.

Jack breathed out slowly.

_Fuck this, fuck that, fuck you._

The artificial light of the prison – set to a twenty-seven hour day – began to lower as evening set in, and his eyes welcomed the respite from it, trying to think positively. He supposed, all in all, it wasn't the worst day in the world as Raphio had left him alone, which was a blessing, even if he doubted it would last. Whatever information they thought he had taken with him when he brought the Time Agency to its knees was, he believed, only a smokescreen for their intentions; perhaps Pyl, blinded by her loyalty to the Agency, was unable to see it, but Jack saw that Raphio had seized on an excuse to torture him, letting his hatred spill over, making him scream.

Not for the first time, Jack wished he was able to remember what he had done and why he did it as he had more questions than ever.

One answer he did have though was that _he_ had erased his own memory.

It wasn't the Time Agency that had taken those two years from him but rather himself, and Jack tried to think why he would have done that. He lived his life with the knowledge that _information is power_ ; by taking away his memories of those years he had left himself vulnerable and open to attack but, for whatever reason, he had thought it was worth it. Jack wished he had left himself a note, a letter, something tattooed on his skin – _anything_ – to explain why he had done what he did but there was nothing.

“Join the Time Agency, they said,” Jack muttered to himself, scowling at the ceiling. “It'll be fun they said.” He scoffed, throat hurting. “Lies.”

“I don't know, we had a lot of fun.”

Jack stared at the ceiling before sitting up and –

“ _You_.”

“Hello, Javic.” Out of the shadows, deliberately letting the light fall over him to increase the theatre of his entrance stood his former partner. “Or is it Jack Harkness now?”

Jack blinked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Where'd you pick up that name?” He mocked, ignoring him, hair a darker blond than it usually was and Jack startled at the realisation he was no longer dying it. “Former lover?”

“It's _Captain_ Jack Harkness, thank you,” he said, getting slowly to his feet. “I worked for my rank.”

“On your knees, I bet,” he snorted. “Well, then, I'll be Captain John Hart. We can role play.”

Jack stepped up to the bars, remaining just out of arms reach for he trusted John less than he trusted Rose not to be distracted by the smell of chips. “What the hell are you doing here, you asshole?”

“Oh, isn't that nice?” John rolled his eyes, digging into his pocket for the flask Jack had got him for his 27th birthday. “I hear that my beloved husband –”

“We're not married.”

“My beloved husband,” he continued, speaking louder to cover the interruption, “is being held on charges of – well...everything, I suppose – of course I'm going to come and see what's happening. You've got a long charge sheet to your name, _captain_.”

“No longer than yours in Romania, _John_ ,” Jack shot back. “What was it you got done for in the 46th again?”

John laughed. “Prostitution and murder. I still blame you for that.”

“The target died of a heart attack,” he said. “Neither of us killed him.”

“I meant the prostitution.” John's grin turned wolfish. “It was your idea to have me dress up in that silk underwear.” He leaned in, body angling lasciviously in a way that never failed to get Jack hard except, this time, there was no movement below his belt. “You always did like the finest things.”

He rolled his eyes. “A wonder I bedded you then.”

“Oh-ho!” John pulled back, delighted, and uncorked his flask. “You've got a different sort of mouth on you now. Don't tell me you've become all boring and moral.”

Jack watched as he lifted the flask to his lips and drank heavily. “How was rehab?”

“Rehabs,” John corrected once half the flask was gone, tucking it away without offering it to him. “Plural.”

“Drink, drugs, sex, and –?”

“Murder.”

“You went to murder rehab?” Jack laughed, ribs aching. “That's embarrassing.”

“I know, right?” John grinned. “A little kill every now and then, who does it hurt?”

“You clean now?”

“Yeah, kicked everything, living like a priest.” He leaned against the bars, letting his hands dangle inside, eyes sweeping over Jack. “You, on the other hand, don't look like you're doing so good. Figured you'd gone into retirement. Didn't realise you were kicking around with a Time Lord until Uriel rocked up at my orgy three days ago to tell me you'd been captured.”

Jack paused. “Uriel was at an orgy? God, what would that even look like?”

“Like a puritanical mood killer,” he complained. “Lectured all of us about the risks involved in multi-partner sex. Idiot wouldn't know anything about single-partner sex, let alone multi. Mila says he's knocking boots with Kahn but I don't buy it.”

“Kahn would eat him alive.”

“Exactly!” John grinned brightly at him, pressing his face between the bars and Jack almost smiled. “What's it like?”

“I don't know,” he shrugged. “I never slept with her.”

“Not Kahn, you idiot, your Time Lord.”

“Haven't slept with him either.”

“Bull- _shit_ ,” John said. “The chance to bed a Time Lord and you don't take it? You don't expect me to believe that crap, do you?”

“I never said I hadn't tried,” Jack replied. “He turned me down. I'm not his type.”

John frowned. “You're everyone's type.”

“Not his, apparently,” he said.

“But there's someone,” John noted, narrowing his eyes. “What are they like?”

Jack grit his teeth, not wanting to talk about Mickey with _him._ “Fine.”

“Fine? _Fine_? God, there was a time I couldn't get you to shut up describing your conquests and the one time I'm actually interested –”

“You were always interested.”

“– you go quiet as a bloody church mouse.”

“Speaking of churches,” Jack said, seizing on the opportunity to change the subject with the one person who might actually give him answers instead of annoying ambiguity. “What's the deal with the Papal Mainframe being involved in the Time Agency? Since when do we work with them?”

“Since _you_ went on a fucking bender and destroyed the Agency,” John told him, sticking a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. The smell reminded Jack he hadn't had a decent smoke in years; the cigarettes Rose occasionally snuck when she thought no one was looking were awful, and he hadn't been able to replicate the very cigarettes John was currently smoking. “You were pretty thorough in your destruction – congrats, by the way, didn't think you had it in you – and it left our esteemed director at something of a loose end. The Church was the only organisation that reached out to help.”

Jack repositioned himself to discreetly breathe in the secondhand smoke. “Is it help if it comes with strings attached?”

“For fuck's sake, now you're philosophising too?” John blew out a lungful of smoke, pulling his flask out again, shaking it. “Should've bought another of these. Figures you'd be the one to drive me back to drink.”

Jack snorted. “Did you ever quit?”

“I was sober for about thirty minutes this morning,” he shrugged. “Uriel's such a fucking ass about drinking while travelling. Of all the people to survive your meltdown, it had to be Uriel. _Eric_! Now, Eric was a guy and a half. He never minded a little tipple here and there, or a fumble in the cupboard. The things that man could do with his hands.”

Jack stared at him. “Eric's dead?”

“They're all dead.” Cigarette dangling from his fingers, he took a deep drink and belched. “Like I said, you were thorough.”

“They're _all_ dead?” Jack repeated, cold. No one had told him that, preferring to lay sixty-two deaths at his feet without further explanation. “I saw Mila when I arrived. Pyl, Harlan, Uriel, Kahn, _you_.”

“There's only seven of us left now, eight, I guess, if we include you, and I doubt Raphio does.”

“Seven.” Jack sat on the edge of his bed. “I didn't – _how_?”

“What did you think was going to happen when you destroyed the main computer?” John asked him, cigarette between his lips again. “You stranded most of our agents through time. Some of them died there, others appeared in the rubble and were squashed to death because there was no one telling them not to come back. It was a fucking mess.”

Turning from him, Jack rubbed a hand across his mouth. The more information he received, the more pieces to the puzzle he got, and the more confused he became.

“I had my reasons,” he said, turning back.

John was as handsome as he had always been but there was no longer an urge to peel his clothes off; Jack looked at him and only thought of how much he missed Mickey. He almost laughed, remembering how he worried monogamy might be problematic for him.

“Yeah, I know.” John looked at him, unusually serious, and held his gaze. “Have you found peace yet?”

“What?”

“Last time we saw each other...” he paused, attempting to find the right words. “I thought I'd hear about your body being found or something. Figured you'd either kill yourself or find a way to survive. I'm actually pleased to see it's the latter.”

Jack stared at him. “Since when do you care? You've only ever looked out for yourself.”

“That's a fucking lie and you know it,” John snapped, anger spilling from him. “I didn't go through everything we did because I only cared about me. You think I'd risk my neck for –” he froze suddenly, mouth formed around the word, head tilting curiously. “For –”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You going to finish that sentence anytime soon, or am I going to have to guess?”

“Get over here.”

“Not a chance.”

“Javic, you fucking _ur'ak_ , get over here.” John reached out and made grabby hands. Jack sighed and stood up, stepping closer but not so close as to be within strangling distance. “Let me see your eyes.”

“You want to gaze into them?” Jack asked, sceptically. “You've never been the sort.”

“I swear on this fucking flask of hypervodka if you don't shut up and let me see your eyes, I'm going to come in there and rip your other ear off.”

“As if you could,” he scoffed even as he shifted closer to allow him what he wanted.

John breathed in sharply, eyes staring deep into his. “What did you do?”

“A little bit of botox a few months back,” Jack said. “Treated myself after I nearly died. There's this great place in Massach –” he let out a garbled sound as John managed to grab hold of him and yank him forward, forehead smacking against one of the bars. When he opened his eyes, John's face was an inch from his. “Javic, what did you do? You don't – tell me you weren't stupid enough to take your own fucking memories.”

Jack blinked, slowly. “What?”

“You goddamn idiot,” John hissed, heaving him even closer. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

His body twisted in a struggle to free himself from John's grip. “Get off me.”

“They don't know,” John said, thinking out loud. “The others.” He laughed, dry and cold. “They've shoved you in here and are torturing you for information that you don't even know you don't even have.”

“Wait, what?” Jack squinted at him. “How d'you know I don't have the information?”

“I just do, you overgrown child.”

“You know, you really sound like a friend of mine right now,” Jack said, trying to regain his balance. “Zoe, you'd like her.”

“Zoe Tyler,” John said, startling Jack. “I know enough about her to not want anything to do with her.”

“ _Hey_ ,” he protested. “Zoe's a delight.”

John snorted. “If you say so.”

“You going to let go of me now and tell me what the hell's going on?”

John released him and rubbed his head. “This is a disaster. Why am I not surprised? You've always been able to make a bad situation worse.”

“Prague, Mumbai, New London, the Dresden Colonies,” Jack rattled off a list of John's own messes.

He waved his hand, dismissively. “All fixable. You – oh, _you_ on the other hand, you burn the Time Agency to the ground and then erase your own memories because you couldn't stand the guilt. I thought you had more steel to you than that.”

“A lot of people died here,” Jack shot back. “No wonder I wanted to forget it.”

John's eyes cut to him, face set like stone. “I'm not talking about here. I'm talking about –” he caught himself. “No. I'm not doing this again. I'm not going to be the one to break your heart all over again.”

“Why would my heart be broken?”

“If you knew the truth, you'd understand,” John said, shaking his head. “How much is gone?”

Jack swallowed and worked his jaw. “Two years.”

John breathed in sharply, baring his teeth. “That's everything then. The last thing you remember is what, our mission to Sydney, 43rd century?”

“Spain, 45th.”

“Right, so you really don't know anything,” John said, ageing in the space of a heartbeat.

“Then tell me,” Jack said, pressing himself against the bars and reaching for him. John had the truth and if he spoke it, all the questions Jack had, all the theories he had come up with, would be answered. “Tell me what I'm missing.”

“No,” he said again. “You took your memories for a reason. You're an idiot for doing it but you decided to do that. I'm not going to tell you anything. Though...” he looked at him, assessing. “You been having nightmares lately?”

Jack frowned, uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“I'd bet my cock they're not nightmares but your memories trying to break through whatever back-alley memory block you put on them,” John said. “No block is good enough to wipe that much trauma clean away, something always stays behind. You can fight it all you want but, at some point, you need to face what you did.”

“People keep saying that: _what I did, what I did_ ,” Jack said, angrily. “Raphio and Pyl mean one thing, you obviously mean another. What did I do?”

“What needed to be done,” John said, not elaborating as he dragged a hand over his jaw, rasping along his stubble. “This makes things complicated. I came to gloat and be all smug but Raphio's going to kill you one of these days and I don't want to be here when that Time Lord of yours comes looking for you. Kahn says he's gone looking for information about your whereabouts with Jim the Fish. Harlan's pissed about that since Jim only contacted him after the fact.”

The confirmation that the Doctor was looking for him breathed life back into Jack. Stepping back from the bars, he sat down on the edge of his bed, calmer than he had been in weeks. The possibility of seeing Mickey again warmed him all over, and he sounded lighter and happier when he asked John what he was still doing there if he didn't care. In response, John sighed and rubbed the back of his head, pulling a blaster from his boot; Jack rolled out of the way, the lock blasting open, alarms immediately blaring.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Jack demanded. “They'll toss you in the cell next door now.”

“Please.” John rolled his eyes and reached into the cell, grabbing him under his arm and pulling him back to his feet. “This isn't the first time I've broken you out of prison. Hope it's the last though. Getting real tired of cleaning up your messes.”

“You're the one who came to me,” he pointed out, stumbling over his feet. “Do you mind? I'd rather not break out wearing nothing.”

“Why not?” John's eyes swept over his naked form. “Naked's still a good look for you.”

“Piss off,” Jack laughed.

“Piss off? Who the hell says _piss off_ any more?” He grabbed Jack and shoved him towards the wall, spinning, coat flaring around him, as he shot the first two guards that rounded the corner. Jack watched Carlos slump back against the wall, a hole burned through his chest. “You've been spending too much time in the past.”

“You haven't been spending enough in rehab,” Jack said as another guard died, reaching for the second weapon he knew John always kept on his person. Clawing his way back to his feet, his muscle memory kicked in and it was as it always had been: him and John in the field, watching each other's backs. “In case we die doing this, I want you to know that you're an idiot.”

John barked a laugh and laid down cover fire as Jack dashed to the exit. “You still married me though.”

“Only technically,” Jack argued, forcing the door open just as Pyl and Harlan appeared in the corridor, guns drawn. “And we were drunk.”

“Still counts!” John ducked beneath the door and grinned breathlessly at him. “Now, move it!”


	31. Chapter 31

_ Powell Estate, London, _

_ January 24th 2007 _

Priti Azadi blinked the sleep from her eyes as she lifted the sodden tea bags from the mugs and dumped them onto a small, tea-stained saucer that she kept meaning to wash. The flat was in a perpetual state of untidiness with crumbs on the floor, piles of washing spilling out of the laundry basket, dishes stacked as neatly as possible as though that would make the mess seem less, and her father's medication scattered about the flat because the children she looked after for a little extra money each week thought they were toys. It was hardly the state she wanted to invite her neighbour in to see but Jackie Tyler hadn't given her much of a choice. Hammering on the door at five in the morning with a weeping child who spoke only gibberish attached to her hip, she had shouldered her way in with an apology and a plea for help.

Picking up the cups of tea and hoping Jackie didn't want to sit in the kitchen, she padded through her flat and bumped the door open to her father's bedroom where Jackie was standing at the window, curtains twitching between her fingers.

“You sure I shouldn't call the police?” She had said _no police_ , which wasn't uncommon to hear on the estate, but Priti's fingers itched to dial for help. “They're in your flat, Jacks.”

“I'm sure,” Jackie said, taking the tea from her with steady hands and lifting it to her mouth. The lights were off and the curtains were mostly drawn but the light that flickered through made her look tired and worried. “What good'll it do? They'd take ages to get here, an' after everythin' with Rose, they'd think I was just talkin' a loud of nonsense.”

Priti didn't reply.

The year Rose had gone missing had been a highly charged time on the estate with accusations of murder flying back and forth, poor Mickey Smith caught up in the middle of everything even though anyone with an ounce of sense knew he wouldn't hurt a fly let alone Rose.

It was an ugly, cruel thing and Priti was glad the year was behind them.

She curled her fingers around her mug and hunched her shoulders, cold as she didn't like heating the flat unless she had to, the cost of it making her deal with the winter cold that sank deep into her bones. “Who are they, anyway?”

“No idea.”

“And who's the kid?”

“Daughter of a friend of a friend,” Jackie lied. “Family's abusive, you know how it is.”

Priti sipped her tea, eyes lingering on the strange child who had stopped crying and was simply sitting on the bed watching Priti's father sleep.

_Daughter of a friend_ , she thought. _Probably that strange John Smith. He talks about as much sense as the girl._

“I just need to keep her out of sight while I figure out what to do,” Jackie said, worry pulling at her. “Rose an' Zoe aren't answerin' their phones an' I can't get through to my boys either.” She sighed before turning a kind, grateful smile towards Priti. “Thanks for this. You didn't have to take us in.”

Priti scoffed, cheeks heating in the dark. “Shut up. Like you wouldn't do the same for me an' mine. But are you sure you don't want to use my phone to call Rose or Zoe?”

She shook her head. “If none of them are answerin' then something's happened. I need somewhere to go that's not here, but I don't know where.”

“You could go to your mum's,” Priti suggested, not eager to have Jackie stay if it meant that the people ransacking her flat eight doors down would come and knock on her door. “Stay there for a bit. Isn't she comin' down for your party anyway?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Jackie considered the idea but reluctance gnawed at her, twisting nerves until her body felt as though it was vibrating. She hadn't told her mother anything about the Doctor. As far as her mother was concerned, the Doctor was a research scientist who had employed Rose and Zoe as his assistants, not that Jackie was convinced her mother believed her. When Rose made her reappearance after a year of absence, Jackie had called her mother and said that Rose had been in France working as an au pair; again, she doubted that she was fully believed but the alternative, _the truth_ , was so impossible that it was easier to tell a shaky lie than attempt to present the truth to her family.

Unable to go home, her mind drifted to David Llewellyn down in Wales. The distance was comforting yet David wasn't exactly calm under pressure _and_ he had a little girl that Jackie absolutely didn't want to put in danger.

Priti shifted the curtains an inch to the right and peered out onto the walkway, the orange light from the council-approved lighting cast an ominous glow over their dark forms.

“They're out of your flat,” Priti said, watching them, wondering who they were as they were better dressed and appeared more serious that the usual types who came to the Powell Estate looking for trouble. “Ah. _Shit._ Looks like they're going door to door. They're knocking on George's door. Blimey, that's going to piss him off. He never goes to bed until three or four in the morning.”

“Don't I bloody know it.” Jackie complained, setting her tea down and stealing a hairband from the table, sweeping her hair up into a ponytail. “I need to get us out of here before they come knockin'. I don't want you gettin' in any trouble. I don't know what they'll do.”

Fear seized Priti's muscles at the sight of the weaponry attached to the man and woman. “ _Jesus_ , Jackie, who are these people? They've got guns.”

_Of course they do_ , Jackie thought, annoyed and afraid.

“Where are they now?”

“Talking to George,” she said. “Looks like he's complaining about the noise. That's probably going to buy you a few minutes. You know what he's like.”

“Okay, _okay_.” Panic was making her shake and no matter what she did, she couldn't stop the way her hands trembled and her knees quivered. Stepping away from the window, she gestured to Lorna who, in the absence of better options and a lack of communication, had decided to trust her; she got up and padded over to her, slipping her small hand into Jackie's. “We're goin' to have to run. Nothin' else for it.”

“You won't make it far,” Priti warned. “You're got a kid and they look really, _really_ fit.”

Jackie resisted the urge to snap, knowing that Priti was simply being realistic. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Priti glanced back out the window again. George was winding himself up and the two strangers had decided that he clearly didn't have what they were looking for and were detangling themselves from conversation with him. George wasn't one to let people go easily, which gave them at least another minute. An idea forming in her head, she set her tea down and turned, shaking her father awake.

“Dad, c'mon, get up.”

Jackie stared at her. “What're you doin'?”

“Helping,” she said. Her father stumbled from bed under her encouragement, growling and complaining in tired confusion. “Pass me his dressing gown, would you?” Jackie took it from the back of the door and held it out to her. “I'll distract them for you. You and the kid can hoof it down to the other stairwell. You'll really have to run though. If I were you, I'd head to the garage and see if Farouz'll let you borrow a car. Flash him your tits or something, but get the hell out of Peckham for a bit. Go stay with a friend. I'll call you when it's safe to come back.”

“Priti, I –” gratitude strangled what she wanted to say. “I don't have my phone.”

The urgency of her escape had forced her to leave her phone behind in her living room along with her shoes, keys, and purse. She had nothing except the kindness of her neighbours with which to help her.

Leaving the dressing gown dangling off her father's arms, Priti quickly scribbled down her phone number and shoved it into Jackie's hand. “There. Call me when you get somewhere safe and I'll let you know what's happenin'.”

Jackie grasped her wrist, holding her in place. “Priti, _thank you_.”

“You think I've forgotten how you helped me when Dad was first diagnosed?” Priti tied her father's dressing gown and smiled. “You help me, I help you. That's what we do around here. You taught me that. Now, stop being an idiot and get ready to run.”

Mouth dry and heart hammering in her chest, she nodded, securing her grip on Lorna's hand as she tried not to feel so afraid. All the other times aliens had come barging into her life, someone else had been there with her and the Doctor was normally lurking in the shadows ready to take charge with his usual gung-ho and poorly planned attempts at bringing peace back to her life. Being alone without anyone was frightening, the feeling exacerbated by the fact that she was worried something awful had happened to the people she loved.

They _always_ answered their phones.

Always.

It wasn't difficult to understand why Jack would use his Vortex Manipulator to send a child back to her. She assumed it was because he needed her to keep the child safe, but the fact he had sent her back with people hunting her made her strength wobble.

She knew Jack.

He would never put anyone in harm's way if there was any other option, and her mind kept throwing worst-case scenarios at her, imagining his handsome face slack with death or something _worse_.

If he was dead and sending the child back was his last act, Jackie didn't know what she was going to do. She had to believe that her daughters were alive and well, the alternative would destroy her, and she needed time to think and try to get in touch with one of them because someone had to be okay. The thought of all five of them incapacitated was something she didn't want to consider and so she simply wasn't going to. However, it did feel as though all her worse fears regarding Rose and Zoe's travels were coming true...again.

_Rose couldn't have met an accountant,_ she grumbled to herself. _Had to be a bloody alien._

Pausing at the door, Priti looked back and gave her a bracing nod. Hand planted in the small of her father's back, she gave him a push and followed him out of her flat, leaving the door on the latch. She hoped that her father's Alzheimer's induced shuffling and confusion would distract those chasing Lorna long enough for Jackie to get out of sight and to relative safety. Fully awake now, she tugged her father down the walkway towards the armed strangers, George hanging out of his flat, yelling after them, an annoyed, tired looking Yevgenia scowling as they asked her questions about Jackie.

Back in Priti's flat, Jackie looked down at the Lorna who was staring up at her, tear tracks dried in the dirt on her face, and smiled. “It's okay. We just have to run now, okay?”

The lyrical nonsense that was her language left her mouth again.

“We –” Jackie gestured between the two of them, Priti's loud, annoyed tones filling the air as she snapped at the armed people, attempting to create as much chaos and confusion as possible. “Need to run.” She mimed running. “Okay? We need to run.”

Lorna blinked.

“God, I hope the Doctor's alive,” she groaned, rubbing her eyes where a headache was pressing in against her optic nerve. “'Cause I'm goin' to kill him for this.”

“Doctor,” Lorna repeated.

Jackie jerked, surprised. “Yes, the Doctor. _Doctor._ You know him?”

“Doctor,” she repeated. “Jack. _Mih_ -key.”

“Rose, Zoe,” Jackie said, hope filling her mouth. “Do you know Rose an' Zoe?”

“Jack,” she said again, before speaking slowly and clearly – “y _unget sku jarul_.”

“ _Hey_!” Priti's yell threatened to shake the windows, and Jackie snapped her head around, stepping closer to the door to peer out. Priti had shoved herself between her father and a tall, blonde woman whose face was twisted into annoyance, nose wrinkled as though something foul smelling was in front of her. “Get your hands off my dad, you fucking asshole! Who d'you think you are?”

A door opened and Wednesday stepped out, hair in curlers. “What the hell's goin' on out here? Priti, honey, you okay?”

Another door opened and Frankie the Snake stuck his head out. “Babe, you need help?”

Maurice, the local drug dealer, stepped out in his boxers. “Who the hell are these guys? Why they causin' trouble?”

Lee Ogdens, freshly out of prison and with a monitoring bracelet looped around his ankle, bobbed his head. “Let me get my dusters.”

A smile threatened to wipe away the fear that simmered beneath the surface of Jackie's skin as the two strangers who had broken into her flat while she was attempting to calm Lorna in the bathroom – sneaking out behind them with her heart in her mouth – became surrounded by her neighbours. She didn't always get on with the people who lived on the same floor as her, arguing about noise or drug deals or abuse, but when outsiders came in and threatened one of their own, they were willing to step up.

Lee Ogdens re-emerged from his flat with heavy bronze knuckle dusters decorating on his fingers and elbowed his way through the crowd. Using the broad, tattooed expanse of his body and the absolute outrage that whipped itself into a frenzy when the strangers drew their guns, shouting at everyone to get back, Jackie slipped out of the flat and ran, hand clamped around Lorna's.

Forcing the door of the stairwell at the opposite end of the building open, she glanced over her shoulder and went cold with fear as the strange man met her eyes, anger on his face. He tried to shove his way past the neighbours but Lee threw a punch and he went down. As he fell, Jackie rushed into the stairwell and sprinted down the stairs as fast as Lorna would let her, chanting _run, run, run_ under her breath. Emerging into the cold morning, the sun not yet risen and the grounds were lit by street lamps. She stuck close to the building and edged around the side before racing across the open ground, not daring to stop and look back for fear of finding the strangers watching her.

Following Priti's suggestions, she and Lorna ran down the familiar streets, twisting and turning, passing by the milk truck whose driver blinked at her in surprise and ignoring a woman who was out with her dog. The garage was situated on the corner of a park and the light was on in the office. Farouz tended to start work early, liking to tinker with his own projects before turning his attention to the paid work that kept his rent paid, and she hammered on the metal door, its rattle loud and horrible.

“Jackie.” Farouz peered at her suspiciously, taking in her pink silk robe, make-up free face, and filthy child companion. “In a spot of bother, are you?”

“I need Mickey's car an' for you not to ask questions,” Jackie said, pushing Lorna into the garage between Farouz and the door. He stepped back, startled and faintly amused. “He left it here, didn't he? Where are the keys?”

“In my office.” He shut door behind her and turned around, smiling at Lorna who stared at him with large dark eyes that left him feeling unnerved. Jackie managed to find the strangest friends: the John Smith bloke that apparently travelled with her daughters for one. He and his wife were certain that Rose and Zoe had joined some sort of sex cult, more so after New Years Eve and their handsome American friend had been introduced. “What's going on?”

“I said don't ask any questions,” she said, annoyed, arm wrapped around Lorna, pulling her back against her. “Can I get the keys or what?”

Farouz ran a hand over the back of his head and sighed. “I remember not too long ago when you were accusing Mickey of murdering your girl.”

“Don't pretend you weren't in on that,” Jackie snapped. “You sacked him, remember?”

“Because you painted _murderer_ across the fucking door!” Irritation flared before shame drowned it out. He hated how easily he had let Mickey go. He was the best mechanic by far and he had let himself be bullied and harassed into firing him. “I don't think he'd like me letting _you_ use his car.”

“Oh, God, it's all water under the bridge an' all that now,” she said, impatiently, ignoring her guilt. “We had Christmas together an' everything.” She thrust her hand out. “Keys. Please.”

Farouz chewed the inside of his cheek before accepting defeat. Jackie was the type of person to grab a tire iron and knock him unconscious to get what she wanted and he had a busy day ahead of him; besides, the small child at her side looked as though it had been through a war and the day hadn't yet come when he would turn his back on a child in need. Jackie snatched the keys from him and he watched her bundle the child into the front seat, making sure the seatbelt was secure, before taking the driver's seat. She pointed at the door and he rolled his eyes, grabbing hold of the pulley, opening the garage so that she could drive past him.

“Weird fucking woman,” Farouz said with a shake of his head.

The car gave a strangled, choking growl and Jackie swore, struggling with the gear stick. It had been a while since she had driven and she was pretty sure her picture licence had expired years ago but if the Doctor was able to drive his ridiculous yellow car – _Bessie_ , a Northern burr reminded her, _her name's Bessie_ – then she could manage Mickey's yellow bug. Being within something solid and moving helped with the fear, and she looked across to Lorna who seemed overwhelmed by the entire experience of being in a car, and Jackie wondered if wherever she was from they had cars or transport of any kind.

The scream that ripped from Lorna's mouth, a warning cry in her strange language, make Jackie swerve before her foot slammed against the break. Squealing to a stop, smoke pluming out of the exhaust, Jackie gaped at the gun-strapped man who stood in the centre of her headlights.

She was so close she saw his breath whiten the air before him.

When he spoke, he did so with the deliberate carefulness of someone speaking a foreign language. “Give me the girl, Ms Tyler.”

_He knows my name_ flashed through her mind, the thought striking her like lightening.

Shaking, she rolled down the window and leaned her head out. “Where are my daughters?”

“Presumably with their Time Lord,” he replied, gun held at half mast, one hand stretched before him as though attempting to calm her. She shifted her foot on the break, moving her other over to the accelerator, hoping she remembered how to find the biting point. “We just want the girl. Give me her and you can leave unharmed. You have my word.”

“I don't know who you are,” she snapped. “Your word means fuck all to me, mate.”

“Jack, Jack, Jack,” Lorna whispered next to her, wide eyed and terrified. “ _Yunget sku jural_.” She pointed at the man, finger shaking. “ _Weap skun'ï Jack. Weap skun'ï Jack!_ ”

With nothing to go on but the tone, Jackie gripped the steering wheel until the plastic creaked. It had been obvious from the start that the man wasn't to be trusted and Lorna's reaction to him cemented that thought. Whoever he was, he was responsible for Jackie's current situation – or, at the very least, partially responsible – and she didn't enjoy having the wits scared out of her in the early hours of the morning no matter what the reason.

Wetting her lips, she stuck her head out the window again. “Where's Jack?”

“The man you know as Jack Harkness is in custody,” Harlan informed her, words sharp and clipped. “The girl doesn't belong in this time. Her continued presence risks altering the timeline. Surrender her and you will be allowed to go free.”

“I'll just wait for the Doctor, thanks,” she shot back. “He'll know what to do.”

Harlan bowed his head, swearing in whatever language he called his own, and Jackie seized her opportunity.

Finding the biting point, she pressed the accelerator right down to the floor and the engine roared, jerking ahead until it smoothed out. She saw the whites of Harlan's eyes before he threw himself out of the way, her scream flying from the window as she sped past, heart slamming against her chest. As she took the corner much faster than she would have liked, an energy blast singed the paint of the side of Mickey's car and shattered the back window, clipping them. Lorna screamed and covered her head with her arms. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Jackie watched Harlan swear and stomp his foot against the ground like a child throwing a tantrum.

Lorna peaked up from the shield of her arms with wide, frightened eyes.

Nonsense spilled from her lips again.

“I don't know what to do either,” Jackie said, not slowing down as she left the estate, barrelling through a red light, grateful it was still early and the roads were relatively empty. She ran through a list of people that might be able to help her when she nearly slapped her forehead; she laughed, the solution so obvious she was embarrassed not to have thought of it straight away. “Right. I've got a plan. Hold on tight, sweetheart.”

At high speed and breaking a number of laws that were going to send speeding tickets through Mickey's letter box, Jackie parked the car outside a beautiful house in a leafy suburb in the type of area she would love to have raised her daughters in had she the money. She circled the car and pulled Lorna out, slipping through the gate that was left on a latch, and hurrying to the front door where she pressed the bell thrice before hammering on the wooden panels.

“C'mon, c'mon, c'mon,” she muttered, impatiently.

A light flicked on.

A shadowed form moved closer.

The door cracked open.

“Jackie.” The door opened wider until the pyjama-clad owner of the house was framed in the doorway. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I need help,” Jackie said, arm around Lorna. “ _We_ need help.”

“Oh god,” Sarah Jane Smith sighed, opening the door to welcome them inside. “What the hell's the Doctor done now?”

* * *

_ Gamma Forests, _

_ Two seconds later _

Static ran up Mickey's arms and swept beneath his T-shirt to crawl up his neck. His nose twitched and back of throat started to itch at the smell of something inorganic burning, scents he had associated with Jack's use of the Vortex Manipulator. He stared at the spot where Jack had been standing, weight braced on his back leg, Lorna attached to him, but neither of them were there. For one terrifying moment, Mickey thought that the Vashta Nerada had descended and consumed Jack and Lorna before his brain started working and the image of a woman: tall and blonde, grabbing hold of Jack and twisting away into the Vortex. He swayed on the spot and grabbed hold of the nearest solid object that, fortunately, turned out to be the Doctor.

“JACK!”

“What the hell was that?” The Doctor demanded, staggering to a stop, hair askew and looking filthy. “Was that a Vortex Manipulator? Did someone just kidnap Jack?”

“A woman – it was a woman - she grabbed him and zapped him away,” Mickey said, panicking. We need to –”

Hands grabbed the back of their clothes and yanked them back.

“Inside, now,” Zoe ordered.

“Someone's kidnapped, Jack,” the Doctor said, stumbling over his own feet.

Mickey fought against her hold, scrabbling for the place where Jack had been standing. “Let go of me. We need to find him!”

“There are Vashta _fucking_ Nerada,” she reminded them, harshly, and the Doctor shook the surprise of Jack's abduction off and remembered himself; Mickey took longer. “Right now, Jack's alive, wherever he is, but we won't be if we hang around. Now you can either get in the TARDIS by yourself or I'll drag you in there, Micks, it's your choice.”

“Mickey, come on,” the Doctor said, sliding a hand beneath his armpit and applying the smallest amount of pressure to make him malleable. “Jack's gone. TARDIS, then rescue mission.”

“Rose,” Zoe yelled over her shoulder, the three of them surging into the TARDIS. “Get us moving!”

Standing at the console, Rose worried her bottom lip before carefully following the movements she had seen the Doctor perform hundreds of times before. After losing Zoe for six years to pre-revolutionary France and then the incident on the Game Station, the Doctor had decided it was high time to give her and Jack lessons in how to pilot the TARDIS in the event of an emergency. Jack loved them and pestered the Doctor again and again for more until he caved like everyone knew he would; Rose, on the other hand, had thought she would enjoy flying the TARDIS only to discover that having the entirety of the ship under her command was absolutely terrifying and not something she cared for. She knew how to pilot in an emergency but was happy to let the others fight over driving her the other times.

As the TARDIS began to dematerialise into the Time Vortex, her eyes went wide at the noticeable absence of Jack.

“Where's Jack?”

“Kidnapped, apparently,” Zoe said, pulling himself up to her side as the Doctor wrestled with Mickey, pulling him back from the door. “Someone jumped in and jumped out with him and the girl.”

“He's been what?” Rose's eyes flashed, worried and angry. “Where'd they take him?”

“No idea,” she said, running a hand over her face, smearing the smoke that stained her skin. “Honestly, there's way too much happening right now that I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up. Whoever took him used a Vortex Manipulator though.”

“Mickey.” The loud crack of the Doctor's voice made them both step around the side of the console and quietened the rising burble of scared voices in the corner where the surviving Gammas were huddled, holding each other. “ _Stop_. Fighting me isn't helping Jack. He's gone. We'll find him.”

Mickey attempted to free an elbow to ram back into the Doctor's face.

Rose and Zoe looked at each other.

“I'll deal with that,” Rose said, leaving her to take over at the controls, and the flight became smoother as Zoe balanced them out to account for the eddies that always rocked the Vortex. She stepped down off the platform and ducked under Mickey's flailing arms to put her hands on his chest, curling her fingers into his sweat-damp shirt. “Mickey, stop. We'll get him back, course we will, but we have to get out of danger first.”

Mickey calmed under her touch. The Doctor loosened his grip slightly, eyes grateful as he looked at Rose.

“Can you –?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I've got him.”

Releasing Mickey completely, he hurried towards Zoe, talking rapidly. “Take us to the main city, love. We'll drop off the refugees, tell them about the fire and the Vashta Nerada and then leave them to it. We've got more important things to deal with.”

_Love_? Rose thought, bewildered, turning to stare at the Doctor in surprise before Mickey's stricken voice left no room in her mind for anything else but him and his heartbreak.

“He was right there,” Mickey said, pale beneath the smoke and sweat, eyes holding a dazed look she recognised from those who had experienced a sudden and unexpected emotional upheaval and her heart ached for him even as her blood singed with worry for Jack. “He was right in front of me an' then that woman showed up an' he's gone. He was just gone.”

“We'll figure it out,” Rose promised, pulling him towards her and resting her chin on his shoulder, his arms slowly coming around her until he was holding her tightly, shaking in her arms. “I promise, we'll figure it out.”

The TARDIS landed with a bump and Rose shuffled Mickey back out of the way, allowing the Doctor and Zoe enough space to evacuate the surviving Gammas. Her side throbbed from where her shirt had fused into her skin, and her mouth was dry and painful, yet nothing would persuade her to move away from Mickey right then. Not even her phone going off in her back pocket, the ringtone she had given her mother tinny and annoying after everything; she closed her eyes against his shoulder as his tears soaked the side of her neck. From the door, the Doctor was audible in his succinct and rapid assessment of the situation to whoever was on the other side.

“We've got to go,” he was saying to the people in charge, Zoe already back in the TARDIS, waiting impatiently as he edged backwards, refusing to allow the Gamma officials to delay him anymore than they already were. “Our friend's been abducted. Need to deal with that. Good luck here and all that but I've really got to –”

He tripped and landed on the ramp.

Seizing the opportunity, he slammed the door shut with his feet.

“Smooth,” Zoe commented, dryly. She stepped towards him and offered her hand. “Theories?”

Seizing her hand, he jumped to his feet. “A couple, you?”

“Either the Time Agency's finally caught up with him or that mystery guy of mine is behind it,” she said, brushing soil off his coat. “Or the mystery man _is_ from the Time Agency and this is a twofer. Neither makes me feel great.”

The Doctor bobbed his head. “That's what I'm thinking.”

“Can we track him?”

“It'd be easier if he had a tracking device in him but his Vortex Manipulator should help,” the Doctor said, the two of them moving in tandem up the ramp. “You should patch Rose up. I'll try and track him down now.”

“Hey.” She reached out and caught hold of his jacket, knuckles brushing against him. “We're going to get him back. Either he's going to escape and find us or we're going to find him. Nothing else is going to happen.”

“When you say it, I believe it,” the Doctor said, covering her hand with his.

Zoe's eyes softened, squeezing his hand, before stepping back to approach Rose and Mickey.

“Hey,” she said, voice soft. “The Doctor's going to start tracking Jack but I need to fix Rose up first. Why don't you come with us and I'll give you something to help you sleep.”

He turned from her. “I don't need to sleep, I need Jack.”

“It's going to take some time to find him,” Zoe said, patiently. “And, take it from me, you're going to want to sleep at some point. So, come with –”

“Zoe, no offence, but I don't really give a shit about your fucked up past right now,” Mickey snapped. Hurt burned through her, unused to Mickey talking to her like that. “Jack's missin', an' I'm not goin' to fuckin' sleep through it. He'd do everythin' an' anythin' to find me. I'm not goin' to do anythin' less.”

“Mickey,” Rose said, low and chastising. “It's not her fault.”

“It's fine,” Zoe lied. “Look, Micks, this is going to take a while. Standing around like –”

He stalked past her and headed towards the Doctor. Mouth open, formed around the word she hadn't spoken, her teeth clacked when she shut it. Rose eyed her, sympathy painted across her face, and Zoe ignored it as she shook the feeling of hurt from her. If their situations were reversed and the Doctor had been taken, Zoe doubted she would be handling herself much better than Mickey. Managing to paste an unconvincing smile on her face, her eyes dropped to Rose's injury, the temporary bandage beginning to show blood.

“Come on,” Zoe said. “We need to see to that.”

“Yeah, okay.” Rose took hold of her sister's arm and leant against her, Zoe carefully guiding her from the room as the deep murmur of the Doctor and Mickey's voices washed over them. “You know Mickey didn't mean any of that, right?”

“Course I do,” she said. “He's terrified.”

“Me too,” Rose murmured. “Someone stole Jack from us. I don't know who they are but I already hate them.”

A small laugh worked its way out of Zoe's threat. “Yeah, I get that. You're holding it together pretty well though.”

“It's easier to be calm when everyone else is panickin', reckon you taught me that.” Zoe snorted and gently nudged Rose's side with her elbow, careful not to press against her wound. The phone in her back pocket went off and she removed it, sliding her thumb to decline the call, making a note to send her mother a text later to let her know they were busy. Hopefully they would get Jack back without having to worry Jackie. “I'm really scared we're not goin' to see him again.”

“Of course we're going to,” Zoe said. “It's Jack we're talking about. I can't imagine anything coming for him that he can't deal with, and the Doctor's going to turn the universe upside down until we find him. You heard us, it's probably the Time Agency or my mystery man, maybe both. That makes whoever took him easier to track because they'll probably be going over old stomping ground.”

They entered the comforting cleanliness of the medical bay, and Rose winced as she lifted herself up onto the bed, fingers fluttering over her wound.

“He was always worried the Agency would catch up with him.” she said, pale and frowning. “D'you know what he did?”

Zoe shook her head, searching for the medicine and tools to help put her sister back together. “No, you?”

“He's never said,” she said, lying back and staring up at the bland ceiling, head throbbing from the stress of the day. “But I don't think he remembers. Those missin' memories of his...”

She trailed off into silence.

“Whatever it is, we'll deal with it,” Zoe said, pulling up a chair, surgical gloves already donned. “I'll try not to hurt you but I've never actually done this before.”

Rose groaned. “That's reassuring.”

Working in silence, Zoe took her time so as not to make any mistakes and hurt Rose. Her shirt had fused itself to her skin, and she had to soften the injury with saline before picking away at the material bit by bit. Halfway through Rose's stomach muscles started tensing and so Zoe gave her another painkiller before sloughing the rest of the material from her skin, carrying away a few layers of her epidermis. Tending to the oozing wound with antibiotics and saline, cleaning it to make sure there was no risk of infection, she realised that she wasn't at all qualified to be doing what she was. Normally, their medical needs were taken care of by the Doctor or Jack; however, as neither of them were available then, she did the best she could with common sense and Google.

Spraying nanites across the injury, she rolled back to fetch the dermal regenerator that needed a quick charge. Using the few minutes it took, she discarded her bloodied gloves and sent Jackie a quick text message to let her know they were in the middle of something – _don't worry, it's nothing, speak soon –_ before rolling back to Rose.

“Not much longer,” Zoe said, holding the regenerator over her stomach. “How you feeling?”

“Numb.”

“Good, that's better than the alternative.” The flesh turned pink and shiny as it healed, and Zoe pressed her fingers to it. Rose hissed, batting her hand away. “Sorry. Stay there for a sec, I'll get something to cover it.”

Rose rubbed her face and stared at her. “You don't seem worried.”

“What now?”

“You're all calm an' stuff,” she said, tired. “You're not – there's no panic.”

“I'm panicking on the inside,” Zoe said, smoothing an aloe vera-based burn covering over the wound, helping to soothe the sensitive skin there. “Really worried. The fact that someone was able to get him like that turns my stomach, but what's panicking going to do about it? He's gone, we need to find him again, and we will. We've got the TARDIS and the Doctor and _time_. We're in the Vortex now, we have time to find him. It can be weeks for us and only a few hours for him, hopefully. And, don't forget, I've been in this situation before.”

“Yeah, I s'pose you have,” Rose said, quietly, sitting up with a small wince. She touched the covering breathed out. “It's just...it's _Jack_.”

“I know.” Zoe up to the bed and wrapped her arms around Rose, hugging her tightly. “But because it's Jack, he's going to find a way to survive whatever this is. He's not stupid, and he's got so many more tricks up his sleeve than he's told us about. I wouldn't be surprised if we track him to a beach somewhere and he's waiting for us with cocktails.”

Rose laughed wetly into her sister's shoulder. “He'd do that, wouldn't he?”

“Absolutely.”

Sniffing, she wiped her eyes on Zoe's shoulder before the sound of raised voices made her lift her head, frowning and concerned. “What the hell's that?”

Zoe tilted her head to one side, listening. “I think it's Mickey and the Doctor.”

“Oh god,” Rose groaned, sliding off the bed. “What now?”

As they entered the console room, they were greeted with a sight they had never seen before and one Zoe hoped never to see again. Standing close to each other, shouldering into the other's personal space in some strange and unnecessary display of what she assumed was machismo, Mickey and the Doctor were arguing _loudly_ in each other's faces. It wasn't exactly shouting, yet nor was it simply heated discussion. Mickey jabbed his finger into the Doctor's chest, and Zoe's stomach flopped unpleasantly at the anger that stiffened the Doctor's arm before he argued back. Their voices bounced off the walls and made it feel as though they were in an echo chamber, the rising crescendo painful to hear. Unable to bear the sight of them at each other's throats, Zoe crossed the room and forced herself between the them; hands planted on their chests, she _shoved_ them apart from each other.

“HEY!” Both of them turned to glare at her, the Doctor's expression faltering first. “What the fuck do you two think you're doing? Jack's _missing_ and you think now's a good time to have a knockdown, drag-out fight? Are you kidding me with this shit right now?”

“We need to find Jack and _he's –_ ” Zoe shifted back to avoid the aggressive finger that jabbed at the Doctor again. “Fuckin' about!”

“I'm not fucking about,” the Doctor argued, frustrated. “I've been able to track his Vortex Manipulator but it's disappeared, something's covering it. I was looking at a way to dig beneath whatever's being used to mask it when _you_ started running your mouth.”

“Stop it,” Zoe snapped. “Both of you. We're all scared, we're all worried about Jack, but arguing with each other isn't going to get him back. Mickey, back off; Doctor, be patient with him. He and Jack...”

She trailed off but turned her eyes to him, silently asking him to imagine if she had been taken in Jack's place.

His shoulders slumped and a sigh left him. “Right, of course.”

“Mickey,” Rose prompted.

Reluctantly, Mickey forced an apology out from between clenched teeth. “Sorry, mate.”

“It's fine,” the Doctor said, turning back to the console. “I've tracked him to the 51st century, which bears out the idea of the Time Agency being involved, but his signal's bouncing all over the place. It's clear someone's reflecting it back and hiding his actual location. I'm having a hard time grabbing hold of anything though because when I do, it's gone.”

“What about their headquarters?” Rose asked, arm around Mickey, cheek resting against his shoulder. “They've got to have headquarters, right?”

“Thought about that but I don't want to drop us into the middle of all of that unless we don't have any other choice,” he said, twirling a lever absently. “Bunch of Time Agents getting their hands on the TARDIS? They'd take her apart to see how she works given the opportunity. Besides, it's a bit obvious, isn't it? Whoever picked him up knows that he's with us. It was too clean to be an accidental meeting. They've obviously been trailing him, which means they know about the TARDIS and, in turn, me.”

“You do get about a bit,” Zoe agreed, sitting on the jumpseat and rubbing her face, palm coming away smokey. “Okay. Let's think. If we work off the assumption that it's the Agency and not my mystery guy who has him – for which I'm grateful, by the way, don't want to be dealing with that crap right now – then it shouldn't be too hard to get him back, _or_ at least ensure he's safe until we figure out what's going on. What if we park the TARDIS somewhere close to headquarters and just walk there?”

Rose pulled a face. “What, like knock knock, give us Jack back?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“It'd work if I was able to narrow down the time but all I've got is the latter half of the 51st century,” the Doctor said, flipping a switch in frustration, plunging the console room into what Jack fondly referred to as _disco mode_. He quickly pushed the switch back up, lights returning to normal. “We show up too early, we mess with the timelines.”

“5079,” Mickey said, suddenly, their heads turning to him. “That's the year Jack left the Agency. At least he thinks it was. It was the year he woke up without his memories at least.”

“That narrows it down, _yes_ , thank you, Mickey.” The Doctor twisted on his heels and tapped the date into the computer before sighing. “I wish I'd pushed him harder to talk about his time with the Agency but he was always so reluctant. Did he speak to any of you about it? Mickey, did he say anything?”

“Just that he woke up in Hong Kong without his memories an' assumed the Time Agency did it,” he said, the weight of the day slamming into him and making him feel exhausted. “He didn't exactly stick around an' find out. He went on the run an' met you lot a couple of years later.”

“He's told me about a few of his missions but that's about it,” Zoe said, frowning at her dirty hands. “I know there was a partner once upon a time but I don't think he told me their name, or much of anything about them really.”

The Doctor looked to Rose. “What about you?”

“About the same,” Rose said. “But...when we were with Queen Victoria, the mornin' after everythin', we were talkin' an' he said he'd been havin' nightmares, more about Gray than the Agency, but I know it's been botherin' him. I told him he should talk to you about them, see if there was anythin' you could do for his memories, but he said not yet.”

Mickey snorted. “Yeah, he does that.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“They had an argument this morning,” Zoe said when it was clear Mickey didn't want to talk. He looked at her, annoyed yet also surprised; she grimaced, apologetic. “Sorry. Rose and I overheard you. We were in her room earlier and you guys weren't particularly quiet on your way past.”

Mickey rubbed the bridge of his nose as the Doctor stepped around the console. “What were you arguing about?”

“He's been havin' nightmares, keeps wakin' up screamin',” he said, the words pulled from him with great reluctance, never having been a fan of airing the problems in his relationships. “He never wants to talk about them afterwards. All he says is that it's because of his past.” Feeling as though he was betraying Jack's confidence, he continued. “He talks about Gray a lot in his sleep, says his name over an' over again, but he refuses to do anythin' about it. He did say he was goin' to give himself a sedative tonight to get some proper sleep but that was it. Sometimes I think –”

_He likes the guilt_ he didn't say, ashamed for even thinking it.

Shaking his head, he let the sentence die in his mouth. “Never mind.”

The Doctor looked at him for a beat too long before nodding. “Judging from the circumstances around his brother's death, I suppose it's not a surprise that he carries the guilt from it. He was what, ten, when Gray died?”

Remaining silent, Mickey nodded.

“Childhood trauma does have an awful way of reasserting itself later in life,” he continued. “And his life's hardly been stable and trouble free. Being here on the TARDIS with us, it must have made him feel safe and his mind's finally allowing him to process what happened. Although –” his head moved from side to side like a nodding dog. “That doesn't help us right now.”

Zoe ran a finger over her bottom lip, tapping it. “What about the memory block?”

He blinked at her. “What about it?”

“If we're looking for the people who took him and we assume they're the Time Agency, wouldn't it make sense to retrace his steps with the memory block?” She glanced to Mickey. “You said he woke up in Hong Kong in 5079?”

“Yeah.”

“What if we can track down the person who performed the block? They can tell us who ordered it and that might help us getting a better grasp on _when_ exactly he is.”

“Maybe,” the Doctor mused. “But they're Time Agents, they could take him anywhere, and he's been out of there for nearly three years now. Finding the right time without messing up the timelines is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.” He rapped his knuckles against the console. “You might be onto something though, if we can track down someone who knows him from his time at the Agency, we can pinpoint the time with greater clarity and maybe help him figure out what those missing memories are.”

“I think...” Zoe paused, reluctant to open up another avenue of business with a slippery acquaintance before swiftly deciding that Jack was more than worth the discomfort. “I have a friend who can probably help. You lot remember Roxx, don't you?”

“The Slitheen from Tiaanamat? Yeah, not likely to forget her,” Rose said, thinking of Zoe's strange friend who had given them drinks on the house and tried to steal a strand of the Doctor's hair to sell on the black market. “What about her?”

“She's good at tracking people down,” she said. “She found the Corsair for me when I needed a Time Lord. If I can find the right thing to trade with, I can get Jack's temporal and geographical coordinates from her.”

The Doctor frowned. “What would you need to give her?”

“Something valuable, something that'd fetch a decent price on the black market,” she said with a small shrug, eyes flicking to the top of his head, mouth curving into the tiniest of smiles. “Your hair might do it but best not. Lord knows we don't need someone trying to grow their own Time Lord in a lab.” Rose snorted at the thought. “There'll be something here I can dig out that'll be valuable enough as a collector's item but safe enough that it won't cause any damage if it falls into the wrong hands.”

Taking a moment to think about it, the Doctor nodded. “Okay, we'll talk to Roxx.”

“ _I'll_ talk to Roxx,” she corrected, pointedly. “You go in there and she's going to want more. I want you out of sight and locked up in the TARDIS. Roxx can smell a better deal from two light years away.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes but agreed.

“Right,” Rose said, squeezing Mickey before she released him, ready to dive into the action. “Tiaanamat then.”

“Actually, no, she'll be on Fluren's World now.” Zoe moved around the Doctor and began a series of complicated manoeuvres to input the coordinates of the Temporal Bazaar she had, only occasionally, frequented during her studies. “She spends most of her time there due to a few _misunderstandings_ with some particularly nasty bounty hunters that want to mount her head on a wall. Besides, it's best to talk about these things away from more family-friendly places. She's a reputation to maintain as a legitimate business owner with no shady interests after all.”

“Your friends are strange,” the Doctor said.

“Hark who's talking,” she replied.

“Then let's get movin',” Mickey said, impatiently. The usual patience he possessed for the banter that went back and forth between Zoe and the Doctor on a normal day was nowhere to be seen, and his irritation at them for joking with each other boiled beneath the surface. The look they exchanged at his sharp words did little to help him calm down. “The longer we talk about it, the longer Jack's in trouble.”

Rose rubbed her eyes and said nothing.

“All right, Fluren's World then,” the Doctor said, tapping Zoe's shoulder to move her out of the way, hands settling on the controls, the TARDIS vibrating minutely beneath his touch. “Can't say I've ever been there before.”

“Just make sure you adjust for the time bubble,” Zoe told him, hands fluttering as though she wanted to take over, shifting at his side with a restlessness he associated with toddlers wanting to play with things they shouldn't as Rose's phone started to ring again. She unwound herself from Mickey to answer it. “It's holding a supernova in place.”

The Doctor swore in his language and turned to her, annoyed. “Zoe, that's important information! I could've flown us into a supernova. Do you have any idea what that does to the paintwork?”

“Presumably singes it.”

“Yes,” he said, firmly. “And do you know who has to clean it off?”

“Judging by your tone and general facial expression right now, I'm going to go with you.”

“Jesus _fuckin_ ' Christ!” Mickey slammed his hands down on the console. Zoe jumped, startled, and the Doctor pivoted on his heels to pin a disapproving stare on his friend. “Jack is _missin'_ an' the two of you are – I don't know – flirtin', bickerin'? Whatever the fuck it is, stop it an' focus.”

Rose stepped in front of Mickey and flapped her hand at the Doctor, forestalling any response. She held up one finger and nodded.

“Send me the time an' date, we'll be there in five minutes,” she said before hanging up. “That was Sarah Jane.”

“That was who now?” The Doctor asked, surprised. “What's Sarah Jane doing calling you?”

Rose ignored his rudeness. “Mum's at hers. The girl who was with Jack when he was taken? She turned up in the flat and so did the people with guns. She's lyin' low at Sarah Jane's but she needs help.”

“Everyone hold on,” the Doctor said, fury building in his chest at the thought of someone threatening Jackie at gunpoint. He erased the coordinates to Fluren's World from the computer and pulled up Sarah Jane's house in Ealing. “This is going to be rough.”

* * *

_ Ealing, London, _

_ Early morning _

Jackie sat on a kitchen and picked bits of gravel and glass out of her feet with Sarah Jane's medical tweezers. The other woman had offered to help but Lorna needed someone to help her with the bathroom and Sarah Jane had clocked the pressing need for a moment alone that grew inside Jackie and ushered Lorna away, talking to her soothingly. Early morning sunlight spilt through the kitchen window, and Jackie felt as though it was yesterday was a lifetime away. Last night she had spoken to the Doctor, watched Big Brother – winning a tenner –, and then gone to bed for an early night before being woken by Lorna crashing into her living room. She felt tired and old and in pain despite the ibuprofen Sarah Jane had given her with a cup of tea.

Removing a small sliver of glass lodged in her big toe, she winced. “Ow.”

Dropping it into the bowl that rested on the table, she wondered if she was going to have to get a tetanus shot or if this was something the Doctor could handle who was at least on his way. Sarah Jane had briefly stuck her head around the door to let her know she had made contact with Rose and the TARDIS was coming before returning to Lorna who was delighting in her bath. As she rubbed at a patch that she thought was blood but turned out to be something else – she really didn't want to know what – she was pleased that she had had the idea to come to Sarah Jane's. Her house felt calm and peaceful after everything, and she wanted to lie down on the plush sofa in the living room and sleep the day away while Sarah Jane took care of everything.

_I need an adultier adult_ she remembered Rose saying as she handled the debt that Jimmy Stone had left her with.

At the time, Jackie had scoffed but she understood what her daughter meant.

Sometimes it was nice for another person to take charge, if only for a moment.

“I swear, I don't think that child's ever seen a body of water before,” Sarah Jane said, smile curving her mouth. “I thought getting her in was hard but getting her out was another battle all together.”

Jackie laughed. “At least she's clean now.”

“Clean and sleeping,” she confirmed. “She fell asleep as soon as I tucked her in. Whatever happened to her, she's had a long day. I was able to get this from her.” She set Jack's Vortex Manipulator on the table, and Jackie stared at him. “It's Jack's, isn't it? I saw him wearing it last time I saw him. What is it?”

“He uses it to travel,” Jackie said. “Don't know how. It's like the TARDIS but not. Thought it was a bracelet first time I saw it.”

“Do you want something to eat?” Sarah Jane offered. “Or perhaps a shower?”

She shook her head. “I'll wait. Knowin' the Doctor, he'd appear in the middle of the bathroom an' neither of us want that.” The familiar sound of the TARDIS reached her ears. “Speakin' of.”

Sarah Jane straightened up, mouth slipping open. “He's not going to park the TARDIS in my living room, is he?”

“I hope that coffee table of yours isn't expensive,” Jackie said, wiping her feet off and standing up just in time to see the TARDIS appear in the middle of Sarah Jane's living room, forcefully shunting the furniture to one side and settling directly on the coffee table that cracked and shattered beneath the weight of it. She patted Sarah Jane's shoulder. “Sorry, love. He'll replace it though, he's good like that.”

The TARDIS fully materialised, and the reassuring hum that Jackie found herself occasionally listening for when she was home alone slipped into her bones to comfort her. The door opened and the Doctor stepped out. The relief that Jackie felt at seeing him must have shown on her face because he crossed the room and dragged her into his arms. Squashed against his bony chest, forced to listen to the alien sound of his two hearts, she allowed herself a short moment to feel safe before pulling back to smack him on the arm.

“What the hell have you gone an' done now?”

“ _Ow_ ,” he whined, rubbing the spot though she had certainly hit him harder in the past. “And I haven't done anything.”

“You broke my coffee table,” Sarah Jane said. “You know I have a garden you could've parked in, right?”

“Ah, yes, sorry about that.” The Doctor looked down at the scattered remnants of a rather lovely coffee table. “I'll pay for that.”

“Mum!”

Jackie staggered back under the double impact of her daughters swarming her. Them attacking her with hugs had been easier to deal with when they were smaller and didn't tower over her but after the last few hours of her life, she was grateful for it. Hugging them back tightly, breathing in the smoky, sweaty smell of them, she pulled back and stared, aghast, at their appearances: eyes bloodshot, smoke streaked across their skin, sweat stains on their clothes, they looked as Lorna had before her shower. She looked over the Doctor and Mickey and found them in similar straits, her heart twisting at a glaring absence.

“Where's Jack?”

“Good question,” the Doctor said. “Someone kidnapped him. Where's Lorna?”

Head swimming with panic, Jackie blinked. “The girl?”

“She's upstairs sleeping,” Sarah Jane said. “She's safe though. We have Jack's – well, I don't quite know what it is – his device in the kitchen. Come on through, all of you. You look like you need some tea.”

Zoe stepped nimbly through the splintered mess, fingers loosening the tight braids Rose had put in that morning, massaging her scalp. “Don't suppose you have anything stronger, do you? It's been a day.”

Jackie made to follow, stopped by the Doctor's hand on her shoulder. She looked back at him, struck by how tall he was. “Did anyone hurt you?”

“What?”

“The people who broke into the flat,” he said, seriously, eyes flicking over her as he looked for any damage. “You said they had guns. Did they hurt you, threaten you, anything like that?”

“No,” she said. “I got out before they noticed me. Hid in Priti Azadi's flat. She distracted them as I ran to the garage. One of them shot at Mickey's car – _ow_.” His hand had tightened painfully on her shoulder before immediately letting go, rubbing the sore spot. “But I'm fine. Headed here once I got my head on straight.”

“Good, _good_.” When he squeezed her shoulder again, it was a softer, more comforting thing. A smile appeared on his face that made him look kinder and less ridiculous than normal. “I'm sorry you got dragged into this. Jack must've sent Lorna to you for safe keeping because he knew you'd do just that.”

The thought of her home being a safe haven warmed her. “Is he okay?”

“He got Lorna to you,” the Doctor said. “That means he's alive and functioning. We've got a few theories but no real leads at the moment. If you could give us a physical description of the people in your flat, it might help.”

Nodding, Jackie patted his arm, warmed by his concern, and entered the kitchen on sore feet, making sure her dressing gown was pulled tightly around her. Zoe had a bottle of Sarah Jane's vodka in front of her, wincing at the burn of alcohol as it worked its way down her system, while Rose made herself comfortable with a cup of tea and Mickey shifted restlessly, sitting one moment and then on his feet the next. All three of them looked exhausted and battered, Jack's absence knocking them off balance.

Jackie remembered when it had just been the Doctor, Rose, and Zoe zipping around in the TARDIS and considered how strange it was that Jack being gone made them look incomplete and adrift. She sat down in between her daughters who immediately shifted to rest their heads on her shoulders, and the Doctor sat next to Sarah Jane, slinging an arm around the back of her chair as he accepted a cup of tea, shaking his head at Zoe's offer of vodka to strengthen it.

“Do you have pen and paper?” The Doctor asked Sarah Jane, miming scribbling with his free hand.

“I'm a journalist, Doctor, of course I do.” She set a pad and biro down on the table. “Mickey, you sure you don't want something to drink?”

Mickey bit the inside of his cheek. Being rude to Zoe and the others was one thing, he was reluctant to inflict sharp words and rudeness on Sarah Jane. He nodded brusquely and sat down, knee bouncing, only to stand up again a minute later.

“Rose, could you sketch while Jackie describes?” The Doctor pushed the pad towards her. “You're the best at drawing out of all of us.”

Rose scoffed but nodded. “Thought you taught Da Vinci everythin' he knows.”

Sarah Jane laughed. “Is that what he said? I remember Leonardo thinking you were a mad man. He tried to get you taken away to the hospital.”

“Did he?” The Doctor asked, lightly, avoiding their eyes. “It was so long ago. A bit difficult to remember all the details.” Clearing his throat, he looked to Jackie. “Give us a description then, Jacks.”

“There were two of them,” she said. “A man an' a woman. The man was tall, about as tall as Jack, with dark hair an' kind of dark skin. Not like Zoe but almost Middle Eastern, I suppose. His English was strange too.”

“That's probably because he was speaking English unfamiliar to him,” the Doctor said, Rose's pen moving across the lined page, sketching a broad outline of the man. “There's 3000 years between this time and Jack's. The language has moved on somewhat.”

“What did his face look like?” Rose asked. “Square, round, oval?”

It took around five minutes for Rose to have sketched a passing resemblance of the man that had attacked Jackie and Lorna, his dark eyes staring out of the page at them. She tore off the sheaf and pushed it towards the Doctor but Mickey grabbed it first, studying it with an intensity that made the Doctor worry there was trouble ahead.

Rolling her wrist, Rose looked to her mother. “What about the woman, what did she look like?”

“Severe,” Jackie said after a moment's though. “Blonde hair pulled back into a bun, pale, wearin' a lot of black.”

Mickey's head snapped up from the examination of Rose's sketch, heart pounding. “That's who took him. The woman from the Gamma Forests, that's the one who took him.”

“And they've already been able to track Lorna,” the Doctor said, rubbing the back of his head. “That means Jack's been gone longer than we've been missing him. We're going to have to work quickly.”

“Doing what?” Sarah Jane asked. “Can you track him?”

“We've tracked him to the 51st century and our working theory is that the Time Agency has him,” he said. “Zoe's going to talk to a friend of hers to see about pinpointing his location more clearly. I want to talk with Lorna, see what she knows.”

“She doesn't speak English,” Jackie told him.

“She does now the TARDIS is here,” the Doctor replied. “Not that it matters though, I speak her language.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows. “What, does the TARDIS translate or somethin'?”

“Rassilon,” he breathed, rubbing his nose, and Rose glanced up at him, eyes shining with amusement, hand paused on the page. “Rose, could you –?”

“Yeah, I've got it,” Rose said, pausing her sketch to turn to Jackie. “Mum, the TARDIS sort of gets in your head an' –”

The Doctor glanced to his old friend. “Sarah, can you –?”

“Lorna's sleeping right now, but I'll see if I can wake her,” she said, rising to her feet as Jackie emitted a sharp _she what?_ that made the Doctor slip further down in his seat. “Mickey, why don't you come with me? You look like you're in need of a good shower, and I think you'll feel better for it afterwards.”

“What d'you mean she's in my head?!”

Mickey glanced at Jackie, hot colour slicing across her cheeks, and then down at himself. The dirt from his hands had smeared itself across Sarah Jane's kitchen table and his manners reasserted himself. Besides, Jack always said that a nice hot shower and some food in the stomach went a long way to solving half of people's problems. Standing awkwardly, knocking the table with his knee, Zoe's quick reflexes saving the bottle of vodka from crashing to the ground, he followed Sarah Jane out of the room.

“No, no, no,” Jackie said, angry. “I don't want no alien ship in my head. Absolutely not.”

The Doctor caught Zoe's eye and discreetly pointed over his shoulder to the hallway. Knocking back her finger of vodka, she edged around Jackie and followed him out to the picture-lined wall, distracted by one framed photograph of Sarah Jane standing next to Kofi Annan.

“I'm worried about Mickey.”

She turned her eyes to him. “He's reacting perfectly normally given the circumstances. Truth be told, I'm scared myself.”

“You're hiding it well,” he said, reaching out to twirl a finger through one curl, gently tugging until she stepped closer. “You're calm and grace under pressure.”

She huffed a laugh. “Hardly. I'm drinking vodka at whatever hell time in the morning it is, and I'm worried about literally everything right now: Jack, Mickey, Mum, everything. _But_ it's not my first time misplacing Jack. And it's like Rose said to me earlier, it's easier to be calmer when everyone else is losing their heads. If you want to be super calm right now, I can panic.”

He let the curl bounce back and opened his arms. “Come here then.”

Zoe tucked herself into his arms and pressed her nose into his neck. The smell of fire, forest, and someone else's sweat greeted her, forcing her to press deeper to find him and, when she did, a sigh of relief rushed across his skin. He was solid and _there_ beneath her touch, a moment of respite in her world that had been knocked askew with Jack's abduction; one second he had been there, the next he was gone. Everything happened too quick for anyone to do anything, and she _hated_ how it had come out of nowhere, despising the feeling of uselessness she felt as Mickey suffered and Jackie had to escape her own home with nothing more than her pyjamas, bare feet, and an alien child to her name.

“It's going to be okay,” the Doctor murmured into the top of her head. “We'll sort this out and have a word with his kidnappers about not taking what's ours.”

Her fingers flexed on his jacket, and she pulled back, looking up at him. Face smeared with smoke, hair greasy and dishevelled, she wanted nothing more than to kiss him then and let herself forget the problems of the day when –

“You okay, honey?”

She stepped out of the Doctor's arms and cleared her throat, smoothing the front of her shirt down, Rose's eyes flicking between her and the Doctor, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Just taking a moment,” she said. “How you doing?”

Jackie pulled a face. “The TARDIS is in my head.”

“That's all right, she's in mine too,” Zoe smiled. “Could be worse, could be the Doctor.”

“I'm right here,” he sighed before grunting, rocking forwards.

“Doctor!” Lorna attached herself to his legs, arms wrapped around him, clinging tightly to him as Sarah Jane watched from the staircase. “They took Captain Jack and they were shooting and they kept hitting him!”

Bending, he scooped Lorna up into her arms as though she weighed nothing. Her hair was wet and freshly plaited by Sarah Jane, and she wore a long T-shirt that went down to her ankles; her arms wrapped around him and hugged him as Mickey appeared behind Jackie and Rose, looking a little cleaner.

“And then I ended up with her –” she pointed at Jackie. “And she's really nice but I don't understand her and then the bad people came again. Captain Jack gave me his bracelet and sent me away, and I was so scared. I think they're going to kill him.”

Mickey flinched.

“Okay, you're okay,” the Doctor said, smoothing a hand down her back. “You've been very brave, you know that, right? And Jack sent you to Jackie because he knew you'd be safe with her.”

“She protected me from the bad men,” Lorna said, glancing shyly at Jackie. “She was really brave. Even when the bad man was shooting at us.”

“Someone shot at you?” Zoe asked, furious. “I'll kill him. I'll actually kill him.”

“We're fine,” Jackie assured her. “Mickey's car not so much.” She glanced at him. “Your back windows gone an' some of the paint too.”

He shook his head. “It doesn't matter.”

“Lorna,” the Doctor said, lifting her higher up his side. “Can you tell me where Captain Jack is? Do you know?”

“It was a strange place made of rock,” Lorna said.

“Rock?” Sarah Jane asked.

“I think she means a building,” Zoe said. “In the Gamma Forests, the buildings are the trees. I imagine she's never seen bricks before, at least not like we have.” Her eyes slipped to the Doctor. “And it doesn't really narrow things down for us. Roxx will.”

He nodded, smiling as Lorna wrapped her small hand up in his tie, tugging on it. “You're right. Fluren's World is our next stop, Time Bubble and all.”

“All right,” Mickey said, already moving towards the TARDIS. “Let's go then.”

The Doctor watched, taken aback, as Mickey disappeared into the TARDIS though he hardly faulted him for his impatience to get going.

“Jackie, Sarah Jane, you two should probably come with us,” he said, turning to face the women. “These people already know where Jackie lives and they've seen Mickey's car, which is about as discreet as Bessie.” Sarah Jane grinned at that. “I hate to say it but it's only a matter of time before they find out about this place. Best to get you to safety while we can.”

“K9,” Sarah Jane called, and there was a beeping whir before K9 rolled into view, waking him from his overnight charge.

At the sight of the Doctor, his ears twitched and tail moved. “Master!”

“Hello, you good dog!” He crouched with Lorna in his arms to scratch behind K9's ears. “You've been good for Sarah?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good dog.”

“Jesus,” Jackie muttered.

Zoe nudged him with her foot. “We don't have time for you to play catch up with K9.”

“Right, good point.” He straightened up and looked at Sarah Jane. “You're bringing him with us?”

“And risk leaving him and the TARDIS alone together?” Her eyes rolled as she scoffed. “No. K9 I need you to establish a protective perimeter. Scan whoever comes in and only initiate defensive measures if they look like they're going to damage the house.”

“Good idea,” Rose said. “It's a nice house.”

“It really is, isn't it?” Jackie agreed. “The livin' room's lovely when the TARDIS isn't jammed in there.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond when, from the TARDIS, came an annoyed, impatient yell of –

“COME – ON!”

* * *

_ The Sunshine Club, Fluren's World, _

_ Two Hours Later _

Zoe leaned back in the booth Daven had insisted on personally showing them to. Judging from the way he had greeted her when she appeared at the front door of the Sunshine Club, it was years since she last stepped foot in Roxx's colourful establishment despite it only being a matter of months from her point of view. Lifting her off her feet in an enthusiastic hug and greeting Rose, Sarah Jane, and Jackie with delight as though they were old friends, he had slung an arm over her shoulders and led her into the club that was bursting with people. It was a shame it was so late in the day as Zoe actually liked the Sunshine Club when it was quiet and more or less empty, particularly because it meant that food was served during the less busy hours and she had a sudden craving for the spicy _ental_ legs that was a staple of the kitchen.

“You're asking a lot of me, sissa,” Roxx said, a sound bubble around them to keep noise from coming in and, more importantly, going out. “You're a friend, but it's still going to cost.”

“Come on, Roxx, you know I'm good for it,” Zoe replied, eyes tracking a beautiful, purple-skinned woman who caught her eye and grinned, forked tongue snapping out in a manner that made her stomach clench. She looked back across the table. “I've got a set of audio detectors, 645th century... _Asgardian_.”

Roxx's head tilted. “Let me see.”

She set the small box down on the table and pushed it across by her fingertips before glancing to the side to make sure the others were okay. Sarah Jane and Rose appeared comfortable – or as comfortable as they could be while Jack was missing – but Jackie had the look of being overwhelmed again. Her time spent in Massachusetts helped her acclimatise to the more _diverse_ elements of life in the TARDIS but the Sunshine Club was a lot to take in. Not quite as bad as Jim the Fish's bar on Rayal for the simple reason Roxx didn't allow her patrons to have sex in public, it was still an assault on the senses.

Zoe leaned towards her under the guise of reaching for her drink. “You okay?”

“I'm fine, darlin', don't fuss,” Jackie said.

She blew out air from her nostrils, faintly amused, settling back as she sipped her drink. Letting the Mythological Sunrise burst across her tongue and turn to smoke before she was able to swallow it, she glanced at the holo-screen. The last time she was on Fluren's World, Yasmin Fluren had been living in a palace with perfectly green grass and opulent water fountains; according to the news, she was on the run as the revolutionaries attempted to drag her out of wherever she was hiding for what, Zoe assumed, would be a fairly brutal and drawn out death.

She turned her head and watched as more people pressed into the club, Devan catching sight of her and waving. Grinning, she waved back.

“Business seems to be doing well,” Zoe commented.

“You know I have a lot of friends, sissa,” Roxx said, large, bulbous black eyes lifting from the audio detectors to settle on her. “Or maybe you don't. Been a year since I saw you on Tiaanamat, longer since you came here. My place too good for you now you've got your Time Lord back?”

She rolled her eyes. “I might come around more often if you didn't try and pick bits off him. Don't think I didn't notice you trying to get skin samples last time.”

“Ay.” Roxx spread her large arms, nearly knocking Rose from her seat, and gave a lazy roll of her shoulders. “Had to try. Where is he now?”

“At home,” she said. “He's tracking the communications to see if he can pick up anything of where our friend's gone. Figured all sorts of people come through the bazaar that someone might know something.” She set her drink down. “So, what do you know, sissa?”

“I know Time Agents don't come through here,” Roxx said. “They can't figure out how to account for the Time Bubble. Meet with them on Tiaanamat. You remember that.”

Zoe grinned. “I did not start that fight.”

“You finished it though.” Her laugh was a rumbling, happy thing that made Zoe's smile widen, and Roxx turned to look at the others. “She ever tell you about the time she helped me out?”

“No,” Jackie said, the discomfort of sitting at a table with a being who greatly resembled the first alien that had tried to kill her was beginning to ebb. Either the company was pleasant or the alcohol in her bright green drink was numbing the weirdness. “She hasn't.”

Zoe shook her head. “We don't need to hear that story.”

“Let's just say –” Roxx leaned over the table, one clawed hand pointing at Zoe. “This one does not like being thrown through a window.”

She barked a laugh. “Who does? And stop dragging my name through the mud. These people think I'm respectable.”

“We really don't,” Rose said, pulling the alcohol-infused cherry off the end of her tiny umbrella and chewing. “But we're in a bit of a rush. Jack's missin' an' we need your help findin' him. Zoe says you're the best at what you do.”

“I said you were okay at what you do,” Zoe corrected.

Roxx laughed. “I am good, best you're ever going to meet. Tell me again who you're looking for.”

“Jack Harkness,” she repeated for the third time that evening, refusing to let her irritation show as Roxx liked to take her time with business deals and the more someone rushed her, the more she slowed down. “My handsome friend from Tiaanamat – you know the one – he's gone missing.”

“Oh, Captain Jack.” Roxx had a face that never showed much expression – a trait of most of her kind – yet, at the mention of Jack, she coloured and her claw touched her neck. “For a human, he's very handsome.”

“He really is,” Sarah Jane agreed, and Zoe looked at her, surprised. “I'm not blind. I know he's with Mickey but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the view he provides.”

“You should see him naked,” Rose said, cheeks flushed from her drink. “Fuckin' A.”

“When did you –?” Jackie began before cutting herself. “Actually, I don't want to know.”

“He had a habit of walking around naked when he first joined us,” Zoe explained swiftly, attention shifting back to Roxx. “What've you heard about Jack being taken? Everyone who's anyone in time travel passes through here so I know something's reached your ears, metaphorically speaking of course. I'd appreciate you telling me about it.”

“I haven't heard anything about Captain Jack per se,” Roxx told her, flicking her claw to bring them another round of drinks. “But there's been some rumblings among the Clerics.”

Zoe stared, the name meaning nothing to her. “The Clerics?”

“From the Church of the Papal Mainframe,” she clarified. “Have you heard of them?”

“No, I haven't.” There was a particularly detestable quality to admitting her ignorance to something in front of Roxx who made her information part of her business, and she swallowed back her annoyance at herself. “Sarah Jane, the name ringing any bells?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Your Time Lord will know about them,” Roxx said. “All you need to know now is that they're in charge of interstellar security during the 51st and 52nd century.”

“What happened to the Shadow Proclamation?” Rose asked, pulling her fresh drink towards her.

“A difficult period for them,” she said, simply. “Interstellar politics has never been an area of interest for me.”

Zoe dug her fingers into the booth's seat where her arm rested around the back of Jackie's shoulders, forcing herself to keep a calm expression. “What are the rumblings you've been hearing, sissa? They telling you about Jack?”

“They tell me something,” she said, claw clacking against the table. “Not about Captain Jack though. I'm hearing whispers of something dark building. Something you need to tell your Time Lord to watch out for. The Church doesn't much like the Last of the Time Lords, or anyone who travels with him.”

Sarah Jane rested her elbows on the table, hands steepled in front of her. “What does that mean?”

“Your Time Lord doesn't always make friends,” Roxx said. “Sometimes he makes enemies. Sometimes those enemies think to be fighting back, you get me?”

Rose recoiled and Jackie sat up straighter as understanding struck them. Sarah Jane and Zoe remained still.

“The Church is acting against the Doctor?” Sarah Jane clarified. “Why?”

“Because the Doctor doesn't always mean doctor.”

Jackie frowned, confused. “What does that mean?”

“As fascinating as this is, Roxx,” Zoe said, cutting through the riddles. “You're not answering my question about Jack. You haven't heard anything about him, I get that, but you clearly know the Time Agency and –”

“The Time Agency.” Her head shook. “Good idea but it was never going to last. Give time travel to organisations and it never ends well. Best in the hands of discerning individuals like us, no?”

“You clearly know the Time Agency,” Zoe repeated, the threads of her patience beginning to fray. “Can you tell me where the remnants are basing themselves?” She removed Rose's sketches from her jacket and slid them across the table to her. “And do you know these people?”

“Don't know this one,” Roxx said, tapping the drawing of the woman. “Do know the man. He came by Tiaanamat a lot to drink himself stupid after the Agency fell. Got a dead wife, you know how that is. Hated someone called Javic Thane.”

Rose breathed in sharply, covering her slip by coughing.

“And where might he be?” Zoe asked.

“Don't know,” she said. “Let me tell you though, if you're looking for this man, look for the Church. They keep themselves hidden, yeah? Except at one place, in one time. That's where you can get answers.”

“You couldn't have said that at the start?” Jackie asked, exasperated. “We've been here _hours_.”

“Business is best done slow and easy, my new human friend,” Roxx said, lazily. “Why rush when there are deals to be made?”

“Because our friend –!” Rose grunted, the toe of Zoe's boot impacting with her shin, kicking her into silence. “Ow.”

Zoe held Roxx's eyes. “When and where, sissa?”

* * *

_ Stormcage Prison Facility, _

_ Four hours later _

Raphio stood in the empty cell and exhaled slowly. His blood pressure was dangerously high and his doctor kept warning him that if he refused to find another line of work, then his life was going to come to a short, sharp end when the inevitable heart attack or stroke eventually killed him. Tapping the small, concealed medical patch beneath his ear, he released a small dosage of alpha blockers into his system to slowly lower his blood pressure. While he felt better after a few minutes, the rage of Jack Harkness's escape burned a fury within him. He had been in his cell and under Raphio's control for _three weeks_ before his partner waltzed in and broke him out. He should never have trusted him, knowing how close he was to Jack, and yet he had let him enter anyway. Even the audio footage of the cell was corrupted, something preventing the recording from being played.

Stretching his fingers and rolling his neck, he exhaled slowly.

He was going to kill both of them the second he had the chance.

No more torture simply for the pleasure of watching Jack scream. No more asking the questions the Clerics had provided him. No more allowing Jack the privilege of breathing.

“Director.” Kahn's voice brought Raphio out of the thought of choking the life out of Jack, hands wrapped around his throat. He blinked at stared at her. “Uriel's checked in. They sighted both of them in Prague, 32nd century. Javic clipped him with blaster fire and he's come back to base for treatment but Pyl and Harlan having jumped after them. As soon as Uriel's on his feet, he says he'll go back out.”

Slowly, he nodded. “Any word on, Opuan?”

“No, sir.” Her fingers flexed on the edge of her data PADD. “She's gone to the wind. Given how stretched thin we are, I haven't allocated resources to find her. Do you want me to pull Uriel from the main mission?”

“No,” he said, sharply. “Thane is our only priority right now. If the Clerics want to make themselves useful for a change, they can track her down for us, but she's been on the verge of running for years. Let her go. We'll catch up with her eventually. She doesn't have Thane's brains to stay gone for too long.”

“Yes, sir.”

Raphio sighed, head throbbing. “I should've killed him when I had the chance.”

“You had a good reason why you didn't,” Kahn replied, tucking her PADD under her arm. “We needed the Church to find him, they needed the information he stole. Don't beat yourself up about it. We found him once. We'll find him again.”

“It took us fourteen years to track him down,” he said, defeat creeping into his bones. “Fourteen long years. And when we found him? He was with a Time Lord. We're not going to get the opportunity again. If Pyl and Harlan don't get him now, we won't get him. It's as simple as though.” Angry and tired, he sat down on the edge of the bed and spread his fingers over his knees. “Torture's all well and good when there's time to spare but I should've ignored the Church and killed him.”

“For your sake, be glad you didn't.”

Raphio shot up from the bed and Kahn spun, the PADD dropping from beneath her arm to bounce against the ground, skittering into the corner as she tried to pull her gun. An arm looped around her neck and jerked her back, the gun dropping to the floor as she tried to free herself, and Raphio only had a moment to think _oh_ before the Doctor stepped into the room.

The air crackled with electricity as though a storm had been brought into the cell.

“Hello,” he said. “I'm the Doctor.”

“And I'm Zoe,” a cheerful voice from the woman half strangling Kahn chipped in. Raphio saw her from the corner of his eyes, too surprised and more than a little frightened to take his eyes off the Doctor. Kahn was attempting to free herself from the iron grip but Zoe merely tightened her grip as a warning. “And that's Mickey.”

Raphio felt the fist rather than saw it.

“Ah,” the Doctor said, blandly, looking down at him. “I would apologise except you kidnapped his boyfriend, and I promised him he could hit you once.”

“Twice,” Mickey growled.

“I said _maybe_ twice,” he corrected. “We're not barbarians after all.” He held out a hand to Raphio. “Come on then, old chap. On your feet. We have a conversation to have.”

Drawing his hand beneath his nose, Raphio looked at the blood on his skin. “I knew you'd come for him.”

“Isn't it thrilling to be proven right?” The Doctor withdrew his hand when it became clear it wasn't going to be accepted. He looped them behind his back. “So, first thing's first: where's Jack?”

“Not here,” Raphio said, leaning back on his elbows before rolling up into a seated position. He spat on the ground and wiped the blood from his nose. “You missed him by a matter of hours. I'd have thought a Time Lord would have a better command of time.”

“Clever, he's clever,” the Doctor said, amusement shifting into something dark and dangerous that made Raphio's skin crawl. “Zo, you hear the mouth on this one?”

“Sadly, yes.” Kahn lost consciousness, and Zoe lowered her to the bed, supporting her head on the way down. “It's a shame he kidnapped Jack. I might almost like him for the cheek. Given the current circumstance he finds himself in though, I do wonder at the thought process that goes into being a mouthy shit right now.”

“Implying there is a thought process,” he mused. “And that's doubtful because –” he dropped to a crouch before Raphio. “Who thinks it's a good idea to kidnap and _torture_ my friend? I know you've heard of me. I know you know the stories. So, tell me, Director Raphio, what crossed your mind when you decided to take someone I care about deeply and hurt them?”

Raphio tried to repress the shiver the threatened to run through his body, only half successful as he jerked awkwardly instead. “Thane belonged to me before he belonged to you.”

A foot lashed out to kick him _hard_ in the side.

The Doctor's hand snapped out and caught Mickey's ankle.

“We're not like them,” he said, seriously. “Besides, we can get the information we need without beating it out of him.” Realising Mickey's limb, his eyes fell back to Raphio. “Firstly, Jack doesn't belong to anyone except himself. Secondly, I want you to pay attention to the fact that I am extremely calm right now. That calm should tell you how very angry I am to learn that you've been torturing my friend. So, I'm going to give you a chance: you tell me where Jack is right now or I'm going to burn your entire life to the ground.”

Raphio laughed, flecks of saliva decorating the Doctor's chin that he wiped away with a small grimace.

“Life, what life? Thane destroyed that when he destroyed the Time Agency.” He pushed himself up, straightening his back. “You know what he did, right? How many people he killed? The temporal bombs he set off? Your precious _Jack_ is nothing more than a terrorist. That's who you're protecting. And no matter who he pretends he is now, it won't change how rotten he is at the core. We were his family and he turned on us. He'll turn on you too given half the –”

Mickey's foot connected with his jaw.

“Mickey!” The Doctor jumped to his feet and glared. “What did I say? I said _no_ violence.”

“I'm not goin' to stand here an' listen to him talk about Jack like that,” Mickey argued.

“Then you're not going to stand here!”

“Gentlemen,” Zoe said, voice colder than ice, reminding them of their place. “Perhaps we can save the domestic for when we don't have company. Director Raphio looks like he's enjoying this a little too much.”

A lie.

Raphio was nursing his broken jaw, fingers dug deep into the bed to stop himself from screaming, and the Doctor clucked his tongue.

“Wonderful,” he sighed, aggrieved. “How's he supposed to talk now? Well done, Mickey. Seriously, top notch.”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Enough,” Zoe snapped, pointing at Raphio as she glared at the Doctor. “He's not going to tell us where Jack is and we need to move if we don't want to be here when the Church arrives which, judging from what Roxx says, we don't.”

The Doctor sighed. “Yes, I suppose you're right.”

“You suppose?”

His eyes narrowed and held out his hand. She slapped her phone into it.

“Sarah Jane, Rose,” he said to his friends waiting in the TARDIS, watching. “Start the programme. Wipe everything clean. Let them forget they ever knew the name Javic Thane.”

Raphio opened his mouth to stop him, white pain shooting through him, making him recoil back and writhe in an attempt to avoid it.

Zoe peered down at him. “I wouldn't do that again if I were you, mate. And you can't say he didn't warn you. He did say he'd burn your life to the ground. Whatever remains of the Time Agency will be gone after the virus our friends are sending through your computers. Anything that holds any reference to Jack or us is going to be gone. You're going to find it extremely difficult to hunt him down again.”

Anger burned through him, distracting him from the pain.

The Doctor's hand touched the small of Zoe's back.

“It's done,” he said. “The virus worked perfectly.”

“Of course it did, I made it.”

“Your lack of modesty over your abilities is as delightful as ever,” he informed her, kissing her cheek and making her smile. “But we should go. The TARDIS pinged the last known coordinates logged into the agency's computer. It's London, 2020.”

“We're just leavin' him here?” Mickey demanded, the deep lines on his forehead threatening to become a permanent addition. “He kidnapped Jack.”

“Yes, he did,” the Doctor said. “And this is the perfect place to leave him. Stormcage is impenetrable, and I doubt the Church will be happy he let Jack slip away. A shame we can't stay to find out what the Church want with me but I suppose I'll find out at some point. It's nice to have something to look forward to. Keeps the blood fresh.”

Raphio braced himself against the pain before speaking.

“I'll find him,” he gasped out. “I'll make him pay.”

The Doctor reached out and grabbed Mickey's arm, stopping his attack.

“Zo, Mickey, could you go back to the TARDIS, please?” He asked, politely, eyes fixed on Raphio. “I want to speak to the director in private.”

Zoe hesitated before nodding and reaching for Mickey. “C'mon, Micks. Let's go.”

“What's he goin' to do?” He asked, frowning, reluctantly following her from the cell and making their way down the body-strewn corridor to where the TARDIS stood. “I thought he didn't hurt people.”

“He doesn't,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. “But I imagine he's going to do exactly what he did to the people who tortured me on Tolandra years ago.”

“An' what's that?”

“No idea,” Zoe said, shaking her head and looking back, hand touching the side of the TARDIS before she reached for the door. “We've got our destination now though: London, 2020. We're close. We're really close.”

Mickey breathed, afraid to let himself hope. “Yeah.”

“2020,” Zoe said, pushing the door open, the sounds of Raphio weeping filling the hallway. “I bet it's a great year.”


	32. Chapter 32

_ 28BC, Alexandria, Egypt _

Bursting out of the Time Vortex, John was flung from his feet. The ground rushed up to meet him and the sharp tang of blood filled his mouth. Grunting at the impact, he rolled onto his knees and spat blood and saliva onto the sandy ground. Despite not being able to see – his vision blurred and scattered from _another_ jump – he drew his gun and aimed it wildly around him, the startled shrieks and angry yells of whatever crowd they had landed themselves in making his fingers twitch and heart race. A tight metal band felt as though it was wrapped around his head, his blood pressure threatening to incapacitate him, and his jaw ached from where Pyl had got a lucky punch in before he had been able to reach Jack and get them away.

As no one lunged at him to attack, he assumed Pyl and Harlan hadn't yet followed them. The two of them were handling the multiple jumps better than he and Jack as they each had their own Vortex Manipulator instead of having to use one.

He took a step forward, sank to his knees, and vomited into the ground.

“Enough,” he rasped, spitting the remaining bile out. “I can't take much more of this. The Vortex is going to tear us apart.”

Jack groaned somewhere to the side.

He pushed himself to his knees and squinted against the bright sunlight, taking in the people wearing robes and peering at them, speaking a language that wasn't being picked up by the manipulator.

“Where the hell are we now?”

“Egypt,” Jack said, weakly, pale and wan beneath the sun.

He looked worse than John felt, body bruised and battered and bleeding from fresh wounds. There was a deep burn on his arm that was scattered with sand, the aftereffect of Pyl clipping him with the blaster, and John was painfully aware that he needed to get Jack proper medical treatment sooner rather than later. With a groan, Jack reached over and reached out a trembling hand to check John's smoking Vortex Manipulator.

“28BC,” he read, shoulders slumping in relief. “Good. I've got a friend here, we can go to her.”

“How in the fucking fuck do you have a friend in Ancient fucking Egypt?” John demanded, digging his thumb between the manipulator and his skin to ease some of the burning pain that was searing him. Reluctant to take it off in case they needed to jump quickly once more, he blew cold air onto his skin, providing a brief respite. “Where do you travel with the Time Lord?”

“Ancient Egypt, obviously,” Jack said. Head spinning, he struggled to sit out, body falling in on itself, and he thought death might be preferable to the pain settled in him. Rubbing a weak hand over his face, he looked at their surroundings. “I think...yeah, I think this is Alexandria. I just need to be able to see properly before I figure out how to get us to the ruling temple. Once we're there, we can lie low, catch our breath.”

“Two people shouldn't be jumping on one manipulator,” John complained, slapping at the hand of a brave and curious child who edged close to them. He watched as the child darted back, disappearing into the crowd. “I think my insides have been rearranged.”

“Yeah, I'm not feeling so great either,” Jack said in what John felt was a drastic understatement. “Regretting breaking me out?”

“Absolutely.”

Jack laughed and dragged himself out of the road they were in, the crowd parting to let the strange naked man who had appeared out of thin air to pass; John got to his feet with great difficulty and slid down the wall of a low building with relief, collapsing next to Jack, his legs splaying in every direction. Reaching into his pocket, he removed his flask and shook the liquid, checking how much was left, before swallowing a mouthful, offering it to Jack.

“Thanks,” Jack muttered, taking a small sip before his head came to rest on John's shoulder. A brief thought crossed John's mind to shrug it off, yet even as the idea came to him, he found himself resting his cheek on the top of Jack's head. “Pyl and Harlan won't be far behind.”

“Fucking cunts that they are,” John said. “I don't remember them being the type to do above and beyond the call of duty.” Jack snorted only to wince when pain shot through him. “Who's your friend?”

“She's not really my friend,” he replied, rubbing his head against John's shoulder, attempting to get comfortable. “More of the Doctor's, really; although, we're definitely friendly –”

John's heavy sigh interrupted him. “Stop giving me more information than I ask for. Honestly, since when are you so fucking talkative in the middle of an op. Have you forgotten Aotearoa?”

“Oh, fuck off, that wasn't my fault.”

“Sure as hell wasn't mine,” he snapped back. “Just my luck to get signed up with a rookie who didn't know when and how to keep his mouth shut. I got shot because of you.”

“You got shot because you had sex with the crime boss we were tracking and he found out you were a time agent,” Jack reminded him. “Not because I was talking too much.”

John rubbed his eyes that ached and felt as though sand had been poured into them. “But you admit that you were a talkative fucker?”

“For about half a minute there, I was thinking I'd missed you,” Jack told him. “It's gone now.”

John waved a rude gesture at him. “Who's your friend? Without the story this time.”

“Cleopatra.”

“The queen?”

“Technically, she's a pharaoh.”

“How are you friends with her? Did you fuck her?”

“ _No_ ,” Jack said. “She's friends with the Doctor.”

“Did he fuck her?”

Jack laughed, hand pressed against his chest in an effort to keep his insides where they belonged.

“Probably, though he always denies it,” he replied. “She'll help us. She's good like that.”

“Your life's a bit different than it used to be,” John noted, nose turned into Jack's hair to breathe in the once-familiar smell of him.

Beneath the sweat, blood, and stench of the places they had visited during their escape, he still smelt like himself. John closed his eyes and remembered the time loop: five years in the space of two weeks. The same mornings waking up in bed with him, nose pressed into his neck, hand splayed across his stomach, the peaceful serenity of domesticity that they had both mocked but secretly longed for. John felt jealously knock against his chest, rattling his ribcage. Part of him was glad Jack had found people to call his own, a life that was both adventurous and domestic, but a larger part of him was jealous that he hadn't found it for himself. He wanted to take it from Jack, pull it from his hands and make it his own.

_John Hart, I presume_ , the distant echo of Zoe Tyler's voice reached him across the years, sending a shiver down his spine at the memory of that day.

He hadn't known the name _John Hart_ then, he hadn't known a lot of things, and there were some things he wished remained unknown.

No.

Jack was welcome to his life.

“Yeah, it is,” Jack agreed, eyes drooping as the exhaustion of everything swept over him. “Not a bad one tho –”

Screams burst into existence from the street, people dashing out the way as the crackle of Vortex Manipulators filled the air and Pyl and Harlan appeared in a flash of blue and white light. John swore and rolled over Jack, taking cover as Harlan clocked them and fired off a shot that took a chunk of the wall out, rubble and dust falling over Jack who coughed and blinked, taken aback. Swearing again, John grabbed Jack and pulled him down to the ground, hand on his head to peer through the fog.

“How are they tracking us so quickly?” John demanded. “Every time they're only minutes behind us. Did they put a fucking tracker in you?”

“I don't know, maybe,” Jack said, tugging the blaster out of John's belt and sticking his head up as he aimed a shot through the crowd, sending Pyl leaping out of the way, a market stall shattering beneath the blast, fire licking at the wood. “I'd have done it in their place, just in case.”

Staggering to his feet, John grabbed Jack's bare shoulder and urged him up. “Get up. We need to go again – and get you some fucking clothes. You stand out buck naked as you are.”

“I did point that out back at Stormcage.”

“ _Move_!”

Jack fell out of the way, catching himself on a woman fleeing the scene. He saw the whites of her eyes before she shoved him off her, and he managed to keep his balance. John grabbed his wrist and pulled him along behind him at a fast pace, Jack's feet barely able to keep up until he found the rhythm. They swerved and dived through the back alleys of Alexandria that Jack had once explored with a few of Cleopatra's handmaidens on one of his first trips there, the women laughing and leading him into all sorts of trouble that had had the Doctor clucking his tongue when he got back with less clothing and more bruises than he had left the TARDIS with.

Turning sharply, Jack dragged John into a pleasure house and purposefully lost themselves amongst the gauzy silk and cloth, perfume filling the air, before jumping out of a window to bounce off the taut material of a market stall's roof. Misjudging the landing, he fell to his knees, teeth clacking together, blood filling his mouth. Bent over and groaning, Jack missed the way John darted into a small shop and then re-emerged with a flax gown clamped in his hands that he shoved over Jack's head, forcing his arms through it.

“That's better,” John said, breathing heavily. “Not by much though. You still look like shit.”

“Fuck off,” he complained. “The manipulator?”

“Another jump will do it in without time to recharge afterwards,” John told him, pulling him out of sight just as Harlan appeared at the window, glaring down at the ground, looking for them. They heard his deep voice – audible due to the fact he wasn't speaking Coptic. “We can do it if we have to but it needs time to call down. It's burning my wrist as it is.”

“Head to the sea then,” Jack said, vision winnowing and blurring, something broken in his chest making it difficult to breath. “Cleo's temple is nearby. We can –”

An explosion ripped the roof from over their heads and sent fire raining down on them. Jack barrelled into John and forced him out of the way of the debris, Harlan and Pyl dropping into the centre of it with their plasters drawn. The brief glimpse Jack got of his old colleagues reassured him that they were finding the multiple jumps as difficult as they were: Pyl looked dead on her feet, alive only because of stubbornness; and Harlan –

– slammed his fist into Jack's face and sent his sprawling across the ground, Pyl blocking John from helping by twisting into his path and slamming a laser knife into his side. Jack cried out, mouth stretching in agony, as Harlan leapt on top of him, fists flying. Attempting to block the blows exhausted what little remained of his energy, his arms feeling like concrete as he covered his face, Harlan deliberately and with great concentration ripping them out of the way before resuming his assault. For one tiny, glimmering moment, Jack managed to get the upper hand by wedging his knee between them and pressing it into Harlan's stomach until the pain forced his attacker to give way.

“Get back here,” Harlan growled, hand wrapping around Jack's ankle to stop him crawling away. Heaving himself up his body, he wrapped an arm around Jack's neck, hand on the back of his head, and choked him, breath hot and stale in his ear. “This is for Lydia.”

Twitching in his grasp, Jack clawed at the ground as darkness crept into the corners of his eyes, vision spotting, unable to draw enough oxygen into his lungs to fight back. Jack had truly believed that he was going to see Mickey again – the Doctor, Rose, Zoe, Jackie – but Harlan's grip was tight and unrelenting, choking the life from him for a crime he didn't remember committing. Blood throbbed in his ears, blocking out the sound of Pyl and John fighting, and he gasped, drawing memories to his mind to ease his death.

Rose's smile stretched wide in his mind, her eyes sparkling as she grinned at him, tongue curled behind her teeth.

Jackie's laugh filled his ears, her Christmas hat wonky and cheeks flushed from alcohol, tumbling back off her chair to loud, riotous laughter from the family.

Zoe's warmth as she wrapped her arms around him on the Game Station, breathing her relief into his ear as he lifted her from her feet and turned her around and around because she had come for him.

The Doctor's friendship through hours spent in conversation within the underbelly of the TARDIS, the two of them getting greasy together, laughter flowing easily and making him feel at home.

Mickey's _everything_.

From the way he kissed to the way he snored when he lay on his back but made small snuffling sounds when he was on his side, Mickey was perfect.

He held onto the image of Mickey in his mind as his vision disappeared, blackness sweeping over him, lungs burning, and his fingernails splitting against the ground in an attempt to claw himself free. Harlan's chest rumbled with a victorious laugh before hot, wet blood splashed across Jack's face and drenched the back of his neck. Harlan slumped, grip loosening, and Jack gasped, dragging in air, desperately shucking Harlan from him. Sprawling onto his back, he coughed and stared up at the bright blue sky, heart hammering.

John dropped to his knees next to him and gripped him tightly.

“Hold on.”

The Vortex wrapped around him and _squeezed_.

* * *

_ Gaborone, Botswana, _

_ September 30th 1966 _

_Let me die, please, let me die,_ Jack thought, the ground a harsh and unforgiving surface to slam into, a bone breaking in his chest, finally splintering beneath the force of the torture and the travel.

“We can't jump again,” John groaned, the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes, attempting to ease the pain with little success. “The manipulator needs to cool and rest.”

Jack released a sob against the dry earth.

“Enough of that,” John grunted, grabbing his by the back of the gown and heaving him onto his feet. “We need shade. Wherever we are, it's fucking hot.”

Looping an arm around Jack's waist and placing an arm around his neck, he half-dragged, half-carried Jack to a long line of dusty, battered-looking parked cars. After taking in the questionable safety of those closest to him, John chose one that he thought wasn't likely to explode through use and shoved Jack unceremoniously in the back of one of them, ignoring the sharp cry of pain as he jostled his broken rib, fumbling his way to the driver's seat, his vision not entirely returned to him after the last, ill-advised yet necessary jump.

It took five minutes of searching and annoyed swearing before John figured out how to work the machine, his feet awkwardly manoeuvring the peddles as they burst off the a jolting, jerky start. In the backseat, Jack kept drifting in and out of consciousness, mumbling to himself, alternating between Gray's name and those of his friends, reaching a fever pitch with Mickey before dying back down, muttering and weeping. The sound of it grated at John's ears, forcing him to grit his teeth and tighten his grip on the steering wheel in an attempt not to kill Jack after everything he had gone through to save him.

He drove and drove until the sun was settled heavily in the sky, the blazing heat of the day painfully apparent even with the wind that came from driving at full speed, the petrol tank slowly draining away as John put miles between them and the sounds of celebrations that rose up and out of the city.

He didn't know what they were celebrating but he wished them the best of it.

It was only when the engine started to choke and sputter, the tank nearly empty, did John turn his attention to finding somewhere to lie low until the manipulator was ready to be fixed and used again. Turning off the main road, the car bumped and jumped over the rough terrain, the small road leading them to a small collection of houses grouped together among the vibrant green grass, livestock roaming within loose barriers. He turned the key in the engine and felt the vibrations stop, peering through the window to find any sign of life but the hamlet appeared empty. Carefully, he stepped out of the car – leaving Jack twitching on the backseat – and he checked the area, finding only a flock of chickens that squawked away from him and a few bottles of Coke that he liberated.

“Rise and shine, asshole.” John tapped the Coke bottle against Jack's foot, startling him awake. “Come on, I've found us a place to bed down for the night. Looks like everyone's gone off to whatever was happening in the city.”

Jack stared at him, grey and ashen, and John had to heave him out of the car and into the house that he had decided best suited their needs – more furniture and a better vantage point of the area.

“I think we've shaken Pyl,” John said, his mouth dry and tacky, head throbbing as he eased Jack onto the threadbare sofa. Rolling his shoulders, he cracked the lid on the Coke bottle and gulped it down only to grimace. “Mother of god, this is awful. Is this pure sugar? Here.” Jack made an attempt to grab the bottle, missing by a wide mark. John sighed and crouched. “Right. Come here then.”

He slid an arm behind Jack's shoulders and lifted him, cradling his head and helping him drink. A pained moan emerged when he swallowed but the burst of sugar helped.

Jack grimaced, Coke spilling out down his mouth, his throat aching as he swallowed, voice a rasping whisper. “Where are we?”

“Botswana, 1966,” John said, checking the Vortex Manipulator that he didn't dare unwrap it from his wrist in case Pyl arrived, even though it was burning the flesh from him. “Sorry for the big jump, I wanted to shake Pyl.”

Jack blinked, slowly, eyes bloodshot. “Harlan?”

“Dead.”

“You killed him.”

“Bastard's probably happier wherever it is we go after death,” John said, feeling neither this nor that over Harlan's death. “He hasn't exactly been living since Lydia died. Besides, he was going to kill you.”

Jack sunk his hand into the sweaty material of John's trousers and gripped him. “Thank you.”

“Don't get sentimental on me because you think you're dying, it makes me sick,” he said uncomfortably, removing Jack's hand with a careful tenderness that belied his words. “We can't do another jump. The manipulator won't make it unless it cools down and I look it over. You also don't look so good.”

“'m fine,” Jack lied unconvincingly.

“Sure you are.” John gave him a push and Jack splayed on his back, blinking up at the dark ceiling, one hand trailing off the sofa. John picked it up and rested it on his stomach. “Sleep. Rest. I'll keep watch.”

“Pyl...”

“I'm pretty sure I knocked her unconscious back there in Egypt,” he told her, rubbing between his eyes where the pressure was mounting. “And I don't know if she'll want to deal with Harlan's body first or try and track us down. Either way, I think we've got some time, so rest. You're painful to look at.”

Jack laughed himself to sleep and, when he woke some hours later, the pain in his ribs jarring him awake, it was dark. Lying there, he felt the aches and pains in each part of his body and sighed as his muscles twitched. He thought longingly of the TARDIS with her wonderful medical bay and his comfortable bed and Mickey. Jack closed his eyes and pulled Mickey's face to the forefront of his mind, making him as real as possible, and he let himself dream of seeing him again. For the first time since he had been snatched from the Gamma Forests, true hope made a home in his chest; he was so close to seeing Mickey again – to seeing them all again – and the first thing he was going to do was to hug them all fiercely until his arms ached and they squirmed in protest.

Shifting uncomfortably, he groaned as he sat up, head spinning before he found his feet and shuffled through the room. There was food on the table – cold cuts of goat and chicken that he wolfed down – and a glass of tepid water that he sipped at until it was gone. The relief that swept through his head as the pressure of dehydration eased was wonderful, his mouth losing the thick, tacky element that made him feel sick. As there was no mirror in the room, he ran his fingers over his face to assess the damage: bruises, abrasions, one deep cut that had been cleaned in his sleep, and the ragged mess of scar tissue where his ear used to be.

“Shit,” Jack muttered, voice a tangled mess of raw nerve endings and bruises.

He had seen the Doctor work miracles before and wondered if growing an identical ear and attaching it would be beyond him. Pushing the thought from his mind, he limped out of the house to where John was sat, arms resting on his knees, face turned up to the sky where huge and colourful fireworks burst into great plumes of sparkling light.

Jack paused, leaning heavily against the doorway, catching his breath. “What are they celebrating?”

“Independence, apparently,” John said, turning his head slightly and a burst of light sent a red glow dancing over his face. “The British have left.”

“Good for them.”

Easing away from the doorway, it took him a few minutes of grunting and groaning before he sat next to John, body heat pressed against Jack's side. The night was dark and broken only by the fireworks that painted the black canvas above their heads, and it was peaceful too. Crickets chirped and the rustling of livestock eating and moving around helped to quiet his own mind that was too full of pain and missing his friends and the grief of having his past thrown open in front of him.

Once settled and moderately comfortable, he turned his head to John. “Any sign of Pyl?”

“Nothing,” John said, straightening until his back popped, leaning back while keeping his gun within easy reach. “I think we might have thrown her or she's experiencing the same effects we are from the travel. She didn't put up as much of a fight as she usually did.”

Jack nodded, slowly. “What happened to Harlan?”

“Dead, I told you.”

“Right, yeah.” Pressing his fingers against his temples, he rubbed firmly. “Sorry. I feel like my brain – it's heavy.”

“I guess this is why we were always told not to jump too far and too fast,” John said, frowning at him. “We need one more jump though. Somewhere you can get in touch with the Time Lord and he can come pick you up. You got a date and location?”

“I – maybe.” He wanted to go back to sleep, head lolling against his chest as he tried to think, shifting through names of people who might be able to help him. “I don't –”

John's hand was cool and dry on the back of his neck.

“Take your time,” he said, thumb rubbing soothingly against the top of his spine. “Pyl's not coming for us yet. Don't force it.”

Jack made a small sound in his throat – a mixture of a whimper and a sob – and pressed back into John's hand, anchoring himself.

Trying not to force himself to think too hard, his mind touched on the idea of Jackie. Under normal circumstances, he would have gone to her without question and let her fuss over him with strong cups of tea and a plethora of Jaffa cakes. Her absence in the flat – and Raphio's inability to track her – suggested she was in the TARDIS, which meant that going to her for help ( _more help,_ his guilty conscience supplied) was out of the question.

There was always the Lethbridge-Stewarts who seemed to be game for most alien-related shenanigans and wouldn't think twice about helping him, yet Jack hesitated. He had only met the Brigadier once and the thought of turning up on his doorstep in his state and with the possibility of serious trouble on his heels made him shy away from dragging them into his mess. Then there was Sarah Jane, another person who would help without hesitation despite only meeting him recently; Harriet Jones was one more who would keep him safe and help contact the Doctor, but that always ran the risk of bringing the Time Agency down on them too. Raphio had known about Jackie – he knew where she lived and her history – and it stood to reason that he also had folders on the others he had met in his travels, particularly those with an association with the Doctor.

If he was Raphio, he would have people watching the Lethbridge-Stewarts, Sarah Jane, and Harriet, waiting for him to be stupid enough to turn up.

With such a lack of people he was able to go to for help who also had a means of contacting the Doctor, he realised someone needed to put together a network of people for such situations. With the amount of people the Doctor had travelled with through the years, Jack considered the potential of a global network of former TARDIS travellers who could be called upon for help and expertise when the need arose.

Unfortunately for him, such a network didn't exist.

It was fine though.

He was fine.

Having been alone before and with his back against the wall, Jack knew how quickly his fortunes could change in both directions. The last time he was alone had been the night he met the Doctor, Rose, and future-Zoe. By all accounts, he had come out on top that day, his life changing in a matter of moments after a rollercoaster of a night that had taken him from conning a group of out-of-place time travellers to preparing to sacrifice his life for the greater good – surprisingly himself at the same time – to stepping onboard the most miraculous ship he had ever seen and finding family.

That first night on the TARDIS after everyone had rested and showered and acclimatised to the new normal, he remembered sitting in the kitchen being careful not to say or do anything that might get him thrown into a volcano by a grumpy, growling Time Lord that clearly didn't appreciate the way the girls had taken to him so warmly. Every time Zoe leaned towards him and every time Rose turned bright, delighted eyes in his direction, the space between the Doctor's eyes would darken and pucker with a frown. At first Jack thought it was because he was jealous – one man on a ship with two beautiful women and it wasn't necessarily out of the realm of possibility to assume what Jack did that first night – but as he got to know the Doctor, he realised it wasn't jealous; instead, it was worry that Jack was going to disappoint the girls and break their hearts at the same time.

Not that Jack understood how someone looked at Rose and Zoe and thought breaking their hearts was an acceptable thing to do.

That first night was Jack's happiest memory.

It was the start of everything new and wonderful for him and it felt like it had been longer than a year since he had met them in London, his life unrecognisable to how it was before. He had people he loved – a _family_ – and a relationship that he hoped was for life and it all came down to that one night when he happened to glance out of a window and see Rose Tyler dangling from a barrage balloon with the Union Jack sprawled across her chest. He wished that Zoe had been there – his Zoe and not the future one who greeted him with wide, brimming enthusiasm – so they could talk about that night more.

He knew that his Zoe had been off dealing with something else, a spoiler occasionally slipping from her lips, making her blush and lower her head as though expecting the Doctor to tell her off only for him to cluck his tongue in mock exasperation. She told them about meeting a friend out of order and Jack remembered laughing and telling her that running into the same people over and over again happened more than she thought and the universe was a smaller place than it seemed, something the Doctor looked deeply offended by.

“ _I don't mind_ ,” Zoe had laughed, hands cupping her hot chocolate. _“I want to run into her again because she's great. An' she's got a name like a fairytale, so she's pretty cool just for that._ ”

Amelia Pond.

Amelia _Pond_.

It was a fairly distinctive name and Jack's mind starting to latch onto the idea, wondering how hard it would be to track down an Amelia Pond in the near future. Between him and John, he suspected it would be easy enough, he just needed to make sure that he got the correct version of Amelia rather than one who had no idea that the Doctor existed.

The Time Agency wouldn't have any record of her, Jack having not met her yet, and perhaps – maybe, just this once – luck was on his side.

“London, 2020,” Jack said.

John snorted, snapping out of his quiet doze. “What was that?”

“London, 2020,” he repeated, aiming for a little further in the future than he thought necessary simply to be on the safe side. “Zoe has a friend that the rest of us hasn't met yet. They had a crossover event a while back during the Blitz. The Time Agency probably won't know about her.”

John raised an eyebrow, sceptical, before nodding.

“Best wait until morning,” he said after a beat. “You need more rest, and the manipulator'll do better with more time to cool down.”

“Is it okay?”

“For now,” John said, face turned up to the sky. “Now shut up and watch the fireworks.”

Jack's mouth twitched. “Yes, dear.”

* * *

_ London, UK, _

_ June 26th 2020 _

A knock on the front door startled Brian Williams from his nap.

Signed copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles sliding down his chest, he caught it before it hit the ground and sat up. Glancing at the clock, he realised he had been asleep for a few hours and a sigh left him at how difficult it was going to be to get to sleep later that night. It seemed that he was falling asleep during the day more and more of late, constantly exhausted by the simple act of being awake, and he hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come. Yawning and rubbing his face, he got to his feet and made his way towards the front door, wincing at the strain in his spine as he straightened; if he was going to nap, he might as well make himself comfortable in a bed and surrender himself to the inevitability of old age and well-meaning concern.

The knock rang out again – louder and more urgent – and he swore if it was the Buckets from next door, he was going to spray them with the hose. He didn't know why Amy and Rory tolerated their behaviour, finding them amusing rather than annoying, and he longed for the day one of them said something or did something while the two were away so Brian could take care of the situation for them. Never one to be annoyed by much, he found Mrs Bucket's insistence on the old-fashioned niceties to be outdated and irritating, using Rory as a handyman at all hours of the day despite his job and family.

“Well, I'll be –” Brian paused at the sight on the front step, taken aback in a way he hadn't been since the TARDIS materialised around him and took him to a dinosaur-infested spaceship. “Jack Harkness, you look like you've been through hell and back.”

One swollen, bruised eye squinted at him. “Amelia Pond?”

“How hard did you hit your head?” He scoffed, glancing at the man who appeared to be the only thing holding Jack upright. “Amy's not here. She and Rory have popped down to Wales for their anniversary. Something about waving to their past selves and closing the loop, whatever that means. Come on in, son, before you pass out. Who's your friend?”

“Captain John Hart, it's a pleasure,” John said, squeezing past him as he half-dragged Jack into the entrance hall and shut the door behind him with a firm kick. “You know him?”

“Course I do,” Brian said, nose wrinkling at the smell that was coming off of the two men. “Known him for years.”

“Right,” John replied as though that displeased him. Dumping Jack on the sofa to let him groan into the cushion, he turned to face Brian, dirt tracking across the rug Amy and Rory had bought home from Tiaanamat three years ago. Brian wondered if it was dry clean suitable before deciding it didn't matter. “Quick lesson then: Jack here has no idea who you are. Don't tell him anything about his future. Don't give away anything that may constitute a glimpse into days to come. If you do, everything could change and then there's a giant paradox that needs to be dealt with and that's never fun. Understand?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Whatever, at this point a paradox wouldn't be the worst thing that's happened today.” John rolled his eyes and rubbed his face, dried flecks of blood fluttering down to the rug. “Med kit?”

“Rory keeps one in the bathroom under the sink,” Brian said, staring down at Jack in concern. “Is he going to be okay? Should I call a doctor?”

“Yes, but make it _the_ Doctor, would you?” John called over his shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. “Tell him to get the TARDIS here as soon as possible.”

Brian looked around the quiet living room room that was beginning to smell like a particularly awful sewer, and he grunted as he knelt next to Jack, resting a hand on his shoulder only to pull it back at the pained groan that greeted him.

“Sorry,” he apologised, quietly. “What happened to you?”

“Got kidnapped,” Jack mumbled into the cushion. “Then tortured, then broke out of prison, then the Vortex tried to squeeze my brains out.” Another groan. “Everything hurts.”

“I bet it does,” Brian said, wondering what he should do. “That friend of yours, should I trust him?”

“Yeah.” Jack turned his head deeper into the pillow and Brian realised that he was missing an ear. “He's all right. Don't worry if he hits on you.”

“I'll take it as a compliment,” he replied just as John came back with Rory's medical box in his hand, and he stood up. “You know the Doctor?”

“Not personally,” John said, deep lines etched on his face and dark marks pressed beneath his eyes, looking sick and exhausted. “You do have his number, don't you? We came here because Jack thought Amelia Pond could help.”

“Like I said, she's in Wales,” Brian told him, not sure if he liked him or not, which was different from his first meeting with Jack where he had liked the man from the start, falling for his easy charm and handsome smile. “But I've got Zoe Tyler's number.”

“That'll do,” he said. “Give her a call, tell her to get here.”

Brian blinked, mouth dry, before deciding that calling Zoe and the Doctor was actually the best thing he could do given the circumstances, especially as calling Amy and Rory to fill them in would end in the same advice. Turning his eyes away as John began to strip Jack out of his clothes, murmuring in delight at the fact that Rory's kit contained some technology from the TARDIS, he retreated to the kitchen. Picking up the kitchen phone, he dialled Zoe's number that was stuck to the fridge behind pictures of the family and a handful of postcards Brian had sent them on his own travels.

It rang and rang and rang for long enough that Brian was beginning to lose hope when –

“ _Amelia_!” The delighted voice of Zoe Tyler chirped down the line. “ _We're not late, are we? The Doctor swore blind we'd be there to meet you on time so if we're late, I'm going to be very cross with him._ ”

“ _Oh, there's a surprise,_ ” the Doctor chimed in, clearly passing behind her as he spoke, his mouth falling closer to the phone. “ _If we're late, Amelia Pond, don't tell me! It'll create a paradox and then I'll definitely be late._ ”

“ _She called me not you, go away_ ,” Zoe ordered, laughing when he kissed her on the cheek. “ _Sorry, Amy, tell us we're late if you like. Himself will deal with it._ ”

“This isn't Amy,” Brian said, amused as he always was by them. “It's Brian Williams.”

“ _Brian_.” Humour dropped from Zoe like a brick, and he imagined her face falling from its usual cheerfulness to something stern and fierce that made his stomach curl uncomfortably inwards. “ _Is everything okay at home_?”

“Er – define okay?”

“ _Jesus_ ,” she muttered. “ _Have you been attacked? Is anyone dead or in danger of dying? Are there planets in the sky again?_ ”

“No, possibly, planets in the sky?”

“ _Never mind,_ ” she said. “ _Who's hurt_?”

“Jack, Captain Jack,” Brian told her, taking the wireless phone and peering around the side of the living door to watch John dispose of bloodied rags in a portable incinerator and remove something from Rory's kit that glowed blue as it passed over Jack's skin. “He's turned up looking like he's had a building collapse on him with some bloke called John Hart and –”

“ _Oh_.” Zoe dragged the sound out, relief passing from her to him. “ _Right, yeah, I know what this is. Blimey, I feel old. This was a lifetime or two ago for me. Doctor, stand down. It's just Jack after Stormcage._ ”

In the background, Brian heard the Doctor stomp and swear and laugh.

He pulled back and returned to the kitchen. “You know about this then?”

“ _Yeah, you need an earlier version of us_ ,” she explained. “ _Jack needs to make the call. Right now, you're in sync with this version of us but Jack's in sync with an earlier, younger version before we even met you. The TARDIS picks up on the correct temporal placement when a call's made so he needs to be the one to ring._ ”

“Sometimes I only understand half the things that come out your mouth,” Brian said.

She laughed. “ _I get that a lot. Don't worry about it though, as soon as Jack makes the call we'll be there and you can get back to whatever it is you were doing. What date is it anyway?_ ”

“June 26th,” he said before adding the year for good measure.

“ _Good, so Amy and Rory_ are _heading to Wales then_ ,” Zoe said. “ _Why they wanted to take the train is beyond me. Public transport is so dull. Anyway, don't worry, Brian, and thanks again for helping Jack. He was clever to think of you – or rather Amy, I suppose. We'll see you when we drop Amy and Rory off after Wales, maybe take you with us. Didn't you say last time you wanted to meet King Kashta?_ ”

“ _Did he?_ ” The Doctor asked. “ _Brilliant choice, Brian! I haven't been to Kush in an age. We'll make a day of it, a week if we're lucky_.”

“All right,” Brian said, hesitation making him stumble. “Just...it won't be like the time with Cleopatra, will it? I was gone for months.”

“ _And nearly made a Great Royal Husband too, you devil_ ,” the Doctor grinned. “ _Who'd have thought you had it in you_?”

“That was a misunderstanding, thank you,” he said, primly, cheeks heating. “And I don't know why I bother speaking to the two of you when you only tease.” Their joint laughter warmed his ear and his embarrassment melted away. Despite the unexpected longevity of his trip to Ancient Egypt, it had been a lot of fun, as it always was when the Doctor and Zoe Tyler came to visit. “Get on then. I'll have Jack call an earlier version of the two of you, as though that makes any sense. Hopefully your younger selves will be more sensible.”

“ _Don't count on it, the Doctor was born ridiculous_ ,” Zoe said, dodging the man in question with a laugh. “ _Love and kisses, Brian! See you soon._ ”

Brian clucked his tongue as he replaced the phone in the cradle. Since it appeared that Jack and John were going to be staying for as long as it took Jack to feel well enough to make a phone call, he put the kettle on and began throwing together the ingredients for chicken soup into a pot. The smell of onions frying brought John into the kitchen five minutes later, the late afternoon light highlighting how awful he also looked. Though not in the same state of broken disrepair as Jack, his skin was bruised and mottled and dark shadows pressed deep under his eyes, his clothes stained with sweat, blood, and filth, and Brian wondered how a man could look so bad but still remain on their feet.

“How's Jack?”

“He'll live,” John said, crossing to the sink to scrub the blood from his hands and forearms, the water running pink and brown down the drain. “The Doctor and Professor Tyler?”

“I spoke with Zoe,” Brian told him, finding it odd to hear a grown man call Zoe _Professor Tyler_ when he had only ever heard children say those words. For most of Amy's childhood, she would play pretend as Professor Tyler dragging Rory and sometimes Jeff along behind her in what everyone thought was a deeply imaginative and intricate game until her wedding day. “She said that Jack needs to call the TARDIS because of temporal placement.”

John sighed. “Of fucking course he does.”

“That makes sense to you?”

“It doesn't to you?” Scrubbing a wet hand over the back of his head, he squeezed his eyes shut and fought a yawn, and Brian felt as though he was being judged and found wanting by a sleepy mass of bruises. “Jack's asleep right now and he's staying that way for at least twelve hours. I've given him something to knock him out to help with the healing. I normally don't mind forcing my company on people, but do you mind if I take a shower and find a change of clothes? I've been in these since my orgy.”

Brian blinked. “Shower's upstairs, first door on the right. Help yourself to any clothes.”

“Thanks, gorgeous.”

Blowing out his cheeks in surprise, Brian watched John leave the kitchen before raising his eyes to the ceiling with a small laugh.

Jack had warned him.

* * *

_ The next day, _

_ Twelve miles away _

Sarah Jane turned slowly in a circle, the sonic screwdriver pointed away from her as she scanned the area. When it beeped, she pulled it in front of her eyes and puckered her face in disappointed: _nothing_. They had been searching for Jack for twenty-four hours, having landed in London in – according to the Doctor – an approximate time window of three days of Jack's arrival; Mickey had taken that news about as well as expected, kicking at the jumpseat as he swore in the Doctor's general direction before stalking off into London with Zoe hurrying after him to keep him out of trouble. Sarah Jane found herself in agreement with Rose that the Doctor was lucky Mickey hadn't kicked _him_ instead.

“How hard is it to find one quasi-American in all of London?” The Doctor asked, frustrated, his hair sticking up in every direction. “It's not like Jack blends in. He should be easy to find. Instead, we're crawling through sewers and checking alleys that smell as though something has died in them.”

“We haven't actually crawled through any sewers,” Sarah Jane said. “You're welcome to do so though.”

The whites of his eyes flashed as he rolled them at her. “I definitely got the time right. There was a burst of temporal energy in this area not too long ago, and unless there are other time travellers hiding their –”

“London's a big city,” she interrupted him with the same reminder she had given him at least twenty times already that day. “And it's not a surprise Jack's concealing his position. As far as he knows, no one's coming for him except those two other Time Agents.”

“You'd think he'd leave a signal for us though,” he complained, kicking at an empty beer can that skittered down the street. “He has to know we're looking for him. Why wouldn't he?”

Sarah Jane refused to be the one to suggest that perhaps Jack wasn't in the best physical state to do more than protect his location. Before wiping everything from the Time Agency's computers, Zoe's virus had dragged all the information about Jack into the TARDIS, storing it and protecting it, and she had been flicking through it on her phone as they ate a quick dinner once Mickey had come back, grumbling and scowling and snapping at everything like a wounded animal. As the Doctor, Rose, and Sarah Jane organised a search grid and Jackie cleaned the kitchen, Zoe had pushed up from her seat and thrown up in the sink without any warning, startling them all, pressing her phone into the Doctor's hand.

Peeking over his shoulder, Sarah Jane had watched only a few seconds of Jack's torture before the Doctor closed the video, face set in fury that made Lorna start to sniffle.

The idea that someone was capable of hurting Jack – funny, friendly, flirty Jack – made Sarah Jane's stomach turn, and she was worried that he wasn't in any state of mind to do anything more than keep himself safe. And the information Zoe had gleaned about the partner that had supposedly rescued him did nothing to instil confidence in them as he appeared to border on the sociopathic.

She exhaled, reminding herself there was no sense in worrying about Jack until she set eyes on him.

“This would be easier if we could contact our future selves,” Sarah Jane informed him as a distraction, having already sat through one tedious and mildly offensive lecture about the risks of contacting their future selves in their personal future, she knew it would set him off. “Ask them where –”

“Sarah Jane.” Laughter bubbled up inside of her at the disappointed tone and stare he levelled at her, making her feel like the young woman she had been when she met him for the first time. “I expect this sort of nonsense from Jackie, but not from you.”

She laughed in his face. “Oh, Doctor, you haven't changed all that much, have you?”

“What?”

She poked him in the stomach with the end of the sonic screwdriver. “Still so easy to tease.”

“You're horrible,” he complained, smile pulling at his mouth. “Absolutely wretched.”

Sarah Jane grinned at him.

“You look exhausted,” the Doctor said with his usual lack of tact. “Let's go grab a coffee before we carry on. Even I'm beginning to feel a little tired and I don't have your silly human penchant for sleep.”

“How Zoe puts up with you is beyond me,” she said, shaking her head. “I'm surprised she hasn't tried killing you yet.”

“Zoe loves me and all my flaws, of which there are only a few,” he said, grin widening. “Besides, she wouldn't kill me. I bring her coffee every morning.”

Sarah Jane rolled her eyes. “She'd probably kill you for the TARDIS.”

“Without question and/or hesitation.” The Doctor didn't appear bothered by his impending murder at the hands of the woman he loved, holding the door open to a café for her. “Ooo, look! They're putting whipped cream on the top. I want one of those.”

Sarah Jane purchased a normal cappuccino and left the Doctor at the counter, bewildering the baristas with his increasingly sugary order, giving the impression that he wasn't often left unattended. Leaning against a raised table by the window, she removed her new phone – a gift from Zoe thrust into her hands that morning with instructions to use it instead of her normal one – and checked the messages. Jackie was on the TARDIS looking after Lorna, the two of them going swimming to stop the incessant _where's Captain Jack_ questions, and she had sent a picture of a wide-eyed Lorna waist deep in the water looking terrified and delighted. Rose, who was manning the TARDIS controls, had sent her regular half-hourly update telling them that she still hadn't pinged anything for Jack, which was expected but disappointing. There was a terse message from Zoe that spoke to her mounting frustration with Mickey's behaviour but nothing new. She tapped out her own report and sent it before a presence at her side made her look up, expecting the Doctor.

“Hello,” a young, handsome man said.

“Hello,” Sarah Jane replied, his eyes looking at her with a deep, painful hunger. She shifted onto her back foot. “Do I know you?”

“No, not really,” he said, unhelpfully. “I just – I wanted to see you, that's all. It's silly but...I shouldn't be here. Rani said it was a bad idea but I couldn't resist.”

“Rani?” The Doctor repeated, approaching from behind, his coffee more whipped cream than anything else balanced in his hand. “Not my Rani?”

“I – no, no, my friend, Rani,” the man stumbled, blinking at the Doctor in surprise. “Not the Time Lord.”

Sarah Jane's eyebrows shot up. “You know about Time Lords?”

“This was a bad idea,” he muttered, cheeks heating and he stepped away before stepping back and wrapping Sarah Jane up in a hug that was tight and loving and desperate. “I'm sorry. I've just – I love you, okay? I love you and you're the best. The absolute best. I'm sorry.”

“Wait!” Sarah Jane reached out for him when he pulled back, his steps stumbling. “Who are you?”

“I –” he grimaced, glancing to the Doctor who was watching him curiously. “Luke, my name's Luke, and I'm – I'm nobody. Not really. Just – er – take care, Sarah Jane, yeah? Live a really good life because you're the best.”

Unable to stay anymore, Luke tripped over his feet and fell out of the door, rushing away from the café, shoulders stiff. Sarah Jane stared at the space he had occupied and blinked slowly before turning to look at the Doctor.

“What was that about?”

“No idea,” he said, peering out of the window in interest. “It was odd though. Probably someone from your personal future who knew you'd be here today. Wanted to get a quick peek at you. Happens fairly often when personal timelines are crossed. You humans are annoying curious.”

“Says you,” Sarah Jane scoffed, and he snorted. “Perhaps your rule about crossing personal time streams is a good one.”

“I don't make rules just for fun, you know?” The Doctor's eyes swept over her, assessing that she was fine after the unexpected meeting with her future. “You okay?”

“I'm fine, don't fuss,” she said, tugging on her jacket and nodding at his hands. “You're about to spill your cream.”

“What? _No!_ ”

Turning her head away from the Doctor's futile attempts to save his mountain of whipped cream, she looked out of the window and found Luke at the end of the street. He was standing in the arms of a pretty, brown-skinned woman who seemed to know that she was watching them as she raised her hand in a wave before drawing her friend away and out of sight.

_Interesting_ , she thought, the Doctor's phone ringing and drawing her attention back to her present.

“What the –?” Sarah Jane stared at the Doctor in disbelief. “How did you get cream in your hair?”

“Fairly easily,” he said, angling his hip towards her. “Grab my phone, would you? Don't worry if anything moves. I've got a grass snake having a nap.”

Sarah Jane pressed her lips together and dipped her hand into his pocket, his own busy by attempting to scoop the cream back into his cup, taking a pit stop along the way to lick his fingers clean. Grabbing hold of his phone and yanking her hand out before waking the snake, she took a step back from him. Zoe's name flashed across the screen, a lovely picture of her smiling the icon the Doctor had chosen for her profile.

“Hello, Zoe,” Sarah Jane greeted. “The Doctor's a little busy right now doing...well, it's best for your relationship if you don't know.”

Zoe snorted. “ _I bet, but tell him to stop whatever it is because Jack's made contact._ ”

“Doctor.” She snatched a wad of napkins from the dispenser and thrust them at him. “Jack's got in touch with Zoe.”

“What? He's what?” The Doctor scrubbed his hands clean, cheek pressed against Sarah Jane's in an attempt to hear Zoe. “He called you?”

“ _Yeah_ , _we're heading back to the TARDIS now, so hurry up,_ ” she said, and it sounded as though she was running to keep up with Mickey. “ _Do you remember Amelia Pond_?”

“Not personally,” the Doctor said, slipping the phone from Sarah Jane's hand and ushering her towards the door. She snatched her coffee at the last moment and felt sorry for whoever had to clean up the mess the Doctor had made, whipped cream dripping onto the floor and dirty napkins piled on the table. “But I remember you telling me about her.”

“ _Well Jack must've remembered her name from ages ago as a friend because he's gone to her house,_ ” Zoe explained. “ _She's not there but either her grandfather or dad is, I missed his actual connection to her, and he already knows Jack from presumably something that hasn't happened yet and he's helping them out._ ”

“Clever man is our Jack.”

“ _He is,_ ” she said. “ _But he really doesn't sound good. He's going to need medical attention quickly._ ”

“The med bay's already set up,” he assured her. “Tell Jackie to keep Lorna out of the way. The last thing that girl needs on top of everything else is to be traumatised by whatever Jack looks like.”

“Doctor!” He spun and found Sarah Jane hanging out the back of a taxi. “Come on, this is quicker!”

“Up here for thinking, eh, Sarah Jane?” Ducking inside, he fell into Sarah Jane who righted him and told the driver the location of the TARDIS. “Zo, we'll be there as quick as we can. Get the TARDIS ready to go.”

“ _On it_ ,” she promised, hanging up.

Sarah Jane reached out and put her hand on his knee, stopping it from bouncing as the taxi slid into London traffic. It took them twenty minutes to reach the TARDIS and he bounded out of the car, leaving her to deal with the money as per normal; she thrust two twenties at the driver, telling him to keep the change, before rushing inside to find everyone waiting, Mickey vibrating with restlessness.

Only Jackie was absent, tucked away with Lorna somewhere out of sight.

“Hold on,” the Doctor said as soon as Sarah Jane was onboard. “This might be a little bumpy.”

_A little bumpy_ was an understatement.

By the time they landed, Rose was wielding a fire extinguisher and Zoe was coughing from the smoke that was in her lungs even as Mickey jumped over a fallen Doctor and sprinted out the door onto a street where –

“You must be Mickey,” John Hart said, eyes flicking over him, stubbing a cigarette beneath his boot, soft floral skirt fluttering about his knees. “Not his usual sort but he's always been an odd one.”

Mickey frowned. “Who are –?”

John grinned and pressed his finger to his lips before disappearing in a crackle of energy just as the Doctor and Sarah Jane appeared in the doorway, Rose and Zoe pressing out behind them.

“Don't tell me that was another Vortex Manipulator,” the Doctor complained, scanning the area. “Was it the same woman as last time? Did she have Jack?”

“No, it was someone else,” Mickey shook his head, hot and cold all over. “I don't know –”

“There you lot are.” A TARDIS blue door opened and a man in his late sixties appeared, dressed in a sweater set and house slippers. “About time. Hello, Zoe, lovely to see you again.” Zoe raised a hand in greeting to the stranger. “Which one of you is the Doctor? Ah, never mind. The sonic screwdriver is a bit of a giveaway. The face is strange though.”

“ _Hey_ ,” the Doctor said. “It's my face.”

Brian leant against the gate and squinted at him. “It's strange. I know you said you could change your face but this is odd, everything's different.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Know me well, do you?”

“You pop in and out when it pleases you,” he said, glancing around. “Where did John go?”

“Who's John?” Rose asked.

“Jack's partner, I think,” Brian said. “He was out here having a smoke. Rory doesn't like people smoking on the property. Says he doesn't want to encourage it.”

“He's gone,” Mickey said. “He used the manipulator an' went. Look, sir, I don't mean to be rude, but where's –?”

“Mickey.”

As one, they turned.

In the TARDIS blue doorway of the pale blue townhouse, Jack Harkness appeared. Mickey felt the air leave him as though he had been punched, and his knees wobbled at the sight of him. Two days had passed since he had set eyes on Jack, the fire of the Gamma Forests throwing a light that licked against his skin, and the grief and fear he had spent the last two days living in crashed through him and sent him staggering towards Jack. Tripping over the pavement, catching himself on a low stone wall, he found himself taking in the details of his appearance as he got closer and closer. Dressed in a pair of blue scrubs that highlighted the pale gauntness of him, his bare skin was a litany of mottled bruises and half-healed cuts, a tight band of bruises wrapped around his throat that made Mickey's stomach churn at the thought of what had happened to him.

And there, on the side of his head, was a mass of scar tissue that made his vision blur.

_They had cut his ear off_.

“Mickey,” Jack said again, rasping his name across damaged vocal cords, bloodshot eyes staring at him. “Mickey.”

Stumbling through the gate Brian swiftly opened for him, Mickey reached for Jack and cupped his face with more tenderness than he had believed himself capable, and kissed him. Frozen beneath his mouth, Jack twitched and made a pained, animalistic sound that had Mickey pulling back before Jack dragged him back towards him, a sob breaking against his mouth.

“ _Mickey_ ,” he breathed, broken.

“I've got you,” Mickey whispered a promise, forehead resting against his, Jack's fingers so tight in his shirt that the material stretched and ripped but nothing mattered except the fact that Jack was alive and in his arms. “You're safe, I've got you.”

“Mickey –” unable to say anything but his name, Jack repeated it on a loop, hands scrambling at the back of his shirt, breaking Mickey's heart. Jack was the strong one, the person who never seemed to break, and seeing him lost and confused and _scared_ was agonizing. “Mickey.”

“It's okay, c'mon, it's okay,” he said, softly. “The Doctor's here, an' the girls. Sarah Jane too. We've got you. It's okay.” He glanced over his shoulder and wished he hadn't as the others were watching with horror, hurt, and anger plastered across their faces. “Help him, please.”

The Doctor moved, joints stiff and unresponsive at first, before he closed the distance between them and was at Jack's other side, supporting him as though he had always been there. Jack flinched at his appearance before relaxing, mouth forming around his name even though no sound emerged.

“Jack,” the Doctor greeted. “Come on, there's a good man. Let's get you out of the doorway and sitting down. I think you're in a bit of shock. Completely understandable given everything. There we go. One step after another, that's it.”

Carefully, he and Mickey lowered Jack to sit on the stone wall, a curtain twitching from one of the neighbour's houses, a pinched face peering out in disapproval. Once he was sitting down, the Doctor placed his fingers on either side of Jack's temple and closed his eyes, focusing on forming a connection before soothing the immediate panic and shock from his friend's mind. It wasn't something he liked to do often, if at all, yet Jack was in a state that bordered on unresponsive and he hoped it would help. Opening his eyes, he crouched in front of Jack and found that a small brush of colour had returned to his cheeks, his pupils no longer dilated and his eyes had more focus to them.

“There you are,” the Doctor said, softly. “Hello again.”

“Doctor,” Jack croaked.

“The one and only,” he said with a small smile. “You've led us on a right merry chess through time and space, you know? The second you're in the TARDIS, I'm putting a tracker in you, in all of you, because I'm not losing a single one of you again.”

Jack swallowed. “How long?”

“It's been two days for us,” he told him. “Longer for you though, I think.”

“Yeah,” he whispered, leaning into Mickey who sat next to him, arm around his shoulders. “A bit.”

Mickey wiped his eyes with his free hand. “I'm sorry we didn't come sooner. We should've come earlier, stopped this happenin'.”

“You came,” Jack said, lips dry and cracking, blood pooling like a pearl against his bottom lip before falling to the thigh of his scrubs. “I thought I wasn't going to see you again. I thought it was over.”

“Not a chance,” Zoe said, hand resting on the Doctor's shoulder. Every part of her wanted to hug Jack and never let him go but she was afraid he would shatter in her arms if she touched him the wrong way. “Like we'd let that happen.”

“Zoe,” he breathed, blinking up at her. “I've missed you.”

“I've missed you too,” she said, reaching for him and gently stroking his greasy hair. “I've been so worried about you.”

“Me too,” Rose said, wiping her nose with her sleeve as she sniffed, linking arms with Zoe even though she also wanted to wrap Jack up and never let him go. “You're not allowed to scare us like this. Don't you ever, _ever_ scare us like that again, okay? Never again.”

A knot of emotion lodged in his throat. “Okay.”

“I didn't – I thought I wouldn't see you again,” he whispered, rough and hoarse, half aware he was repeating himself, his brain fogged and confused. “I thought Raphio was going to kill me, and I'd never see your faces again.”

“Like we'd ever let that happen,” the Doctor assured him. “And you don't have to worry about the Time Agency again. We took care of everything. Raphio and the others won't be a problem.”

Jack;s head lolled onto Mickey's shoulder. “What did you do to them?”

“Little bit of this, little bit of that,” he said, vague enough that Jack was pleased the Doctor had taken care of it personally. “But, enough of this. _You_ need medical treatment and lots of it. Fair warning, Jackie's going to fuss over you like nobody's business. You scared the hell out of her by sending Lorna her way.”

“Lorna,” Jack remembered, hand tightening in Mickey's. “Is she okay? And Jackie? Pyl and Harlan went after her. I know she got away but –”

“They're both fine,” Sarah Jane said, making her presence known. Feeling a little in the way as the TARDIS crew reunited, she had stepped to one side to stand next to Brian and watched the reunion with only the smallest hint of envy at their closeness. “They were able to get to me and I got in contact with Rose.”

“Sarah Jane.” Jack's eyes turned in her direction, the light falling across him, emphasising how exhausted and sick and handsome he was. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you involved in this.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “Of course I came to help.”

His throat moved with another swallow. “Where's Lorna?”

“On the TARDIS with Jackie,” the Doctor said. “I thought it best she not see you like this. We knew that you'd been. _..hurt,_ and the poor girl's been through enough without seeing you looking like you've been hit by a bus or two. _”_

“She hasn't shut up about you,” Mickey told him. “Captain Jack this, Captain Jack that. I think you've got a fan.”

The laugh that left him made him wince, hand slowly rubbing his chest. “The Gamma Forests?”

“Are fine,” Zoe told him. “We alerted the authorities before we left and they got right on it.”

“The fire?”

“We can check when we go back and drop Lorna off,” the Doctor said, giving his knee a small squeeze before standing. “Now, let's get you up and into the TARDIS.” He touched the side of Jack's head lightly where his ear used to be. “No need to worry about that. I can grow that back.”

Anger bubbled inside Mickey and he glared at the Doctor. “We should've killed him.”

“He's being punished,” the Doctor said, sending a chill racing down Jack's spine at the thought of what had been done. Between Zoe, Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor, he got to his feet with only the occasional burst of pain. “Your partner took off. Didn't he need help?”

“He prefers to work alone,” Jack said, hunching over when he was upright. “And he didn't mean to rescue me, it just happened.”

“Well, we're grateful,” he said. “I would've liked to have told him that but no matter. Come on, captain, just a little bit longer and you'll be pumped full of so many pain meds you'll think everything's sunshine and lemons.”

He swayed.

“I do like lemons.” Holding onto Mickey, he made his way slowly towards the TARDIS before he remembered himself. “Wait, Brian...thank you.”

“Any time,” Brian Williams said with an easy nod. “You don't know it yet, but you're always welcome here.” Jack managed a weak smile, shoulders dipping forward again, and Rose caught him. “But time for you to get on. I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon.”

“I hope so,” Jack murmured, energy seeping from him in a smooth rush. “Mickey –”

“Get him inside,” Zoe instructed, stepping out of the way. “And someone let Mum know we've got him. She's probably climbing the walls right now.” She approached Brian and smiled, wiping her hands on her thighs. “So, Amelia's father or – ?”

“Father-in-law,” Brian said, fascinated by this younger version of the woman he knew. “Rory's my son.”

“Rory,” she repeated, turning the name over in her mouth. “I haven't met Rory yet but if he's anything like his dad, I'm sure he'll be great.” Brian's smile widened. “Thank you again for helping Jack. Crossing our timelines like this is always dangerous and I'm relieved that someone like you was there to help him.”

“It's nothing Jack wouldn't do for me,” he said, embarrassed. “He's a good man.”

“He is, not that he believes it though,” Zoe agreed before she leant in and kissed his cheek. “I'll see you around, Brian Williams. Be sure to give Amelia my love when you next see her and, I suppose, Mr Pond too.”

“They'll be sorry to have missed you,” Brian said. “But it's nice that I have my own story to tell them this time instead of just listening to them.”

“I'll bet,” she said, patting his shoulder. “See you around, Brian.”

Brian watched as she darted into the TARDIS, shutting the door behind her, and he waited for what he knew was coming. A smile swept across his face at the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising, his eyes feasting on the sight of the bluer-than-blue ship faded from the quiet London road, leaving behind nothing but tossed leaves and a taste of the universe in the air.

* * *

_ Hours later, _

_ The TARDIS _

Jack awoke in the medical bay, and there was an unsettling moment of unfamiliarity that made his muscles tense before the gentle press of the TARDIS against the back of his mind soothed him. _Home_ breathed through him. Tension and the brief spike of adrenaline that rocketed through him in the two seconds it took to orient himself faded, leaving his heart racing in his chest and the monitor he was attached too beeping with increasing loudness. Reaching up a hand, he knocked the sensor from his chest and let it fall to the side of the bed. Sensing his displeasure, the TARDIS switched the monitor off though he didn't doubt she was keeping a close eye on him through other means, fussing over him as badly as the rest of them. Memories of Jackie hugging him as tight as his injured body allowed, smoothing a hand over his hair and whispering small, affectionate threats that told him how much he was loved, played in the haze of his mind.

He was _home_.

Shifting, he heard a snore next to him, and he turned his head only to be greeted by the sight of Mickey twisted into an uncomfortable position in a chair dragged up against his medical bed. Tears pressed against the back of his eyes, wanting to reach out and shake him awake just to see the colour of his eyes, but the Doctor had snuck up on him earlier and injected a sedative into the side of his neck. According to Rose, who had caught sight of the look of anger building on Jack's bruised face, Mickey was running on two days of no sleep and very little food and it was all for the best that he get some forced sleep now that Jack was safe and sound on the TARDIS.

“You know,” a softly amused voice said from the doorway. “It's considered rude to unhook yourself from machines meant to monitor your vitals, especially when one's been hurt as you have.”

Jack's mouth twitched. “The beeping was annoying me.”

“I bet,” Zoe said, slipping into the room on bare feet. “I'll turn the volume down but the sensor is going back on.”

“Don't want it too.”

She made a humming sound in her throat, ignoring his childish display, and leaned over him, the neck of her dressing gown gaping to disappointingly reveal a sleep shirt beneath. Sliding a hand under his hip, she lifted and rolled him an inch to retrieve the sensor before rubbing it onto her skin with a pointed look.

“You and I both know I could definitely take you in a fight right now,” Zoe informed him, reaching over his head to turn the monitor back on, finger tapping on the screen to lower the volume. Jack turned his face closer towards her, breathing in the smell that he associated with Zoe: fresh soil, coffee, and a hint of the Doctor's cologne that always seemed to cling to her no matter how much physical contact she had with him or not. “Best not to embarrass yourself.”

“I could take you,” Jack murmured even though the truth was that Lorna would be able to beat him in a fight right them, weak and pathetic as he felt. Struggling, he lifted his arms and balled his hands into loose fists. “Put 'em up.”

Zoe gently knocked her fists against his, sweeping them out of the way before lightly tweaking his nose. “ _Pow_ , game over.”

“Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.”

Her laugh was quiet and delighted. “Where did you pick _that_ up from?”

“Don't know,” he said, honestly. “New Year's Eve, I think.”

“I suppose it is a bit of a cheat to agree to a fight when you're so sick,” Zoe said, hand smoothing his hair back with a tenderness that made him ache. “What woke you up?”

“The pain,” he told her. “My knees.”

Letting her hand fall from his hair, she left his side and he listened to her search through the cabinets for pain relief that she found with a small _there you are, you little bastard_. Jack lay there, waiting for her, drifting in and out of lucidity as spasms of pain gripped his knees.

The Doctor had given him a quick overview of his injuries, rattling them off so fast that Mickey had taken on a grey, sick disposition and Rose had to press her knuckles into her mouth to stop from crying the longer he went on. Jack wasn't sure of all the bits and pieces but he knew that he needed a new ear, serious repair work on his knees, a spinal rejuvenation due to the battering has had taken when travelling the Vortex without a capsule, and his organs either needed regenerating or replacing.

There was a lot of work to do and despite the sheer magnitude of how broken Jack was, the Doctor remained confident he would put him back together before too long.

“Here we go,” Zoe said, pressing the hypospray against one knee and then the other. “Voilà. Feeling better?” Jack's mouth worked, relief spreading through his legs, and he nodded. “You want a sedative to help you get back to sleep?”

He shook his head. “Food. I want food.”

“You do?” Her face transfused with cautious delight. “The Doctor said signs of an appetite was a good thing. Wait here, I'll get you something.”

“No,” Jack rasped, the nanites still working at repairing the damage to his larynx. “I want to come with you.”

“Darling, you can't walk right now,” she reminded him. “And best you in a fight I may be able to do, but carrying you is still beyond me.”

“Wheelchair.” Her eyes slipped to the corner where her old wheelchair sat, used in the aftermath of her recovery from Mondas and brought in by a hopeful Rose in anticipation of Jack's recovery; she hesitated. “Zoe... _please_.”

The begging tone his voice took on made her flinch, and he watched the line of her throat as she swallowed.

“Oh, all right,” she sighed. “It's not like I can say no to you anyway, can I?”

Zoe leant over him again until the front of her was pressed up against him. He put his arms around her back and held on as she grunted, slowly and carefully lifted him upright, the strain visible in her arms and across her shoulders. Propping him against the wall, legs dangling over the side, she rolled the wheelchair towards him and brushed off some of the dust. It turned out that getting him into the wheelchair was actually easier than either of them imagined as he tilted into it and fell the rest of the way, the painkillers doing an excellent job of stopping him from feeling too much of the pain that spread from his side. Behind him, Zoe muttered about foolish friends under her breath before tucking Mickey's loose blanket tighter around him and grasping hold of the handles.

“Let's get you back before he realises you're missing,” Zoe said, pushing him into the hallway that brightened at their presence. “He's snapped at me more in the past two days than he has in our entire life, and I quite like to drawn a line under that part of our friendship, if it's all the same.”

“He snapped at you?”

“Like a bear with a sore head since you were abducted,” she said, the TARDIS moving the kitchen so it was closer to them than normal. “Not that any of us blame him. None of us really took it well but Mickey...well, he loves you in a way we don't. Not to say we don't love you, but it's different for him. You know that.”

Passing into the kitchen, Jack rubbed his sore throat to ease the thick rock of emotion that had formed there. Zoe pulled a chair out of the way and sat him at the table as she put the kettle on and had a look through the cabinets for something to eat.

“Chicken soup?”

“Brian made me some,” he said.

“Did he? That was nice of him.” Zoe opened the fridge door and frowned at the contents. “We need to do another shop. Porridge. Porridge'll be good for you. Easy to swallow and I'll make it tasty unlike the Doctor.”

Jack half-smiled. “I don't know how he eats it so bland.”

“For a man who's normally hyped up on sugar, it is a bit weird,” she agreed, lifting two bottles of milk out and turning to look at him. “Chocolate or normal?”

“Chocolate, obviously.”

She smiled. “Good choice.”

“Where's everyone else?” Jack asked, finding comfort in watching her move about the kitchen, the domesticity a sharp and needed reminded that he was safe.

“Mum pretty much passed out as soon as you did,” Zoe said, talking over her shoulder as she measured out a portion of porridge oats. “She hasn't really slept since Lorna appeared, and don't you start feeling guilty about that. Mum doesn't blame you for anything and neither do any of us. It was smart to get Lorna out the way. I've seen what the Time Agency's capable of, I don't want to think what they might've done to her to get you to do what they wanted.”

Having spent money nights thinking about that exact scenario, Jack shivered.

“Rose and Sarah Jane stayed up for a bit but they were both knackered too and headed to bed a few hours ago,” she continued, setting the milk and oats on the stove to cook before plucking the kettle from the stand and making him what he hoped was a Tyler tea. “And the Doctor started work on your ear before he went to take a nap, but I imagine he'll be up once he realises you're gone from the med bay. About your ear though, apparently it'll only be a few days before it's ready to be attached. He says he wants to have a specialist see you though, which is probably a good idea. He might be called the _Doctor_ but he doesn't actually have an MD.”

She set the tea down in front of him and smiled. “Here. Get this inside you. It'll help with the tremors.”

Jack lifted the tea to his mouth and the strength of it nearly made him recoil, yet it was exactly what he needed. He started to feel more grounded as the tea worked its magic on his nerves.

“What about you?” His eyes tracked the movement of her arm, watching her stir the porridge. “Why are you awake? You looked exhausted earlier, so I thought you'd be sleeping by now.”

“The TARDIS gave me a nudge when you disconnected the sensor, woke me up,” Zoe explained. “Don't worry about it though. I'll fall back to sleep easy enough.”

The tea scalded the roof of his mouth, watching her, remembering a younger Zoe who was skittish and nervous and prone to night terrors in the first few months of him knowing her. Rose had explained and he was smart enough to glean the rest from context, and he realised that out of everyone on board, she understood what he was going through the best.

Perhaps that was why the TARDIS had chosen to wake her rather than the Doctor.

Jack rubbed at his eyes. “Zoe...”

“Yeah?”

“You've been tortured.”

Her body stilled before it deflated, her back to him and her voice dull and flat. “Yeah.”

“Tell me it gets better,” he requested, voice breaking. “Tell me I can live with this.”

Carefully, she removed the porridge from the heat and set it to one side, turning to face him with a pained look on her face that creased the space between her eyes and made her look older than she was.

“It took me years to get over what happened to me on Tolandra,” Zoe said quietly. “It wasn't a quick and easy recovery despite what it looked like on the outside. A lot of my recovery happened in France. Reinette – I'd wake her up most nights early on with my screaming, and it wasn't like I had a therapist to talk to there.” She rubbed her fingers over her mouth. “Even now... _sometimes..._ I...”

Jack watched her and took note of how her eyes went distant, looking at him but not seeing him. “Zoe?”

“It's been over ten years since that week on Tolandra,” she said, eyes refocusing. “And I still have the marks of what they did to me. Not on my body, all the scars are healed, but here.” Her fist pressed against her chest, knuckling in between her breasts. “On my soul.”

“You seem fine.”

“I am, most of the time,” Zoe told him. “It's not – what happened to me wasn't personal. I was tortured because the idiots there were zealots. Sometimes that makes it easier to compartmentalise what happened to me, but most of the time when I'm reminded of it, or things are a little too quiet, the night a little too dark, I remember everything. But –” there was a small tremble in her hands as she twisted her wedding band about her finger. “I live with it. Some days it's easier than others, some days it's really hard. The more time that passes, the more I speak to Yatta about those moments, the easier it is.”

She reached across the table and offered her hands to his.

“You can live with this,” she assured him. “I promise you, you can live with this, Jack. It's going to be hard and painful and you're going to hate yourself sometimes, but you're going to live with this. It's all going to be okay. One day, what you feel right now, will be a soft whisper of pain.”

Jack's jaw trembled, hot tears blinding him. “There are things I've done. Things Raphio blames me for. He might be right, Zo. Maybe I deserved what he did to me.”

“Shut up,” Zoe said, fiercely, her anger surprising him. “You didn't deserve a single thing that sick monster did to you. Not one thing.” She squeezed his hand, a single tear tracking down her cheek. “I don't want to hear you say that again because you are good and kind and you're my friend. Whatever you might have done, it doesn't matter to me. I know the man you are now and _that's_ what matters to me.”

“She's right.”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ.” Zoe jumped and jerked back, hand swiping at her face. “I'm going to put a bloody bell on you, you hear me?”

“So you keep threatening,” the Doctor said, stepping into the room dressed in his own sleep clothes, face turned towards Jack. Abandoning her seat to get her emotions back under control, Zoe turned her attention onto the porridge as the Doctor took her seat. “Raphio told me what he thought you did. I don't know if that's true or not. The man I see before me isn't capable of those things. The man from three years ago, five? I didn't know him. But I don't care. I'm not going to pass judgement on you when I've done so much worse.”

“My memories are gone, Doctor,” Jack said, emotion tangling in the air around them. “I erased them _myself_. For some reason, I took two years of my life and wiped them clean away, and I don't know why. I left myself nothing, so maybe I'm not the man you think I am. Maybe I am the monster Raphio thinks I am.”

“You're not a monster,” he said.

“If I'm not that and I'm not the man I thought I was, then what the hell am I?”

“You're my brother,” the Doctor said, knocking the air from Jack and ripping the ground from beneath him. “That's who you are. And if anyone tries to take you from this family again, I will bring hell down upon them.”

Jack moved his head from side to side, the press of emotion strangling him tighter than Harlan's arm, and he choked. A sob broke through the thick cling of his frayed restraint and his head dipped, hands pressed into his face, shoulders heaving, unable to stop the deep, wrenching sounds of the ruins of his life spilling out of him.

Arms wrapped around him, the double beat of the Doctor's heart barely penetrating his grief, loneliness, and regret, and Jack clung to him as he _sobbed_.

“It's okay,” the Doctor murmured into his sole ear. “You're home now. You're safe.”


	33. Chapter 33

Jack remembered his first visit to Reylar. He had been on the TARDIS less than twelve hours when the Doctor – then a gruff and somewhat intimidating Northern presence – landed them near the ocean that sparkled under the sun and let a young, fragile Zoe use his arm as support.

Jack hadn't known them then. He hadn't known Zoe was coming off the back of a week spent being tortured on Tolandra, and he hadn't known that the Doctor was a Time Lord – _that_ piece of information unearthed over dinner that had left him hot and cold and uncertain as he stared at an actual Time Lord who was nursing a beer and a knowing smile. All he had known at the time was that he was on the precipice of something important, knowing that the Doctor, Rose, and Zoe somehow signalled the start of a new phase of his life, even if he didn't exactly know how.

Since then, Reylar had become a fairly frequent destination due to Zoe's therapy sessions that the Doctor insisted on taking her to and waiting around like a nervous father while Jack and Rose use the time – hours and days if it – to discover the city of Thren where Yatta's offices were located. He knew where the best place to get breakfast was – down by the wharf in a small shack lodged between cleaner, fancier buildings where the owner was an old one-eyed woman who seemed to be waiting for him and Rose to get married; he also knew the best viewpoints to go to get a full panorama of the city – top of an accountancy building in the centre of the city where security guards didn't like people going.

He knew Thren better than he knew London.

In many ways, Thren felt more comfortable to him than anywhere else he had visited.

Yet, today, he found his mouth dry with nerves and his stomach fizzing with a desire to be anywhere but there.

“Here, let me –” Mickey's hands fussed over his legs, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from the material before tucking it beneath his thighs. Jack watched the top of his head, amusement helping to distract him from the anxiety building in him. “Are you sure you're warm enough? The weather looks like it's goin' to turn.”

Above Jack's head, Zoe sighed, impatience threaded through it, and he rubbed his fingers across his mouth to hide his amusement.

“I'm fine,” Jack assured him, enjoying being on the receiving end of Mickey's fussing nature. “Between the heated blanket and the thermals you've made me wear, I'm nice and toasty. Besides, look –” he removed the small hot water bottle and gave it a shake. “Got one of these too. I don't know why it looks like a panda but I like the whimsy.”

Mickey frowned. “Where are your pain meds again?”

Jack doubted he was the only one who heard Zoe's muttered grievances.

“In my bag,” he said, patiently. “The purple one you checked two minutes ago. I really do have everything.”

Turning on his heel, Mickey glared at the Doctor who, until that moment, had been entertaining himself by attempting to tickle Lorna's feet. At the sight of Mickey's glare though, he dropped his young friend's toes and blinked, plastering on a pleasant smile.

“Yes?”

“Why didn't you park the TARDIS _inside_ the office?” He demanded. “You park inside all the time but now you've decided to make Jack walk to where he needs to go?”

The Doctor opened his mouth, closed it again, head tipping to one side as a frown appeared. “How am I in the firing line here? I just did everything I was told to do, which – as Sarah Jane so rudely pointed out earlier – is very unusual.”

Sarah Jane looked up at the bright blue sky and smiled.

“It's too far,” Mickey decided for the fifth time. “We should –”

“Mickey.” Reaching the end of her patience, surprising Jack with how long she had gone without interrupting Mickey, Zoe cut him off. “He's fine. We're literally just going down the street. I go into this building on a very frequent basis and have never had any problems. You've got nothing to worry about.”

“Didn't you trip over a plant once?” Rose asked, sitting on a bench between Sarah Jane and Jackie, boredom etched onto her face. “Sprain your ankle?”

The tip of Zoe's tongue touched her teeth as her eyes turned an unimpressed look in her sister's direction.

“One plant that snuck up on me, yes.” She deliberately turned away from Rose, who grinned at the side of her head, and focused on Mickey. “But that won't happen here because one, Jack's in a wheelchair; and two, I'll be with him all the way to Yatta's office. I promise I'll throw myself in front of any dangerous plants to protect him.”

“Stop takin' the piss,” Mickey said. “This is a serious thing.”

“I am taking it seriously but you're worrying too much,” Zoe replied. “Reylar is safe. No one's coming after him because we took care of that, and you fussing around him like a first-time father is weird and just plain annoying.”

“Mickey,” Jack said, slipping into the conversation easily as he saw an argument begin to brew between them. Zoe's desire for a return to normal with Mickey had yet to be granted as she seemed to draw the bulk of his ire for reasons no one quite understood, and he doubted even Mickey knew why Zoe was the one bearing the brunt of his worry and fear. “She's right. I love that you're worrying, it's really sweet, but I'll be fine. Zo will be outside the room until I'm done, and then we'll come and meet you for the ice cream I promised Lorna.”

“I want _all_ the flavours,” Lorna declared from her seat on top of the Doctor's shoulders, hands sunk in his hair like it was a set of reins. “Chocolate and strawberry and banana –”

“Excellent choice,” the Doctor agreed, holding her in place with his hands looped around her ankles. “Banana is, as we all know, the superior choice.”

“C'mon, Mickey,” Rose said from her seat. “Let's go. Quicker they go, quicker they come back. “I want to show Mum an' Sarah Jane the – oh, no, what's it called again? That fog that looks like a rainbow?”

Unhelpfully, the Doctor rattled off a long, incomprehensible name in the local language.

She rolled her eyes. “I want to show them the Rainbow Fog, an' we'll miss the boat if we stay for much longer.”

“Go on,” Jack said, reaching out with his foot to tap Mickey's shin. “The Rainbow Fog is actually really nice. I saw it my first time here and don't regret it.”

Mickey's face worked through a series of complicated emotions before his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Fine.”

“Excellent.” Gripping the handles of the wheelchair, Zoe began to push. “See you all later. Don't let the Doctor buy me banana ice cream.”

“Wait!”

“What now?” Zoe exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air, frustrated. “We're going to be late, and I hate being late. You've fussed over him, you've made sure he's got what he needs, and I'm more than capable of looking after him for an hour or two, so what now? What more could you possibly want?”

Mickey threw her a foul look filled with annoyance before bending over Jack and kissing him softly, murmuring to stay safe and not to find any trouble, a sentiment that had Jack smiling against his mouth.

When he stepped back, he gave Zoe a small, mocking bow. “You can go now.”

“About fucking time,” she muttered, pushing a laughing Jack past him. “Bugger off and look at the Rainbow Fog. Try and find a better mood at the same time.”

He swore at her before watching her take Jack to what he hoped was the first of many therapy sessions with Yatta. It was difficult to let Jack out of his sight for the two hours the session was going to take, his stomach twisting itself up into knots as his mind threw various, unpleasant scenarios at what might happen to Jack in that time even with Zoe looking out for him. The Time Agency might have been taken care of but there was still Zoe's mystery man on the loose and whatever other enemies the Doctor had scrounged up in his ten centuries of life.

Anything could happen.

“Well then,” Sarah Jane said, standing and stretching. “This Rainbow Fog sounds delightful. You say we have to take a boat to get to it?”

“We've got to pass through the Waterfall of Remembrance too,” Rose said, bouncing to her feet and helping Jackie up. “It's like this really big archway thing made of yellow water. When the sun hits it just right, it looks like gold. It's pretty cool.”

“Yellow water?” Jackie asked, sceptical. “It's not –?”

“No, Mum, it's not piss.”

The Doctor rocked back on his heels and laughed, Lorna tugging at his hair.

“Come on then, one and all,” he said. “Sooner we see Rose's improperly named Rainbow Fog, sooner we can have ice cream.”

“Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream,” Lorna chanted, happy and excited.

Aware that his friends might choose simply to drag him along if he remained standing where he was for much longer, Mickey stuffed his hands in his pockets and reluctantly turned from the sight of Zoe and Jack walking down the pavement. An arm slipped through his, and he looked down to be greeted by Rose's smile, her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and some of the worry ebbed from him.

Down the street, as they entered into the shade the buildings cast, Jack picked at the loose threads of the grey throw over his lap and tilted his head back so as to speak to Zoe.

“He's just worried,” he said. “He doesn't mean to be annoying but him letting me out of his sight at the moment is a little difficult. I can't even take a shower in peace right now without him hovering in case I fall.”

“I know,” Zoe said, her cheeriness a direct contrast to her annoyance that Jack belatedly realised had been put on for show. “But it'll do him good to have a bit of time away from you as well. He's actually reminding me a lot of the Doctor right now. After the Doctor came for me when Reinette died, I needed a lot of looking after but it got to a point where his fussing began to feel smothering. He poured so much of himself into making sure that I was okay that he forgot to look after himself in the process. I don't think Mickey realises how tired he is right now. I'm kind of hoping he has a nap while you're busy.”

“Yeah, I don't think he's been sleeping much,” he admitted, rubbing his eye. “Whereas I think _I've_ been sleeping toomuch.”

“No such thing when you're recovering.”

“I feel bad though,” he said, looping some of the stray thread around his finger and tugging. “I feel like I've barely spoken with Sarah Jane. And I've only chatted with Jackie twice, both times I fell asleep on her. Not to mention Lorna.”

“No one cares,” Zoe assured him. “We're all just happy to have you back. Besides, Lorna's got the run of the TARDIS and a bunch of adults who are happy to play with her. The Doctor and I took her to the Bubble Room early this morning and we spent a few hours bouncing around there trying to catch everything.” A smile pulled at Jack's mouth at the thought of it. “ _And_ she's been talking about this ice cream ever since you mentioned it the other day, so I think all sins will be forgiven then.”

Jack laughed, a cough rattling in his chest that built its way up his throat, choking him. His hands gripped the sides of his wheelchair, the pressure in his lungs making his vision blur and darken, and he felt Zoe's hand on his back, finding the space between his shoulder blades before gently but firmly hitting him to help clear the blockage of phlegm that he spat onto the pavement with a groan of disgust.

“Sorry,” she apologised, handing him one of the bottles of water Mickey had packed for him. “I'll try not to make you laugh but I'm pretty funny person.” He snorted and nearly started coughing again. She grimaced, his eyes catching the reflection of her face in the window they were standing by. “Right, sorry. No more jokes, nothing even remotely funny.”

Jack leaned back, breathless but amused. “I love you.”

Her grin softened into a smile, her hand touching the back of his neck. “I love you too.”

“When are we taking Lorna back anyway?” He asked as she tapped the wheel lock with her foot, tucking it away, resuming their journey. “Has that been decided yet?”

“After we're finished here,” Zoe told him. “It took the Doctor a while but he was able to track down Lorna's family. Her parents managed to escape the attack and were picked up by rescue teams about twenty kilometres away from the town. He spoke to them first thing this morning to let them know she's alive. From what he said, they were pretty relieved.”

“I bet,” Jack said, quietly. “Did he tell them about everything else?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They're not mad, they're just happy their daughter's alive and people have been looking out for her. I imagine they'll have questions later but, well, at the risk of sounding insensitive, we'll be long gone by then.”

“A little insensitive,” he agreed. “Honest, though.”

“Between you and me, I'll be a little sorry to see her go,” she admitted. “I kind of like the little gremlin.”

Jack laughed, hand pressed to his chest _just in case_. “That's not a surprise. You get on better with kids than you think. You tend to treat them like small adults who need a bit more supervision, kind of like the Doctor.”

A surprised laugh fell from her. “Except I don't need to worry about the Doctor seeing something he shouldn't. There's a surprisingly large number of non-child friendly stuff on the TARDIS and she seemed to find every single bit. Were the chains yours or –?”

“Definitely _or_ ,” he said. “I haven't had time to pick up new restraints yet, or the need to be honest. Most of my former lovers had their own.” His face lit up as they passed into the building. “Oh, exciting, I get to pick out brand new stuff. Do you think Mickey'd be up for it?”

“I actively try not to think about what Mickey might or might not be up for,” she told him, seriously. “Morning, Tiama. I love what you've done with your hair. New colour rinse?”

“Tried it at the weekend,” Tiama said, patting the hair that grew out from behind her ears and fell over her shoulders in neat curls. “I'm not sure I'm going to keep it. The colour wasn't as bright as I wanted.”

Jack eyed the colours. “Did you try lightening your hair first?”

“I'm sorry?”

“If you have dark hair then you need to create a lighter base first,” he explained. “Something with bleach in it but make sure you're careful when you buy it, you don't want your hair to break apart.”

Tiama bobbed her head, filing the information away in her mind and grinned at him, warm and welcoming in a way that helped settle his nerves. “Thanks, handsome stranger. I'll keep that in mind. He with you, Zoe?”

“Yeah, we've got an appointment with Yatta.” She removed her client's pass and Jack's guest one, handing them over. “How did you date go the other night?”

“No go, they were looking for something different,” Tiama said, scanning the cards and inputting information about Jack to make sure the security system registered him as friendly and didn't attempt to launch him out of the lift as had – occasionally – been known to happen. “It's not that I mind it not going well but I was pretty clear about what I was looking for so I don't know why they didn't check my profile more clearly.”

“Maybe they just liked the look of you,” Zoe said, leaning across the counter, and Jack rolled his eyes. For all that she went on about his flirting, she was just as bad as he was. “But sorry it didn't work out. There's always next time.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, handing the cards back. “Have a good appointment. You too –” her eyes flicked to the computer screen and then to Jack. “Captain.”

“Jack's fine,” he assured her, waving as Zoe wheeled him past. “Nice to meet you.”

Moving through the security checkpoint that beeped a reassuring green at them, they made their way across the polished floor and into a glass lift that reminded Zoe of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. She scanned their cards across the entry pad and their floor number appeared above their heads as they slid into a slow, smooth glide up to the top of the building where Yatta's offices lay. Jack peered out of the glass lift and looked out over the sparkling blue sea, imagining the others enjoying the same boat ride he had taken a year earlier. He hoped Mickey was finding it in himself to either enjoy himself or sleep.

“You must hate this,” he said.

“What?”

He rapped his knuckles against the glass. “Giving you a spot of vertigo, is it?”

“I've found focusing on the horizon helps, but thanks so much for reminding me,” she said, dryly. “I can't imagine why I volunteered to come with you today.”

“You didn't so much volunteer as tell everyone how it was going to be,” Jack said with great fondness. “And I appreciate it.”

“You can shut up, like I was going to let anyone else do this.” The doors pinged and she hurried out. He was treated to a graceful pirouette and some French swear words when she remembered him, doubling back to grab his wheelchair with an easy grin. “Not a word.”

“My lips are sealed,” he promised.

Yatta's offices were nothing like what he was expecting. His experiences of therapy came from mandated sessions with therapist associated with the Time Agency; the sessions usually took place in a bland room with cameras pointed at him to measure his vitals and record his facial expressions for analysis at a later date. Little thought had been given to his and other agents' comfort unlike Yatta's offices that breathed welcome and serenity as soon as they stepped through the double doors. The rooms were painted a soothing pastel colour and a gentle sound of the ocean was piped through high-quality speakers hidden behind large plants that helped keep the air clean and pure.

Behind the desk near the middle of the room was a large woman wearing a loud and wonderful orange dress that somehow managed to complement the blue hue of her skin. Looking up at the sound of their entrance, Yatta's receptionist and sometime security guard did a double take.

“Zoe, hey,” Sonja said, frowning even as she smiled. “Today's not Thursday.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zoe said, patting the top of Jack's head. “I'm not here for me today. This is my friend, Jack Harkness, he's the one with the appointment. I'm here for moral support and wheelchair pushing duties.”

Sonja's eyes fell to Jack. “She doing a good job?”

“Moderate,” he said. “She talks a lot.”

Sonja laughed and pointed a finger at him. “You, I like you.”

He beamed.

“You two may as well take a seat,” she told them. “Yatta's running a little late with her current client. Do you mind waiting?”

“Depends,” Zoe said, eyeing the clear bowl on the counter hopefully. “Can I have a lollipop?”

“Honestly,” Sonja said, amused, holding the bowl out to her and watching as she stuck her hand inside, rooting around for her favourite flavour before changing her mind at the last minute and selecting another one. “Mr Harkness?”

“No, I'm good, thank you.”

“You sure?” Zoe asked, unwrapping the bright blue lollipop, cover crinkling as she screwed it up and put it in her pocket. “I always feel great after one.”

Sonja set the bowl back down and rested her chin on her head, looking at Zoe as though she had just come to a realisation about something that was going to cause her a lot of amusement in the coming minutes.

“You know that they're laced with a psychoactive drug, don't you?” She asked. “Like, that information has been given to you at a time when you were ready to digest and acknowledge it, right?”

Zoe's mouth froze around the lollipop, tongue already blue, eyes wide. “What?”

Jack twisted and looked up at her. “Have you been drugging yourself all this time?”

She shook her head and looked between him and Sonja. “Why did no one tell me this? I feel this is a thing I should've been told. Sonja, why didn't you tell me?”

“I told the Doctor after your first appointment,” Sonja said with a small shrug, smile growing. “I assumed he told you.”

Her eyes went wide and then narrowed, a furious expression pacing over her features. “I'm going to _murder_ him when I get home.”

“Please don't,” Sonja requested. “The fallout would require me to fill out paperwork and interview with the authorities. It's really boring and time consuming to do that.”

“Do you have to do that often?” Jack asked, curious.

“More often than you'd think,” she said.

He bobbed his head, interested, before turning back to Zoe. “You know better than to eat something like this. What were you thinking?”

“I trusted the Doctor.” She pulled the lollipop out and squinted at it, suspicious. “Which, now that I think about it, is the cause of many of my problems.” She looked to Sonja, lips blue from the sweet. “May I have an ingredients list, please? I like to be specific when I'm yelling at him otherwise he'll find a get around and that annoys me.”

When Yatta emerged from her office ten minutes later, escorting an emotionally exhausted client out with a comforting hand on their back, her eyes fell upon Zoe sitting cross legged on the sofa, slip on shoes resting neatly by Jack's wheelchair, pouring over the ingredients list with her glasses tipped off the edge of her nose. It was hardly the most unusual thing she had come across Zoe doing – that remained her attempt at juggling that ended in a sprained ankle, a mild concussion, and a lecture about using heavy glass paperweights as toys – but it was still unusual to see. Gently guiding her new client towards Sonja, who held out the bowl of lollipops towards him, she turned back to Zoe and the man that she immediately knew was Jack Harkness. Even without the pre-made appointment, she would be able to know it was him based off the years of stories Zoe had told her.

He was exactly as described: devastatingly handsome.

“Hello, Zoe,” Yatta greeted, smoothing her jumper out. “Everything all right?”

“I'm being drugged against my will.” Zoe peered over the top of her glasses at her, and Yatta realised it was one of _those_ days. “Not sure how I feel about it right now.”

Yatta merely nodded. “And who's drugging you?”

“You are.”

That took her by surprise. “I am?”

“She's just discovered that the lollipops are laced with a psychoactive drug,” Sonja said helpfully from the front desk where the new client paused in the process of taking one. “The Doctor never mentioned it to her apparently.” She started when she saw the client removing their hand. “Oh, don't worry, it's nothing bad, just a calmative. Very helpful after exhausting sessions. Go ahead and have one. Here, I think this is sea urchin.”

Zoe unfolded her legs and stood up, stretching. “Just put it on the list of things to talk about for next time because I've had a doozy of a week, I'm not going to lie. It's been one thing after another, and Mickey keeps snapping at me, which I get but it still sucks, and Jack was kidnapped, which we definitely need to talk about because that was absolutely awful but –” she released a long sigh and shook her head, smiling. “Hi there.”

Yatta smiled. “Hello.”

“Good week?”

“Better than yours by the sounds of it,” she said. “Do you need an earlier appointment? I can fit you in today if you'd like?”

“Nah, I'm good, but thanks,” Zoe replied with a wave of her hand that settled on Jack's shoulder. “This is my friend Jack of the kidnapping fame.” Jack waggled his fingers in greeting. “Jack, this is Yatta En-Lei, the woman who's helped put me back together after literally every bad thing in my life.”

“Hello,” Jack said. “It's nice to finally meet you. I've heard lots about you.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“Of course,” he said. “Zoe sings your praises. Calls you a witch.”

“In the complimentary sense, that is,” she clarified. “But, never mind me, I'll wait out here and not touch anything I'm not supposed to.”

“That sounds very specific,” Jack said.

“We've had to implement a few Zoe-specific rules,” Yatta admitted. “It's not too bad when it's just her but when the Doctor comes along to wait for her...” she looked at the wall where a scorch mark had once lay. “Needless to say, the rules you think are clear could always use a bit more clarity where Zoe Tyler is concerned.”

“Offensive, yet true,” she agreed. “I like to touch things.”

Jack shook his head. “The Doctor's rubbing off on you.”

“Only hold an intervention when I start licking things,” she said.

“Duly noted.”

Jack squeezed Zoe's hand before placing his on the wheels and guiding himself into Yatta's office, the strain in his arms a testament to how far he still needed to go in his recovery.

The combination of drugs he was taking to ease the pain, help regrow his ear, and fix the various things that Raphio and the others had broken left his body feeling like an empty vessel; the smallest things took the longest time, even going to the bathroom by himself was now a ten-minute ordeal that he refused to compromise on. He understood Zoe's reluctance to accept help after Mondas better now that it was difficult to get himself a glass of water without first mentally preparing himself for it, and it made him all the more appreciative of her company; unlike the others, she let him do what he wanted and only stepped in when his frustration began to peak.

As the door shut behind them and the sounds of Zoe's voice and Sonja's laughter were extinguished when a sound-field was enacted, Jack's nerves returned full force. Despite the fact it was a lovely, spacious office with plenty of natural light and comfortable-looking furniture _and_ knowing that Zoe spent an hour or two every other week in this very room and generally came back from her sessions with a bounce in her step and a grin in the corners of her mouth, it had been years since he had done any sort of therapy. He had wanted to prepare for the session but had been unable to because how did someone prepare for therapy designed to help him come to term with torture and past traumas.

Clearing his throat, he busied himself by bracing his hands on the arms of the wheelchair and lifting his body weight up and over to the sofa. Rather like Zoe, Yatta didn't offer to help; she waited unobtrusively off to the side until he was settled, and only then did she take her own seat.

“Cup of tea?” Yatta offered, tapping a button and a china tea set made an appearance on the table between them through what Jack assumed was a transmat. “Zoe gifted me a set of Earth-based teas to celebrate the birth of my children and tends to keep me nicely stocked whenever she stops by these days.”

“That'd be nice, thank you.”

“She tells me that in some cultures on Earth there are entire ceremonies based around the making of tea,” she said, leaning forward to add teabags to the pot that steamed with hot water. “I've always found that quite interesting. Here we don't have such things with food or drink. For us, those things are necessities in life so why bother making a big deal out of them? We prefer to celebrate those things that bring us joy or grief.”

“Like children,” Jack said.

Her smile was warm. “Exactly. Do you have children?”

“No.” He took a fine-boned cup from her and curled both his hands around it, afraid of shattering it should he drop it. “Not yet.”

“I've got seven,” Yatta said, and his eyebrows shot up, making her laugh. “Yes, Zoe mentioned that was a large number for your people. Two are from my body, five are from my group, but we don't differentiate here. Children are children are children, no?”

“I agree,” he said, sipping his tea that turned out to be ginger. “Busy house though.”

Yatta laughed. “You don't know the half of it.”

“I bet.”

Yatta crossed one leg over the other and brought her tea to her mouth, savouring the taste, before setting it to one side and looking at him “Zoe gave me a general overview of your situation when she called to make this appointment. While the details themselves are rather unique, the actual content is sadly not.”

Jack lined his feet evenly together before responding. “I suppose you're used to unique situations with Zoe.”

Lines appeared on her face when she smiled. “She does present a bit of a challenge when it comes to wrapping my mind around the temporal complexity of her life, but it's been nearly six years now, I'm used to it.”

“Good,” he said, carefully placing his tea down before sliding his hands over his thighs, a nervous tic he thought he had trained out of himself years earlier. “That's good.”

“Why don't you tell me what happened?” Yatta suggested in a manner that led Jack to believe she would be happy talking about tea blends if that was what he wanted. “I'd like to hear about it from your point of view.”

“I was tortured,” he said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter, deciding that since therapy seemed to have done wonders for Zoe's state of mind, he had nothing to lose by trying it once; if it didn't work, no one was going to force him to keep going. “My past caught up with me and my old friends – colleagues, but people I thought of as friends – they tortured me for three weeks before I escaped with the help of my old partner and found my way back to the others.”

Yatta's gaze never wavered. “That must've been a horrible experience. How do you feel right now in this moment?”

“Weak, tired, sick,” Jack said, resisting the urge to rub his forehead where a low pressure was beginning to build. “If I'm not sleeping, I'm high on painkillers, which I hate. They always leave me feeling muggy but I don't want to complain because what's the point? I need to take them before if I don't then the pain's unbearable.” He rubbed his thighs again. “There was a lot of damage done and the Doctor's not able to fix it all at once. It's why I'm in the wheelchair. I can't actually walk at the moment because of my knees. They need replacing, and he's put in a temporary graft but we're going to a specialist later today to get them sorted properly. The plan's to have me up and moving by Jackie's birthday.”

He wasn't sure that was going to be possible and he hated it.

He had been looking forward to her birthday since Christmas.

“That sounds incredibly difficult to experience,” Yatta said.

“It's definitely not the best I've ever felt,” he admitted. “Not the worst either, surprisingly.” He lifted his tea to his mouth and took a bracing mouthful, the silence of the room broken only by the _clink_ as he set the cup down once more. “And, before you ask, my mental health isn't great, but I'm sure you know that because why else would I be here? If I wasn't given things to help me sleep, I wouldn't. I was having nightmares before this happened anyway and I'm worried about sleeping unaided because of what I might see _and_ what I might do.”

“What do you mean by that?” She asked, looking at him even as she made small, barely noticeable notes on an e-pad built into her chair. “'What I might do'.”

Jack looked out the window. “At Christmas...I hurt Mickey my – my boyfriend. He wasn't then but he is now, and I didn't mean to. I was having a nightmare and he woke me up. I –” his hand flexed. “I choked him before realising what I was doing. I worry about that happening again, especially now we're together. There's more of a risk of it happening.”

Yatta listened and Jack understood why Zoe liked her. There wasn't even a suggestion of judgement or condemnation in the air, only quiet understanding and acceptance. He felt some of the tension begin to ease from his shoulders.

“There are ways to deal with that,” she assured him. “Ways that'll make you and Mickey feel safer sharing the same bed if that's something that you want. For now though, I feel that maybe recent events aren't truly what's causing you grief right now. Would you say that's true?”

“Obviously they're a factor,” he said. “I don't enjoy being tortured.”

Her mouth curved.

“No one does. What I mean is that when I normally help guide clients through accepting what happened to them and finding peace, the torture aspect is predominant in their minds and feelings.” She tapped her fingers against the armrest. “When most are tortured, the feelings of helplessness generated by the situation tend to frighten people. Being so completely out of control can lead to feelings of weakness and a lack of safety. It's often a sharp, unpleasant reminder that you're not always safe. Listening to you speak though, I don't get that same feeling.”

“I suppose I've always known that,” Jack said with a small shrug. “The Time Agency trains us to know that, at any moment, we could be killed or worse. It's not the first time I've been tortured. The pain's always annoying but I suppose it doesn't bother me, not that much.”

Yatta made a small, interested sound in her throat. “And what does bother you then?”

Jack opened his mouth only to close it. He wondered how much Zoe had told her about him, what elements of his life she had mentioned to Yatta in order to prepare her for the session, and his chest crawled with discomfort.

“Raphio...” his mouth turned dry, heart squeezing painfully. “He told me some things about what I'd done.”

“Things that took you by surprise?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I – er – I'm missing some memories. Two years' worth. I always thought that the Agency had taken them from me for whatever reason but now I know I took them from myself. I don't know why, not really. Raphio said I'd destroyed the Agency, killed people to do it, but I don't know why I did it. No one told me why.”

“If you don't remember, how can you be sure that you did what they said?” She asked. “Forgive me, but the people who chose to hurt you can hardly be considered reliable.”

His mouth twitched. “Agreed, but my partner said it too. He's the one who broke me out of prison, got me to safety. _Him_ I trust. He verified what the others told me. Said it'd break my heart if I knew what I was missing.”

“I suppose the truth, right now, isn't relevant,” Yatta said. “What is relevant though is how you feel about these missing memories. What do you want to do about them?”

Jack rubbed his mouth and frowned at his feet.

That was the question that had been on his mind since he woke up in Hong Kong without a clue.

“I think...” he began, testing the idea out in the safe space of Yatta's office where he wouldn't be beholden to anything should he change his mind later. “I think I want them back. For better or worse, they're mine. I need to know what I did and why I did it.”

“Even though you allegedly took them from yourself?”

He swallowed and nodded. “Even though.”

“Okay then,” Yatta said, a soft smile warming him through. “Then that's where we start.”

* * *

The Doctor fought a yawn as he opened the door to his bedroom. The last few days had been a lot, and now that Lorna was back where she belonged with parents who were overwhelmed at seeing her again and Jack recovering nicely from his knee surgery, he was ready to fall into bed for a few hours of deep sleep. His plan came to an abrupt stop though when he found Zoe sitting cross legged in the middle of their bed folding clean laundry. The general upkeep of their lives had fallen to the wayside during Jack's absence and they were slowly getting themselves back together. The kitchen was getting cleaner the more time Jackie spent in it, and he might have felt guilty about her cleaning up their mess but she seemed to enjoy herself as it gave her the opportunity to cheerfully complain about his household management skills.

“Hey you,” Zoe said, smiling at him as she folded a pair of his boxers. “Jack all tucked away?”

“With his devoted nurse at his side,” the Doctor said, shutting the door behind him and shrugging out of his coat. He hung it up on the coat hanger Zoe had installed a few weeks ago, wielding a drill in a manner that made his hearts flop with worry as he wasn't entirely sure she had known what she was doing. “Mickey missed his calling.”

She laughed. “Make sure you tell him that. He can snap at you instead.”

“He doesn't mean it.”

“I know, I know,” she said, clucking her tongue when she came across one of her T-shirts that had been placed in the wash inside out. “How did the operation go?”

“Really well, actually.” The Doctor left the door to the bathroom open so he could speak with her clearly, peeling off his clothes that felt uncomfortable after a long day's use. He lifted the lid of the toilet seat up with his foot, taking care of the most pressing business first. “The surgeon had to completely replace both knees. It wasn't just from the torture but he's had a lot of wear and tear on them over the years and they would've needed replacing anyway, we just got ahead of the game.”

“That's good,” she said. “What's recovery looking like?”

Flushing the toilet and washing his hands, he turned his attention to his hair. “Well, he won't be dancing anytime soon. We're going to have to take it nice and slow for at least a month while everything sets into place. I was thinking we could head back to London sooner rather than later to make sure we've got at least a week of peace and quiet before your mum's birthday.”

“That's a good idea.” Zoe frowned, one striped sock in her hand but the other one missing in action. “Although, so much for your plans.”

“My plans?”

“Of celebrating my thirtieth on my actual birthday,” she said with a grin, finding the sock in the pocket of her freshly washed jeans. “What's the saying? Make a plan and God laughs?”

“Something like that,” the Doctor said, running a comb through his hair and deciding he needed to spend some time in the morning attending to it as it felt dry and dirty. “But, no matter, you're thirty when you're thirty, which is tomorrow as a matter of fact.”

She laughed. “Is it really? That's the definition of sneaking up on me.”

Brushing his teeth quickly, he emerged from the bathroom in his boxers and knelt on the bed, leaning over to kiss her. She hummed against his mouth, a smile stretching.

“Sorry it won't be a better birthday,” he apologised, kissing her again before pulling back. “I had plans. Good plans, _great_ plans, but plans no more.”

“It's really fine,” Zoe said with a wide smile, eyes dragging over the bare expanse of his shoulders and back as he searched for his pyjamas. “I appreciate the attempted effort but Jack's safe and sound, that's all that matters to me. Let's not make a fuss tomorrow. We can celebrate it on the normal day since we'll be there with fish and chips or something. See if Harriet's free to come along too.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said, shimmying into his pyjama bottoms and reaching for his shirt.

“Nope.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Leave the shirt off.”

His curious gaze turned interested, and she pressed her lips together to hide her grin, failing miserably. A waggle of his eyebrows was enough to set her off and she laughed, throwing the balled up socks at him. Snatching it from the air, he launched it back at her, bouncing it off her forehead, her laugh deepening when he tackled her to the bed and rubbed his stubble against the soft, sensitive skin of her neck.

“No, wait, the washing!”

“Can be washed again,” he reminded her, nipping at her jaw, enjoying the way her body wriggled beneath his. He pressed one knee on the bed between them and caught her hands, lifting them up by her head, holding them in place. Her grin was a wide, infectious thing and he felt himself grinning back at her. “Got you.”

“It seems that you've caught me,” Zoe said, eyes dancing with delight. “Whatever are you going to do with me?”

“I've got a few ideas,” the Doctor told her, lowering his head and kissing her, eyes closing and body melting against hers. Zoe, at the end of a long, hard road, was the perfect balm to his troubled mind. “Are you tired?”

“Not for this,” she said, softly, pressing her wrists against his hold and he immediately released her, rewarded with one hand in his hair and the other sliding across his shoulders, hauling him closer. “Never this.”

He caught her mouth and used his hands to inch her baggy jumper off of her, enjoying the slow, dragging reveal of her skin, pausing when the material was bunched under her breasts to ease himself down and press his nose into her abdomen near the swimming pool-inflicted scar that he enjoyed tracing with his tongue. Her muscles twitched under his mouth, the warmth of his breath making the fine, barely noticeable hair that covered humans stand up on the back of tiny bumps that rippled across her smooth skin. A press of his teeth against the surface made her hips twitch, thumb swiping across his forehead, her fingers tightening in his hair, breath coming with a little more difficulty.

“Stop it,” she grumbled.

“Stop what?”

“Teasing me,” was the complaint he expected. “It's been _days_.”

The Doctor huffed a laugh against her skin. “So needy. Have I been spoiling you?”

“Not spoiling,” Zoe said, running her fingers through his hair, comfort and pleasure spooling through him. “More getting me accustomed to a different quality of expectation.”

His laugh turned louder. “Is that your way of telling me I need to have sex with you more often?”

“Well, if you insist,” she said. “Get up here. It's difficult to kiss you down there.”

“I find it rather easier to kiss you down here actually,” he told her, nudging at the line of her leggings with his nose and her reaction pushed him onto his back, the ceiling above her. “Oh, hello. Fancy meeting you here.”

Sitting astride him, Zoe rid herself of her jumper and bra in two swift, practiced movements before leaning over him, hair creating a cocoon of privacy. The Doctor's mouth opened under hers, hands sliding up her back, enjoying the smooth expanse of her skin and the way her muscles shifted under his touch, the heat of her body warming his. Tasting the orange she had eaten an hour ago, he tried to chase it back into her mouth, her thumb rubbing over one of his nipples, his hand slipping down to hold her more firmly against him when something beeped. Ignoring the sound, the Doctor pressed up against her, dragging his mouth from hers to let her breathe before kissing her again, arousal dripping through him inch by inch, when the _beep_ sounded once more, distracting Zoe.

“That's not me,” she said, sitting up despite his groan of protest.. “Since when do people text you?”

“Your mum, Sarah Jane, Jack but he only texts me dirty pictures even though I've asked him to stop,” the Doctor said, pulling himself up so that he had easier access to her breasts, hoping to pull her attention back to him. “ _You_ , even though you never text me dirty pictures despite me asking nicely.”

Her eyes narrowed in amusement. “You wouldn't know what to do if I sent you dirty pictures. You'd panic and give me a lecture about the dangers of sending pictures like that over an unsecured network.”

“I would not,” he protested, groaning when she climbed off him, his phone beeping again, a reminder that he needed to throw it into the nearest sun at the first opportunity. Normally Zoe's phone was the one interrupting them but she was better about remembering to put it on silent when they were in their bedroom than he was. “Zo, leave it and come back. We were getting to the good part.”

“I'm just putting it on silent, you big baby,” she said, dipping her hand into his coat pockets and rummaging only to yank her hand back out and stare at him, aghast. “Do you –? Is there a _snake_ in your pockets?”

“Hortense,” he nodded, leaning back with his hands tucked under his head. “Took her from the garden. She's not poisonous, don't worry, just looking for somewhere warm to sleep.”

She sighed – a sigh he had come to associate with her fond exasperation of his less-than-human behaviours – and carefully searched his pockets for his phone.

“Got it,” Zoe said, triumphantly, face scrunching. “Is that whipped cream?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Definitely not,” she said, tapping in _1234_ as his access code that frustrated her every time she used his phone for how simplistic it was. “Someone called Behrouz Tofig- Tofa- I don't know how to say it.”

“Tofighian,” the Doctor said, the name flowing smoothly from his mouth. “Behrouz Tofighian.”

“Thank you,” she said, turning the phone onto silent and setting it on the side instead of risking another encounter with Hortense. “They're sending you a mountain of messages. Have you decided to have an affair?”

His eyes rolled. “Your lack of jealousy is a little hurtful.”

Zoe laughed, climbing back on top of him. “I'm not jealous because I know you'd never. Who's your new friend, or old friend? Am I about to get the chance to meet another friend of yours? If so, I'd really like it to be Ace.”

“Only because she blows stuff up,” he said, making space for her. “And he's not a friend. He's a specialist in memory retrieval from the 51st century. He's actually the person who invented the memory wipe that Jack used. I needed to ask him a few questions about the specifications of the machine and it seems he's got back to me, which is very helpful.”

A frown crawled onto her face. “Why are you looking into that?”

“Jack talked to me about it while we were waiting for the surgeon to get ready,” the Doctor said, brushing his fingers beneath her breasts and down her stomach. “He's decided that he wants to get his memory back and has finally asked for my help to do it. Honestly, I thought he was never going to ask and although I didn't want to push the matter, after what Mickey said about his nightmares, I was worried I might have to. Those memory wipes are foul things and should be banned.” His face brightened. “Fun fact, they actually are by the 60th century. Should've done it sooner but you humans are an odd bunch, always willing to take risks when you shouldn't.”

“Wait.” Zoe sat back up and pushed her hair from her eyes, holding it from her face as she looked down at him, the Doctor realising that something had shifted in her mood but unable to put his finger on what. “You're going to get Jack's memory back?”

He nodded. “That's the plan.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Round about now, I suppose,” he said. “I need your help anyway. He –”

“How?” His mouth slowly closed on the word she had interrupted him on, and he looked up at her. “How are you going to give him his memory's back? My understanding is that they're pressed deep into the hippocampus and that by trying to bring them to the surface, there's the risk that that part of the brain will break.”

“A small one,” the Doctor said, hands settling on her hips. “And I definitely wouldn't let any doctor have a go, but I've got a good idea of what I'm doing and the technology onboard to stop any damage. I managed to keep your brain nice and squishy, didn't I?”

Zoe rolled off him and stood up.

“This isn't a joke,” she said, anger sparking off her and surprising him as she grabbed her jumper and pulling it back on. “Jack's brain isn't a toy you can just play with.”

“Hey,” he frowned. “Of course it's not a toy. You know I'm not going to do anything that hurts him.”

“By messing with his brain, you might just do that.” The sleeves of her jumper were pushed angrily up to her elbows and she pulled at the folded laundry, forcing him to roll to the side to let her get at it, and he shifted, sitting on the edge of the bed, confused. “It's better to let the memories come out by themselves. Forcing it is just unnecessary and risks damaging his long-term memory.”

“Zoe, I know all this,” the Doctor said, wincing when she yanked the dresser drawer a little too hard and it fell to the floor, narrowly missing her bare feet. She swore but he made no effort to help her, aware that when she was irritated she didn't like extra hands getting in the way. “But given what Jack learnt from Raphio, knowing what those two years contain may be the difference between life and death for him. I can't guarantee that no one else is coming after him, and I know you were thorough with your virus but the Papal Mainframe had a hand in his abduction and they've got layers and layers of backup systems for backup systems. I'd rather err on the side of caution.”

“This isn't erring on the side of caution,” she argued, fitting the drawer back in and dumping the clean clothes inside. She pushed it shut with a loud _thud_ and faced him, hands resting on her waist. “This is opening a yogurt pot by blowing the lid off: unnecessary, messy, and potentially flammable.”

“Okay, what's happening here?” He asked, gesturing between them. “This feels like a fight but I don't understand why. What's going on with you?”

“I just think that this is something that shouldn't be rushed,” Zoe said. “And if Jack's set on doing it then we need to get an actual, proper professional to do it for him. Someone we vet. You say the memory wipes were banned in the 60th century, right? They must've refined the technology to recover lost memories by then. We go there. I don't think this is something you should be doing.”

He frowned. “Is this a lack of confidence in my abilities, or –?”

“You're not actually a doctor, Doctor.”

“Well, not the medical kind, admittedly,” he agreed. “But you know that's not how it worked back home. My education is definitely comparable with a doctor's, and it's not like you to be a snob about degrees.”

“ _Don't_.” The word snapped out, surprising both of them with the anger there. Her hand curled into a fist against her chest. “This isn't about your lack of official medical training or whatever. This is about the fact that, historically, Time Lords haven't exactly taken the greatest of care of the human brains in their charge. I'm not saying you would ever do anything to hurt Jack – the thought's never crossed my mind – but I am saying that perhaps some long-buried indoctrination about the inferiority of human brains might create a few problems down the line.”

The Doctor's mouth fell open and he gaped at her. “What the hell are you accusing me of?”

“I'm not accusing you of anything.”

“It sounds like you are,” he said, slow licks of anger beginning to warm his chest. “You just stood there and said that my speciest attitude might hurt Jack.”

“I didn't call you a speciest,” Zoe said, clipping the words out. “All I said was –”

“Oh, I heard you the first time, love, feel free not to repeat yourself.” The Doctor stood and grabbed his own shirt, yanking it on over his head, preferring not to argue with her when he was half dressed. “I can't believe that just came out your mouth. You know me. You know me better than anyone.”

Her hand pressed over her eyes before dragging down her face.

“You're deliberately misunderstanding me,” Zoe complained. “Your education on Gallifrey reinforced the idea of Time Lord supremacy over all other species, including the uninitiated Gallifreyans. I'm not saying that's your attitude now, of course it isn't, I wouldn't be with you if it was; I'm just pointing out that maybe the person who pokes around in Jack's brain should be the person with the unbiased education.”

The Doctor felt the world shift around him, a sensation he associated with arguing with Zoe, and he looked around for something to grab onto. Finding nothing, he focused on her and took in the sharp, stiff lines of her body before his eyes drifted past her and onto her discarded neurobiology journals, a thought flaring to life.

“What's this about?” He asked. “And no evasions this time.”

She stared at him. “What?”

He strode past her and grabbed her journals that had post-it notes sticking out of them, scribbled references in her untidy handwriting telling her to cross references with other books and authors. Raising it, he gave it a small shake in her direction.

“Ever since I got back from the Game Station, I've noticed you've picked up an interest in neurobiology,” the Doctor said. “At first I thought it was just something you studied at MIT but every time I'd ask you about it, you change the subject. I didn't notice it at first but it's like you're edging around the truth for reasons I don't get, and now you're picking a fight with me –”

“I'm not picking a fight.”

“Yes, you bloody are!” Her eyes snapped to him, nostrils flaring in disapproval at the raised tone, and he swallowed it back, immediately remorseful. “What's this really about? And don't palm me off with some rubbish excuse. Give me the truth, Zoe.”

“Fine. _Fine_.” She snatched the journal out of his hand and threw it back onto the chair where it came from. “I don't want you to be the one who works on Jack's brain because the last time Time Lords did anything regarding memory repression on a human, that human ended with Swiss cheese for memory retention.”

He shook his head. “I don't know what that means.”

“Of course you don't,” Zoe said, sounding almost disappointed in him. “When you were taken to Gallifrey for your trial, you told me that Jamie and Zoe had their memories wiped, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Well, I met Zoe Heriot four years ago when I was searching for a way to save you and Jack,” she told him. “I thought an astrophysicist who could give you a run for your money was just the sort of woman I needed to help me. I found her in a care home in New Berlin on Luna. Whatever the Time Lords did to her...” she looked away, rubbing her mouth. “She drifts in and out of her memories. Sometimes she's there, sometimes she's not. Remembering you _hurt_ her, and I don't know if Jamie's suffering the same, I've been too afraid to look. So, I'm studying neurobiology because I want to find a way to help her and fix what your people did to her.”

The Doctor remembered Zoe Heriot – it was impossible for him not too; he remembered all of his friends for better or for worse – and the last he had seen of her was as a young woman with her future ahead of her and the ability to change her world at her fingertips. His stomach shifted, nausea climbing through him, as he took in what Zoe was telling him. Slowly, he sat on the chair that contained her books and journals, the sharp edges of spines digging into the back of his thighs, but he ignored the brief pain and discomfort. Zoe remained silent for which he was grateful, the sound of her voice normally a pleasant thing now turned infuriating, and he rubbed his eyes before looking up to find that she had seated herself on the side of their bed facing him.

“Why have you never told me about this?” The Doctor asked, settling his hands on his knees, attempting to reign in his anger at her keeping secrets. “You've had months to tell me. That night you rescued us, you could've told me then. You'd already told me about Liz by that point, why not tell me this as well?”

“Doctor...” his name fell from her on a sigh, eyes shuttering, and anger leaped in his chest that she was tired when he was the one who had been kept in the dark.

“Don't do that,” he said, her eyes snapping open. “Don't brush me off. Stop pushing me away. For Rassilon's sake, we share a bed. We sleep next to each other. We talk every single day. At some point in the last few months, you could've found the time to tell me that one of my friends is sick.”

“And watch your hearts break?” Zoe asked him. “Watch you spiral into guilt over something you had no control over?”

“I don't need you to manage me,” the Doctor snapped. “I can handle my own emotions without you treating me like I'm a child.”

“That isn't what I'm doing,” she protested, colour slicing across her cheeks. “And what would've been the point in telling you? It's not like you can do anything about it. You can't go riding to save her because there's not enough of her to be saved, at least I don't think so.”

“So what?” His laugh sent cold water trickling down her spine. “You were going to save her? Is that what all this neurobiology interest has been about? You wanted to find some way to put her back together? That's what you said, isn't it? You want to fix what my people broke.”

“I want to try, yes,” Zoe said, sitting up straighter. “But I'm aware of my limitations –”

The Doctor scoffed a laugh. “Don't give me that. If you were aware of your limitations, Jack and I would still be on the Game Station. You're as reckless as I am, the only difference between us is that I'm honest about it. You're a hypocrite.”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Here you are going on at me because I want to help Jack _like he asked_ while you're here learning an entire branch of science to help a woman you don't know because you want to feel superior to the Time Lords,” he accused.

“How dare you?” Zoe rose to her feet, anger and offence making it impossible for her to stay still. “Despite what your giant ego tells you, not everyone is eager to claim superiority over the bloody Time Lords. Sometimes it's really just about doing the right thing.”

“Which is what I'll be doing with Jack,” the Doctor said, cheeks heating from the anger running through him. “I don't need you to tell me what I can do when our friend asks for my help. He came to me, not you.”

“So I can't tell you when you're might be acting hastily?” She demanded. “Tell me then, what is it that you want from me in this relationship? Do you want me to go all doe eyed and simpering and all _yes, Doctor, of course Doctor_.” His eye twitched at the simpering voice she put on, her mockery fanning the flames of his anger. “Or do you want an actual partner?”

“I want someone who doesn't lie to me.”

“I haven't lied!”

“You certainly haven't told me the truth,” he argued, standing and pointing a finger at her chest. “You kept what you found out about Zoe to yourself. You didn't share that with me. That was a decision that _you_ made for me. That's not acting like a partner, that's acting like a carer.”

“I knew it would hurt you,” Zoe told him. “And I didn't want that to happen.”

“Oh, well, congratulations then, job well done,” the Doctor said, sarcastically. “Not only am I hurt about Zoe but I also get the added benefit of knowing the woman I love has hidden things from me only to use it as a weapon to make a point.”

“That isn't what I did,” she said, frustration drawing her hands into fists at her side. It bled over into her body and she turned, heaving an annoyed breath, before looking over her shoulder at him. “What do you want from me right now?”

“Right now?” His mind worked, searching for a solution that would bring the argument to an end but his blood was running hot through his ears and the sight of her jaw set stubbornly and her eyes filled with frustration and annoyance only served to heighten those feelings within him. “Right now I need not to be around you.”

She blinked, surprised, and guilt bloomed within him at the sight of the hurt passing across her face before it disappeared.

“Right, okay, fine.” Zoe grabbed her phone and her book from her bedside table. “I'll go then.”

“Don't bother, I'll –”

“No,” she interrupted him, hand held between them as though trying to ward him off. “You haven't slept properly in days. You stay here, I'll go to my old room and sleep there tonight.”

“Zoe –”

Exhaustion swept over him, his hand shooting out to curl gently around her upper arm, to stop her from leaving, but she dodged him. Slipping past him, she left their room, and her absence immediately ached. Hollow and exhausted from their fight, the Doctor sank down onto the edge of their bed and let his head fall into his hands, frustration leaking from him now that she was no longer there to stoke it.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”


	34. Chapter 34

_ Powell Estate, _

_ Wednesday, January 31st 2007 _

Drew French swallowed back his annoyance at the traffic that was unusually congested even for the middle of the week, his up-to-date military software informing him there was an accident up ahead. Aware there was nothing he could do to speed the ride along, he touched the tip of his tongue to his top lip and twitched the heating, forcing his attention on anything that wasn't the half-naked woman in the backseat of his car. He lasted twenty-two seconds – seven more than the previous time – before his eyes slipped to the rearview mirror. The breath eased from him in a slow exhale and his mouth turned dry at the swathe of smooth skin that was on display. She was _beautiful._ And not beautiful in a way that most women were with their smiles and laughter and bright intelligence, but rather beautiful in a soul-deep way that made him want to be around her.

Brown eyes met his in the mirror.

Embarrassment spiked through him, foot slipping from the break, the car jerking as he stalled it _again_. Fire burned through his cheeks, forehead nearly pressed against the wheel, his hand shaking as he turned the key in the ignition and applied the handbrake so his foot didn't betray him again.

“Sorry, ma'am,” Drew said, mortified.

“Stop callin' me ma'am,” Rose Tyler said, fresh jumper held against her chest, uncertain whether she liked Drew's attention or not. “I'm not a _ma'am_ , I'm the opposite of a ma'am. I'm a –”

“Sir?”

The uncertainty fell away, and she grinned. “You're a cheeky sod, you know that, right?”

“I've been told once or twice,” Drew admitted, risking a glance back as she covered her nakedness with a cable knit jumper. Swallowed in an attempt to return moisture to his mouth, he focused his attention on the road and off the faded reflection of her in the windscreen. “If I'm not supposed to call you ma'am, what should I call you?”

“My name?” Rose pulled her hair free of her collar and scooped it up into a ponytail, ignoring the throbbing ache where she irritated her newly acquired bruises. “I know you UNIT types are big on rank but I don't have one, so Rose is fine.”

“Rose,” he repeated, enjoying the sound of it in her mouth when he had only ever called her it in his head. “Okay.”

“See.” Her head popped between the front seats, hand resting on the back of his seat, fingers close to his neck, and he stared determinedly ahead. “The world didn't fall apart because you called me by my name.”

“I don't know, ma'am, the night's still young.”

Her laughter was warm and intoxicating and it made him want to hear it again and again. An invitation to dinner sat on the tip of his tongue, shyness and fear stopping him from offering it.

She was _Rose Tyler_.

The likelihood of her being interested in a UNIT officer was slim to none, not when he had read the reports of what people got up to when they travelled with the Doctor – the things they saw, the people they met. Rose associated with kings, queens, pharaohs, and emperors, and Drew doubted she would find much interesting about a third-year UNIT officer who was working his way through the departments on rotation and kind of knew her sister. Given the complex nature of Zoe's life, Drew was surprised when she remembered his name at their book club every month and responded to his text messages when he dropped into the group chat what book they were reading that month. He didn't think for a second she had ever spoken about him with Rose and, if she had, what would she have said: _he's a good driver?_

No.

Drew rather get through his day without losing his dignity or gaining a memory that would soft broil him to sleep for the next twenty years when she inevitably rejected him.

“Did you have a good day, Rose?” He asked, only to grimace. As far as conversation starters went, he knew he had better, and he was relieved when the traffic started moving as it gave him an excuse to pretend he had said nothing. His mouth, on the other hand, had different ideas. “With everything?”

“Yeah, it wasn't bad,” Rose said, scooting down onto the seat to change her trousers and add more torment to his mind. “More excitin' than I thought, y'know? The Doctor's told me some stuff about workin' for you lot in the seventies an' it all sounded really borin', but it wasn't that bad, not really. Although, I can see why he'd hate it with all that paperwork.”

Drew swallowed. “Did you actually fill out any paperwork?”

“Nope,” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “I've got Zoe's birthday dinner to get to an' people seem to not want to annoy her. Don't know why that is. I've been annoyin' her for years. It's fun.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, we aren't related to her.”

“Lucky you,” Rose said, managing to twist herself into her jeans with a bit of effort. “What time is it?”

“6.47, ma'am.”

“ _Drew._ ”

“Sorry. _Rose_.”

Drew wet his lips at the roll of her eyes. Perhaps his brother was right and he did need to get out a little more if he was finding twenty minutes alone in the car with Rose Tyler difficult to manage. It wasn't as though he had a lot of free time on his hands though as UNIT kept him busy and dating at work was frowned upon if not outright forbidden. They were technically a military organisation at the end of the day with the required reporting structure, yet it was also understood that it was difficult finding someone with the same life experiences who would understand if one day he was in London driving VIPs and then the next fighting aliens in Lima.

He had tried dating a few of the scientific personnel – a doctor, a biologist, an engineer –, only for those relationships to fizzle out after a few months after he found it too complicated to manage the relationship at work.

Rose Tyler though was different, like no one he had ever met before, which was saying a lot considering the type of people he did meet through UNIT. Feeling the urge to look back once more, he fought it for as long as he was able – twenty-five seconds that time –, fresh embarrassment swept through him when he found her fully dress and watching him in the rearview mirror.

She wasn't at all like her sister.

Drew liked Zoe Tyler. He thought she was smart and extremely attractive with a wicked sense of humour as well, but there was always a tired edge clinging to her that he knew was down to the fact she had been working hard to save the Doctor and their friend Jack, their book club an excuse to relax for a few hours without the weight of everything on her shoulders. However, if he was honest with himself, she frightened him a little because someone who was willing to throw themselves into a four-year rescue mission with no hope of actual success and then actually achieve what she had set out to do was – in his mind – more than a little mad.

And not necessarily the good mad either.

Rose, though, was warm and friendly and had a fantastic laugh and beautiful smile that had made his stomach twist right from the first when he had met her three days ago on the corner of the Powell estate.

Through the grapevine of various informants they had planted around the estate in shops, pubs, and neighbouring flats – ostensibly to keep Jackie Tyler safe when her daughters weren't there, though really everyone knew it was a typical surveillance mission on the Doctor –, UNIT had heard the Doctor was in town. His return had come at an excellent time as there was a particularly thorny thread of energy readings the team under Dr Taylor were having trouble pinpoint and clarifying.

Not actually expecting _him_ to come, Colonel Mace had hoped for Zoe Tyler or Jack Harkness, whose profile at UNIT had risen after the report from the Christmas Invasion had been disseminated to the various departments. No one had known what to expect when Rose Tyler turned up in his place and told them that the Doctor and Zoe were arguing and Jack wasn't able to walk; since she was bored, she had decided to go in her sister's place. Mace had been minded to send her away, a quick word from the Brigadier stopping him in his tracks and encouraging him to give Rose unfettered access to UNIT and to let her take charge.

Drew considered that it had worked out for the best since she was the one to solve the issue with the energy readings with zero violence and a charm that he found infectious.

“I'm goin' to be late,” Rose said, climbing through the partition to sit in the passenger's seat, every cell in his body coming alive when she brushed against him. “After all the grief I give the Doctor about bein' on time, I'm goin' to be late. D'you have any idea how insufferable he's goin' to be when I rock up late?”

Drew's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Very?”

“ _Very.”_ She drew the seatbelt across her and looked out the window, knee bouncing as London inched by. “Although, this is all his fault. If he an' Zoe weren't havin' a barney he could've done this – or her – but _no_. The two of them have been at odds for days an' barely even speak to each other, which is super weird because normally the two of them are joined at them hip an' neither of them are sayin' what's goin' on.”

“Sounds difficult,” he said.

Rose glanced at him. “D'you have a sister?”

“Two and a brother.”

“God, I think I'd go mad with that many siblings,” she said with a small laugh. “Zoe's enough for me, y'know? She wasn't too bad when we were little but after everythin' –” she sighed, tiredness creeping in around the edges of her eyes and mouth. “I just wish she'd bloody tell me what the Doctor did this time. When they argue, it's like we all have to suffer an' I hate it.”

Drew risked a glance at her, enjoying her profile as she fiddled with the radio. “Perhaps it's private.”

“Private,” she snorted and shot him a look that made him flush. “There's no such thing as privacy on the TARDIS. We know everyone's business whether we want to or not. For a ship with infinite space, there's actually nowhere to hide. Sometimes I think...” she shook her head. “Never mind, it's stupid.”

“No, go on,” he urged. “You think what?”

“I'm tellin' you, it's stupid.”

“It's probably not,” Drew said, merging into another lane of traffic and changing gear as the pace started to increase. “You don't strike me as a stupid person.”

A light blush climbed to her cheeks. “You this sweet to all the people you drive?”

“Oh, yeah, the generals love it,” he said, a burst of bravery making him grin at her. “I'm bucking for a promotion, so a little sweet talk here, flattery there, you know how it is.”

Rose's eyes sparkled. “Clever.”

“Thank you,” Drew said, pleased with himself. “But you haven't finished your thought. I promise, I won't find it stupid or laugh.”

“All right, but I'm holdin' you to that,” she warned him. “You break your promise and I'll – I don't know – stick the Doctor on you or somethin'.”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” Rose stretched her legs out in front of her, toes tapping beneath the edge of the footwell, and she looped her hands over her stomach. “Okay. _Okay._ ”

“Okay?”

“Stop it,” she laughed, pride sweeping through him at making her laugh _again_. “So, the thing is, when Zoe an' the Doctor argue, it's like they're in their own world. The two of them have always been close, _always,_ but lately it feels like something's different. I keep thinkin'...” her face set into a frown as he turned off the main street by the McDonald's and onto the estate, slowly passing the TARDIS that he tried his best not to gawk at. “I keep thinkin' that there's somethin' else goin' on there. The way they are together sometimes. The laughin' an' the jokes an' the way his mood shifts with hers, I don't know, it's weird. It's like how Mickey was with me.”

“Mickey?”

“My ex,” she said, frowning out the window. “It's stupid, isn't it? The thought of Zoe an' the Doctor? I'm bein' stupid.”

“I don't know,” Drew mused, pulling the car to a stop outside the doors of Bucknall House where it was clear a drug deal was taking place. “I've never met the Doctor but Zoe strikes me as requiring a certain type of person to date. I don't think just anyone would be able to keep up with her. I mean, her wife _was_ the uncrowned queen of France after all.”

“Yeah, an' that's another thing.” Rose turned to him, seatbelt pulling across her chest, his hand applying the handbrake and cutting the engine. The sudden silence made him acutely aware of his heartbeat. “Zoe's not over Reinette. She's still mournin' her an' everythin'. I can't see her jumpin' into a relationship so soon after that.”

“Didn't Reinette die four or five years ago in Zoe's timeline?”

She froze as though the thought had never occurred to her. “Yeah, I think you're right.”

“Are you okay?” The look on her face was difficult to read, her lips parted as she thought. “Rose?”

“No, _no,_ ” Rose said, shaking her head and laughing, though Drew felt it sounded a little forced, not like the light warmth that he had heard for the last three days. “Zoe an' the Doctor? Absolutely not. No, it's too stupid for words. They're mates, _best_ mates, but that's it. God, I'm bein' so stupid an' I'm draggin' you into it. You shouldn't be humourin' me.”

His lips twitched. “What should I be doing instead then?”

“Lettin' me out,” she said, unbuckling herself. “I'm definitely goin' to be late now what with you keepin' me chattin' about stupid stuff.”

Drew didn't want her to go. “Is it really that stupid, Zoe and the Doctor?”

“Course it is.” Rose opened the door and slid out, reaching into the back to grab her bag of clothes. “Zoe's way too sensible to even think about it with him an' the Doctor doesn't date. Could you even imagine what that'd looks like? Nah, I'm readin' too much into it an' I should know better. People think me an' Jack are together all the time an' we're just mates. Ignore me, I'm an idiot.”

“You're not,” he said, earnestness making him foolish. “You're brilliant.”

Her eyes rolled. “An' you're too sweet. See you around, Drew.”

The door shut and she grinned at him through the tinted window before dashing off into the building, startling Maurice the drug dealer who dropped the bag of cocaine he was selling, and making her way up the stairs; he watched her take the stairs two at a time, ponytail bouncing, before she disappeared from view. Slowly, he exhaled and let his forehead drop to the steering wheel, cursing himself for not gathering the courage to ask for her number.

“Idiot,” Drew muttered. “You're a fucking idiot.”

Up on the walkway outside the flat, Rose paused and smoothed her appearance down, catching her breath. It was rare that she wasn't the one waiting for someone else to arrive, and she grinned to herself, thinking it did the others good to wait every now and then, before digging her key out of her bag and unlocking the front door. The smell of freshly baked cake, wine, and fish and chips mingled together to form the perfect feeling of home; she shut the door behind her, kicking off her shoes and throwing her bag into her old bedroom before rushing through the hallway and into the living room where the Doctor pointedly looked at the clock.

“I'm here, I'm not late!” Rose neatly hopped over K9 who was spending the week with the Doctor due to some technical problems that had come about after eating a microwave – Sarah Jane wasn't sure how or why K9 had done that but she called the Doctor two days after their return in a panic – and dropped down next to Zoe on the sofa. “Ha! That's how it's done, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked at her from over the top of his ginger beer. “It's 7.02, you're two minutes late.”

“Your watch is wrong,” she said.

“Not using a watch, using this.” He tapped the side of his head. “You're two minutes late.”

She scoffed, refusing to look at the clock to check if he was right or not. “Then your head's wrong, I'm on time.”

“My head's wrong?” The Doctor repeated, caught between a laugh and offence. “I'll have you know, young lady –”

“Boo,” Jack said from the side, balling up a paper towel and launching it at the Doctor, only to watch it fall apart en-route. “Don't young lady her. It's weird and reminds us all of how old you are.”

Mickey lifted his beer bottle to his mouth and took a swig before pointing at the Doctor. “You're older than the University of Paris.”

The Doctor stared. “I'm what now?”

“An' a cannon,” he said. “You're older than a cannon, mate.”

“Are you drunk?” Zoe asked. “How many of those have you had?”

“No idea,” Mickey said with a shrug. “Don't think they're human though.”

“Let me –” Jack caught hold of Mickey's wrist and angled the bottle towards him. “Oh, yeah, this is definitely not human. Alcohol content's a little higher than normal. You're going to want to soak it up with some food.”

“Luckily, we have fish and chips,” the Doctor said, setting his drink down to slide to the floor where he began unpacking the sweaty bag of food that had been waiting for Rose's arrival to be distributed. “That should do the trick, Mickety-Mick. Hopefully it's still warm even though Rose was late.”

“I was on time,” Rose said, taking a glass of wine from Jackie. “I know you're not used to seein' what punctuality looks like, but this is it.”

Jackie laughed. “You tell him, love.”

“How was it today anyway?” Zoe asked, setting her glass of wine down as she took her dinner from the Doctor, meeting his eye when he passed it to her, a press of guilt weighing against her chest before she looked away. “Have you figured it out yet, or do you need to go back again?”

“Nope.” Rose shoved three chips into her mouth and chewed. “All taken care of. For half a minute, I thought we were dealin' with the Daleks.” The Doctor fumbled his fish and chips, dropping the package onto the table, eyes wide. “Relax, obviously we weren't or I'd have called in a panic. _But_ , there were these weird energy readings that reminded me of Van Statten's bunker, so that's why I thought Daleks an' then I thought, no, wait, _geniuses_ instead. Turned out some kids had got their hands on alien tech – no idea how – an' were tryin' to create this portal thing to God knows where.”

“A portal?” The Doctor asked. “What kind of portal?”

“The glowing kind.”

“Helpful, thank you.”

Rose rolled her eyes and dug her phone out, wiping the grease off her fingers and onto her jeans. She opened up her camera and accessed the most recent photos.

“Here,” she said, holding it out to him. “Figured you'd want to have a look, nosy bugger that you are.”

The Doctor spared her a _look_ before removing his glasses from his jacket packet and sliding them onto the bridge of his nose, dunking a chip in his curry sauce. From the sofa, Zoe watched him discreetly, missing him. Their argument was stretching into day five and every time they tried to find a way to end it, they ended up snapping at each other and falling right back into it. She hated the tension between them, hated how the others had picked up on it and were looking more closely at them, and she hated not spending time with him that didn't devolve into heated words and hurt feelings.

It was her birthday – _two days late but still her birthday_ – and she wanted to spend it with him. She had woken up that morning determined to fix everything and spend the day with him ambling around London with the morning spent in the British museum followed by lunch in a pub and the afternoon spent exploring the nooks and crannies that tourists didn't see; she hadn't been able to extend the offer before they ended up in another fight when she found him neck deep in scans of Jack's brain.

The problem, she considered as she broke off a piece of fish and dunked it in her sauce, was that she was in the wrong.

She wasn't oblivious to the flaws in her character, years of therapy making them perfectly clear to her, and she had known that keeping the truth about Zoe Heriot from the Doctor was never the best idea, but she had done it anyway. Yet, even though she was certain of her wrongness and the hurt she had caused him, she also believed that he was being too cavalier with Jack's mind and approaching the return of his memories too quickly.

Every time she opened her mouth to apologise, she ruined it by launching into a lecture on responsibility, angering him anew and leaving her feeling like a frustrated idiot.

“This looks like a artron portal,” the Doctor said. “How the hell did kids get this up and running?”

“Confiscated some tech,” Rose said. “No idea what it does but it's in my bag. Thought you'd want to have a poke at it.”

“UNIT just let you take the technology?” Jack asked. “That's generous of them.”

“They didn't so much let me take it as I kind of took it,” she said, offering them a grin when they looked at her, surprised. “I didn't steal it, but I told them the Doctor wouldn't like this knockin' about so...I took it. They didn't really complain. I think they're a little in awe of the Doctor, which is weird. You should hear Malcolm Taylor talk about him.”

Zoe nearly choked on her food. “You met Malcolm?”

“He's properly mad, isn't he?” Rose laughed. “Kept talkin' about you though as if you're best mates.”

“I did get a birthday card from him actually,” she said, nodding towards the top of the TV where cards from those on the estate and a few others – Harriet Jones, the Lethbridge-Stewarts, and, bewilderingly, Harry Saxon – sat. “He's not too bad, he's just... _a lot_.”

Rose nod. “Yu _p._ ”

“So it's over?” Jackie asked. “You don't have to go back?”

“Don't have to go back,” she confirmed. “I'm here until we leave. I can help with the party now. What' s there left to do?”

“Nothing,” Jack said. “Zoe's taken care of it.”

“Zoe?” She repeated, incredulously. “Zoe planned a party?”

“Zoe's sitting right here,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And Zoe can plan a party because you know why? Zoe's not an idiot. Besides, it wasn't planning so much as tweaking and doing a few final details. I'm happy to take the credit though.” Her face lit up. “Do you know we've got a dessert table now? I found this bakery that's doing this huge table of desserts for us, it's going to be fancy and great.”

“An' a lot of money,” Jackie complained. “I told you –”

“I know, I know,” Zoe said. “But, look at it this way, the Doctor's paying.”

The Doctor looked up from the photos and blinked. “I am.”

“You are.”

He caught sight of the expression on her face and nodded quickly. “I am. I am paying, happy to. Money means nothing to me so we might as well spend it on desserts. Are there any –?”

“There will be banana-based desserts, yes.” Zoe enjoyed the small smile of delight on his face. “I'm not likely to forget them.”

“Sounds like I haven't missed much then,” Rose said, pleased at that. “Unless I have. What's been happenin' round here? Anythin' excitin'?”

“Jack stood up for ten seconds earlier,” Mickey said, pride seeping through his voice as he rested his hand on the top of Jack's head, fingers playing with his hair. “An' it didn't hurt too much, did it?”

“It wasn't that bad,” Jack agreed. “I still won't be dancing on Friday but I might be able to walk by the end of the month.”

The Doctor handed Rose's phone back. “You'll definitely be able to walk by the end of the month, no doubt about that. It's a really good sign that you were able to stand today. Tomorrow, we're going to try for a little longer.”

Rose smiled, delighted at Jack's success. “Congrats. Baby steps.”

“Literal baby steps right now,” he said, leaning into Mickey. “But I've got my ear back –”

“You just need to stop fiddlin' with it,” Mickey told him, pulling his hand from the lobe. “I catch him tuggin' on it all the time.”

“I just want to make sure it's not going to fall off!”

“It might if you keep pullin' at it.”

“Have you considered a spray bottle?” Zoe asked, miming it with her fingers. “Like how you train dogs or children not to pee on the furniture. Every time he goes for his ear, you squirt him with some water.”

“Let's not do that,” Jack said slowly. “And maybe let's not leave Zoe unattended with children in the future.”

Rose grinned. “Okay, so Jack's standin' again, which is great. Anythin' else?”

Jackie poured herself another glass of wine. “The Doctor an' Zoe had a whispered row in the kitchen when they thought we couldn't hear them. Made makin' lunch a bit difficult.”

“ _Mum_ ,” Zoe hissed, embarrassed.

Colour bloomed across the Doctor's face. “Jackie!”

“Oh, what?” She demanded, turning frustrated eyes onto them. “If you two would get your heads out of your asses, then we wouldn't have to pretend there's nothin' wrong, would we? You've been fightin' for days. I thought you might put a pin in it for Zoe's birthday but, here we are.”

Zoe rubbed a hand over her face. “We're not fighting.”

“Feels like fighting,” the Doctor said into his beer, shrugging when she threw him a filthy look that picked at the sore spot inside of him where their argument lay. “Fine. Sorry. Truce. It is your birthday after all.”

“My birthday was two days ago,” she muttered.

His eyes fluttered shut with annoyance. “Zoe –”

“Both of you shut up,” Mickey said from his space next to Jack. “God, you're both annoyin' when you're like this. Are we celebratin' Zoe's birthday or not? Because there are presents to unwrap.”

“We're celebrating,” Jack said, hand resting Mickey's thigh, looking at the Doctor and Zoe in turn, daring them to say otherwise. “I don't know where the presents are though. Jackie, you put them somewhere, didn't you?”

“Yeah, out of reach of Zoe,” she said, getting to her feet. “This child has been able to guess a present at twenty feet. Only way to keep things a surprise was to hide them.”

Zoe grinned. “Not a surprise if it's always books.”

Jackie unearthed the presents from on top of the fridge and dropped them into her daughter's lap, bending over her to press a kiss to the top of her head, remembering the day that she had brought her home from the hospital. Zoe had been a week overdue and making her feel uncomfortable and bloated but hopeful that she would arrive on her birthday, thinking it would have been the best present she ever received, only for her waters to break in the early hours of January 31st and for her daughter to make an appearance before breakfast. Despite the fact she was late in arriving, she was a small baby with a bald head and dark skin that slowly lightened as she got older, and Jackie found it difficult to believe it had been eighteen years since that day, harder still to believe that Zoe was now thirty.

Rose shifted, turning so that she was facing her sister, legs crossed beneath her. She plucked a heavily wrapped present from the pile and held it out to her. “Here, open mine first.”

Zoe gave it a testing squeeze. “Feels like a book.”

“Hmm, I wonder what it could be since you stood next to me in a bookshop an' said _that one,_ ” she said with a roll of her eyes. Zoe stuck her tongue out at her and attacked the present through the copious amount of sellotape Rose had used, cooing in delight at the reveal of the exact book she had wanted. “Don't know why you don't just read the one in the library.”

“I like having my own copies of important books,” Zoe said, kissing her cheek. “Thank you, Rosie.”

Sensibly and based off a lifetime's experience of gifting presents to Zoe, Jackie and Mickey had also gone down the book route. While the books were on the TARDIS, she liked having her own small library in the office she had made her own and a small part of her mind that she tried to ignore due to the ache the thoughts left behind reminded her that she wouldn't always be on the TARDIS. When the day came for her to move out, when she and the Doctor decided that it was time, she wanted to bring her books with her as well. Part of her suspected that was why the Doctor had chosen not to give her a book, instead wrapping something hard in silver paper that she brought to her ear and –

“ _Don't_ ,” he warned before she shook it. “It's delicate.”

“Delicate?” Lifting an eyebrow, she lowered it back to her lap and looked at it cautiously, too used to picking up something he had set down only for it to singe her fingers. “It's not going to blow up, is it?”

“Shouldn't do.”

“Not filling me with confidence but okay.” Carefully, she slid a finger under the Doctor's elaborate wrapping – he enjoyed going all out with ribbons and name cards – and revealed a wooden box. Her fingers passed over the Gallifreyan word engraved on the front, tracing the pattern as she tried to remember what it meant. She looked to him. “Baby flowers?”

His mouth twitched. “Close. Seeds.”

“Seeds, of course,” Zoe said, opening the lid to reveal four small vials of seeds labelled in a neat, Gallifreyan hand. “What is –? I don't understand.”

“When the war started, the Agricultural Council worried about the damage that might be done to the planet because of the increase in industry,” the Doctor explained. “We were environmentally friendly but that's because we staggered production. Having to build weapons and ships at a quick pace meant that we skipped a few of the protective stages and they worried we'd damage the planet, so they sent seeds to each TARDIS just in case anything happened. These are four of the most common flowers on Gallifrey, the ones I miss the most. I used to have them in my garden by the river and they'd bloom every winter. I didn't realise I was missing them until...” he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I thought you might like to put them in your garden, if you wanted. You don't have to but I thought it might be nice.”

Zoe swallowed against the emotion that made a home for itself in her throat. “I can plant them in my garden. I'd love to plant them.”

His eyes flicked to hers. “Yeah?”

“Of course,” she said, curling her fingers around the edges of the box. “Doctor, thank you. But are you sure? If this is all that remain of these flowers, then –”

“No one I trust more with them,” he interrupted, gifting her a small smile. Gently, she closed the lid and held the box against her chest, the gap between them feeling narrower than it had. “Go on then. Open Jack's. He's been secretive about it. Wouldn't tell any of us what it is, and I really want to know.”

“Not one of you can keep a secret,” Jack said, archly. “It's why I didn't tell any of you.”

“Ooo, a super secret birthday surprise,” Zoe said, feeling the package. “Well, judging by the sharp edges I'm feeling, I'm ruling out a book, which is a brave choice. Aunt Caroline once bought me a make-up kit and never made that mistake twice.”

“You looked like a clown.” The memory swept back to Rose and made her laugh. “Mum, do we have that picture somewhere? The one with Zoe all made up like she was?”

“I've got them tucked away,” Jackie said, smiling even though the memory soured her mood. Her sister had never approved of Jackie having a biracial baby and had made no effort at learning how to do black hair or black make-up, not realising through deliberate ignorance that the make-up that worked for white skin didn't work for black skin. “An' you don't need make up, darlin', you're pretty as is.”

“Rose on the other hand – _ow!_ ”

“You deserved it,” Rose said. “Now open Jack's present. I want to know what it is.”

Zoe shook her head, amused, and unwrapped Jack's present. It was the first time she was receiving a present from him and was curious about what he thought to get her. She was never normally one for gifts, liking neither to give or receive them, and she tended to badger her family members for the things they wanted rather than expend the energy attempting to think of things they would like, but Jack hadn't spoken to her once about it. If she were him, she would have gone for a book, and so the back of a picture frame piqued her curiosity. Casting him an interested look, she turned the frame over and –

“Oh _god._ ”

The foundation on which she had rebuilt her life after Reinette's death shook beneath her, and a sob ripped out of her throat.

Rose jerked in surprise, legs snapping out as panic and surprise sweeping across her face; Jackie sloshed wine over herself when she jumped at the first sob; and Mickey slipped from the arm of Jack's chair that he was perched on, falling to the floor and covering himself in beer. Only Jack remained calm, watching Zoe with a steady look of soft understanding as her shoulders heaved and body curled in on itself. The Doctor rose to his feet, stepped across the table, and sat next to her before anyone thought to move, drawing her into his arms.

“What did you do?” He demanded of Jack, Zoe's fingers clawing at his shirt, attempting to ground herself. “What the hell did you do?”

“She's okay,” Jack said, calmly. “I thought it'd be a bit of a shock. Once it wears off, she'll be okay.”

“What's a bit of a shock?” Jackie asked, drying her hand on her shirt and sliding to her knees in front of her daughter. “Sweetheart, what is it? What's wrong?”

Zoe opened her mouth to try and speak but another sob pushed its way out, her forehead rubbing against the Doctor's chest as she tried to control herself. The emotional upheaval after so long had unmoored her, and all she was able to do was dig at the picture frame that was pressed face down in her lap. Reaching out, Jackie pried the picture out of Zoe's hands with great difficulty and turned it over, looking at the blonde woman framed within.

“I don't get it,” she said, showing the picture to Rose who shrugged, confused and worried. “Who is she?”

“Show me,” the Doctor said.

Jackie turned the picture to him, and his breath caught in his throat. He found himself staring at a face he thought he would never see again, and he looked to Jack and then back to the picture where Reinette Poisson smiled out of the frame.

“ _Jack_ ,” he breathed, stunned. “How in the hell did you manage this?”

“Roxx, she helped me,” Jack said, reaching for Mickey's hand and tangling their fingers together, worried he had made the wrong decision when Zoe kept crying. He had never seen her cry before and it was unnerving. “I've been thinking about it since Christmas when Zoe said she didn't have a picture. So, I contacted someone through Roxx who knew someone who knew someone and they were able to find a way through the Time Bubble around her life without altering anything and got me this.”

“That was dangerous,” the Doctor said, eyes drifting back to Reinette's face and then to Zoe in his arms. “But well worth it. Not having a picture weighed on her.”

“I didn't mean to –” Jack stared at Zoe, worry appearing on his face. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Yeah, she just needs to cry it out,” he said, smoothing a hand over the back of her head. “But she'll love it. Once she finishes crying, she'll tell you just how much she loves it too.”

“Who is she?” Jackie demanded.

“Reinette,” the Doctor said. “That's Reinette.”

“Reinette?” Rose surged forwards and grasped the picture frame between her hands and _stared,_ drinking in the face of her sister's wife with a hunger that took her by surprise. “Oh, she was so pretty. Zoe, your wife was so pretty.”

“I'd forgotten,” Zoe choked, dragging the words from her and flinging them into the room, eyes locked on Reinette's face.“God, I was starting to forget what she looked like. I couldn't remember. I'd try and try but I couldn't, and I thought I was going to lose her, and then –” she sobbed again, hands splayed over the Doctor's chest. “Thank you, thank you, Jack.”

“You're welcome,” he said, squeezing Mickey's hand. “I should've thought this through a little more though. I didn't think you'd cry.”

She laughed, wet and filled with emotion. “What does it matter? Everyone here's seen me at my worst, a few tears don't matter.”

“You okay?” The Doctor asked, quietly, bending his head over hers. “Do you want some water or something?”

The noise around Jackie fell away as she stared at the picture of Reinette, the daughter-in-law she had never known. She had tried to imagine what her daughter's wife had looked like – the Doctor's description of _blonde_ and _beautiful_ being not particularly helpful – and seeing a clear picture of Reinette made her seem more real. This was a woman that Zoe had lived with for six years, loved, and decided to marry; they had held hands and shared kisses and laughed together and fought together. The ache of never having met her – of never being able to share that part of Zoe's life – throbbed within her, and she wiped a tear from her eye.

“I've always wondered...” Jackie murmured, raising her eyes from Reinette's face to look at Zoe, sheltered within the Doctor's arms. “Oh, Zoe, sweetheart, she looks perfect.”

“She was,” Zoe said, face scrunching up again before she pulled herself away from the Doctor's chest, untangling herself from his arms and standing up. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just need. I need a minute. Excuse me.”

Stumbling over to Jack, she used Mickey as support to bend over and kiss him, murmuring her thanks and love against his forehead. Stepping away, she grabbed a bottle of unopened wine, clutched Reinette's picture to her chest, and left; the front door shut behind her, plunging the five of them into a silence that stretched until –

“Way to make the rest of us look bad,” Mickey said.

* * *

The cold air hit Jackie in the first and made her shiver, tightening her coat around her and securing her scarf about her neck. It was nearly midnight and she wanted to be in bed, warmed through by the wine and good company, but Zoe hadn't come home yet and while Jackie knew that it was likely her daughter had disappeared into the TARDIS and was drowning her grief in a bottle of wine, she knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep easily until she was certain she was okay. Hunching over against the cold, she hurried across the courtyard to where the TARDIS looked warm and inviting, glowing under the dark of the night. It was difficult for her to understand how people simply walked past it when it clearly drew the eye in a way that wasn't earthly.

“Hello,” Jackie said awkwardly to the ship. “I don't have a key. Can I –?” Reaching out, she tried the door only to find it locked shut. “Right, yeah, this is stupid. Talkin' to a ship. The Doctor's turned me mad.”

Turning around, she squinted around the courtyard on the off-chance that Zoe hadn't gone inside and skipped over her at first before darting back. She was sat facing the concrete basketball court that was mainly used as a football pitch, her hair exploding out around her, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Cursing her daughter's stupidity, Jackie hurried towards her and, the second she was close enough, dropped Zoe's coat around her shoulders.

“Put that on, you eejit,” she chastised. “You're old enough to know better. You'll bloody freeze to death out here if you're not careful.”

Zoe pulled a face, leaning heavily to one side as she forced her arms into her coat, an empty wine bottle falling over at her feet and rolling beneath the vandalised bench. Jackie watched her, concern growing as Zoe was a sociable drunk who was funny and charming who didn't easily give over to the maudlin.

“You don't need to check up on me,” she said, words slowly falling from her. “I'm fine. Better than fine. I've got a picture of my wife. Didn't have that this morning. So I'm fine. Really, truly, properly _fine_.”

“Say that word enough an' you might just mean it.” Jackie picked up a half-empty bottle of wine, presumably bought from the off-licence judging by the label, and lifted it to her mouth, taking a sip. “This is a bad look for you, sweetheart. Drinkin' straight from the bottle an' in plain view of the neighbours? People are goin' to think I raised you badly.”

Zoe gave a tired, drunk laugh and took the wine from her. “They won't say it to your face though.”

“Not if they know what's good for them,” she said, turning the bottle around with a small sigh. “Jack's gettin' worried you haven't come back. He thinks he's broken you.”

“Not broken. Not even bruised. I just feel...” Zoe leaned her head back to look at the sky, searching for the stars amidst the light pollution. “There's this hole inside me, this horrible, gaping hole where Reinette lived and sometimes I forget it's there. Sometimes I can go hours and hours without thinking about her but then I'll see something and think, _hey_ , she'd like this and I'm reminded all over again. And today, with the picture, I felt every inch of that hole and it hurts but not in a bad way. It's kind of a good hurt. Good bad, I think.”

Jackie reached out and cupped the back of Zoe's head as she had done when she was a child she could still cradle in her arms. Slowly, she pulled her down to lie against her shoulder, and Zoe sniffed, curling into her. Between them, Reinette's picture rested in Zoe's lap, and Jackie took it from her and held it up, the light from the streetlamp throwing a sharp relief over the smudge marks already on the glass.

“She really was beautiful,” Jackie said, quietly. “It's easy to see what caught your eye, an' that king of hers.”

Zoe took another drink from the bottle. “How d'you know about Louis?”

“Might've read a book or two on her,” she said with a shrug. “After you told me about her, thought I'd get to know my daughter-in-law best way I could. No mention of you in any of it though.”

“There wouldn't be,” Zoe said. “Black woman living off the kindness of the king? Nah, I'm a charity case as far as historians go. Besides, I tried my best to keep any permanent records of my stay there from popping up.”

Jackie snorted. “Missed the boat with that paintin' of yours, didn't you?”

“Well, Reinette asked nicely and I liked making her happy,” she said with a small grin. “Want some more wine?”

Jackie took the bottle and had a healthy swig. “How drunk are you?”

“Fairly drunk,” she said. “Haven't tried standing up yet so I don't know. What are the others doing?”

“Jack went to bed about two hours ago,” Jackie told her. “I think the pain was beginnin' to start, so the Doctor dosed him up an' Mickey took him off. Haven't seen either of them since. Rose showed the Doctor that weird thing of hers she took from UNIT an' fell asleep while he was pokin' an' proddin' it.”

Zoe hummed. “And the Doctor? I haven't seen him come out yet.”

“I've got him doing the washin' up,” she admitted, and Zoe rolled her eyes. “Don't do that. He wanted to come an' find you but I figured with the way the two of you have been at each other's throats this week, it'd be best if he stayed away.”

“You don't need to do that,” Zoe said, fingers curled around the neck of the wine bottle. “We're actually capable of having a civil conversation, most of the time. Things are just...” she waved vaguely with her hand. “ _Difficult_.”

“Look, sweetheart, you know I don't like to stick my nose in –”

Zoe barked a laugh. “C'mon, Mum. Pull the other one. I actually know you.”

“You're not too old for a clip around the ear,” Jackie warned. “But, listen, you an' the Doctor are mates. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that the man worries about what you think of him. Whatever he's done, I'm sure it can't be so bad that the two of you are still arguin' a week later.”

“That's the thing,” Zoe said, annoyed on the Doctor's behalf at the assumption. “It's not what _he's_ done. I'm the one who fucked up this time. I didn't tell him something important about a friend of his and every time I try to apologise, I get caught up in everything and we end up fighting. It's like I can't stop the words from coming out of my mouth.”

“Is it unforgivable?” She asked. “This thing you did?”

“I don't think so,” Zoe said, frowning. “Probably not. It's not like I killed someone, although I reckon he'd find a way to forgive me for that. He's very...” her hands gestured. “ _Kind_.”

“He's somethin', all right,” Jackie replied. “You an' the Doctor'll work it out. Since you're the one who messed up, let him come to you. Sounds to me like you're askin' for forgiveness an' that's fine, but you shouldn't push. Let him come to you when he's ready an' then you can talk it over.”

Scraping the sole of her shoe against the ground, she pulled a face. “I'm just supposed to wait?”

“You're supposed to wait,” Jackie said. “It's not the end of the world.”

“Feels like it,” she grumbled, lifting the bottle to her mouth again. “What am I supposed to do while I'm waitin'?”

“Read a book, go see your friends, do anythin' except mope around like Eeyore.” Jackie pulled the wine from her hand, ignoring the disappointed groan. “An' stop drinking straight from the bottle in public. It makes you look trashy.”

“Please,” she snorted. “If anything, I provide this estate some much needed class.”

“Definitely time for bed,” Jackie decided, standing and pulling a reluctant Zoe to her feet. “Come on, now. You need some water before you go to sleep. Flat or TARDIS?”

Zoe pressed a hand to her stomach, the alcohol hitting her and making the world turn into a blurred haze. “Where's the Doctor again?”

“Flat.”

“TARDIS it is,” she said.

“Chicken.”

“Yu _p_.”

* * *

_ Two days later _

The party was a rousing success even by Jackie's standards. So many people came that it had to spill out onto the street around, the music cranked up until the floors shook and the recreation centre was filled with the heat of bodies pressed together as they danced and laughed.

Jackie was in her element, making her way through the friends and family that had come to London to celebrate with her, feeling and looking beautiful in her black velvet dress that she had chosen from the TARDIS wardrobe. The crushed velvet felt smooth whenever she touched it and the whalebone corset made her feel slimmer and more elegant than she had in a long time. The Doctor had even styled her hair for her with deft practised fingers pulling and twisting it into a chignon, smoothing down the stray hairs and finding a glittering diamond hairnet that she thought was worth more than everything she owned; Zoe, fulfilling Jack's typical role, had also done her make up, and the woman in the mirror was someone she didn't recognise, startling whenever she caught sight of her reflection.

The prospect of turning forty had filled her with dread, the party an idea to distract herself from turning older, but now that her birthday had passed and the party in full swing, it wasn't as bad as she had thought it would be.

“Excuse me, coming through, don't mind me,” Zoe said, weaving her way through the crowd with a bag held above her head. “Giorgi, you touch my ass, I'll break your fingers. Out the way, coming through – oh, hi, Mum.”

Jackie frowned at the bag. “What's –?”

“Don't ask,” she said. “Seriously, don't. The people here are disgusting and you really don't want to know.” She twisted to avoid being bowled over by some children. “You might want to go rescue Jack though. Nana's got him.”

“Bollocks,” Jackie said. “Thanks, love.”

It was the work of a few minutes to find Jack. Normally easy to locate being tall, handsome, and oozing with charm that surrounded him with people, he was unfortunately stuck in his wheelchair for the night and appeared to be trying to stay out of the way. Her heart ached for him. His abduction and subsequent torture had stolen something from him, and she wasn't used to him being quiet and reflective; she missed her gregarious friend who made her laugh with filthy jokes as she cooked. Finding him sitting next to Deirdre Prentice, her mother who was staying in the flat for the weekend instead of at her care home in Essex, the two of them in matching wheelchairs, made her think that perhaps they should have stayed on the TARDIS for longer.

Jack Harkness not dancing at a party was a strange and unwelcome sight that suggested there was something wrong with the universe.

“Jackie,” he beamed up at her, a slight haze to his eyes indicating he had been given another dose of pain medication. “Your mum's great.”

“Whatever she's tellin' you, don't believe it, I was an angel as a little girl,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder. “You two doin' okay? You need anythin'?”

“Don't be fussing, Jacqueline,” Deirdre said, the heavy Essex of her accent reminding Jackie of her childhood. “Go and enjoy your party. Leave us invalids to it.”

“You're not invalids,” she said. “You're just not walkin' right now.”

“Bah.” The expression on Deirdre's face was sharply reminiscent of Zoe that Jackie felt wrong footed, her mother's hand patting Jack's arm. “We've got everything we need right here: alcohol, good company, and food.”

Jack held up a plate heaped with food. “Zoe stopped by a while back. She wanted to make sure we got some desserts before they were all eaten. Look at how small they are. Do you think she knew they were that tiny because I don't think I've even seen her eat something this small before.”

Zoe hadn't known, and Jackie had been gifted the sight of her youngest daughter standing in front of a table of tiny desserts with her hands on her hips and a baffled expression on her face.

“I'm sure she did,” Jackie lied, smoothing her hand down the back of his head. “Where's Mickey?”

“I told him to go have fun.” Jack examined a small crème brûlée before he popped it into his mouth, perfect white teeth crunching through the caramelised sugar. “He's hovering again. If you see him, make sure he has something to drink. He's less worried if he's drunk.”

Deirdre sipped her brightly coloured drink through a straw. “Keep 'em drunk, that's what I tell my girls. Makes for an easier marriage.”

“Mum,” Jackie sighed. “What even is that? What are you drinkin'?”

“Don't know,” she said, happily. “That tall skinny friend of the little ones made it for me.”

Jack looked at her curiously. “Little ones?”

“She means Rose an' Zoe,” Jackie said. “An' the Doctor made that for you?”

“He's a doctor, is he?” Deirdre drank deeper. “That's useful. Always good to have a doctor about.”

“He's not that sort of doctor,” Jack told her before glancing up at Jackie. “I'm sure Zoe's already caught sight of him. She'll pull him out from behind the bar. Go, enjoy yourself. It's your birthday. Don't worry about what the Doctor's up to.”

“I spend most of my days worryin' about what that man's up to,” Jackie grumbled, leaning over to kiss the top of his head. “Stay out of trouble. Mum, don't drink too much of that. There's probably way too much alcohol in it.”

Deirdre waved her off, uninterested, and Jackie slipped away from them back into the crowd. She smiled and stopped to chat with the friends who grabbed her along the way before catching sight of the Doctor. Like Jack, he was easy to spot in a crowd, more so that evening as he reminded her of Clark Gabel with his grey waistcoat and dark cravat beneath a long-tailed coat. He had been wearing a hat but had evidently lost it to the four-year-old child who was holding court at his feet, hat slipping down over her face; Jackie smiled at the sight before snagging the Doctor by his ear.

His body buckled, head following the pain.

“Ow, _hey_ , Jackie!”

“What did you give my mother?”

“Your what now?”

“My mother,” she said, slowly and clearly, pulling his face level with hers. “You made her a drink. I swear, if it's some alien nonsense, I'll –”

“It was a Rainbow Paradise,” the Doctor said, twisting in an attempt to ease the pain. “Grenadine, coconut rum, blue curacao, and pineapple juice. All perfectly, boringly human. Will you get off me now? I like this ear.”

She released him.

He stood up and rubbed his ear, a sore expression on his face. “What was all that for? You've been really clear that I'm not to give the natives anything _alien_.”

“First of all, stop callin' us natives.” She ignored the grin that appeared, hating the way it made him look charming. “An', second of all, you kidnapped my daughter for a year.”

The grin dropped, and he scowled. “Are you going to use that to win every argument?”

“Yeah, reckon so,” Jackie said. “Anyway, Jack said to get Mickey a drink if we see him. Somethin' about him bein' less annoyin' when he's drunk.”

“Liquor Mickey up, got it.” The Doctor shifted from foot to foot, dressed elegantly from head to ankles, his feet clad in black converses that had made her sigh the first time she saw them. “May I go now, please?”

She rolled her eyes and nodded, watching him dash into the crowd like a child filled with too much sugar.

The Doctor sprinted away from Jackie, ear throbbing, only to find himself tripping over Ru whose hands made an appearance. Smiling widely and pivoting, he darted away from her and her wandering hands, wishing Zoe was at his side to help him keep his body unmolested from the determined characters on the estate; early 21st century Earth had a very loose and blurred understanding of what bodily autonomy and personal boundaries meant. Rose was also proving unhelpful as she was tearing up the dance floor with David Llewellyn who was an excellent dancer like New Year's Eve had suggested, his little girl Siobhan giggling in the corner with Shareen's younger siblings and a few of the Prentice cousins.

“You look like you'd rather be having tea with Davros right now.”

The Doctor turned and an honest smile bloomed across his face at the sight of Sarah Jane. It had only been a few days since he last saw her, driving Bessie to pick K9 up so that he could deal with the microwave-related digestion issues, yet she was a welcome sight.

“Sarah Jane,” he said, opening his arms. “You're here and you look fabulous. I told you that'd be a great colour on you.”

“And you were right,” Sarah Jane said, embracing him, nose pressed against his shoulder briefly before pulling back. “You look very handsome.”

Delighted by the praise, he stepped back and spread his arms for her, letting her take him in as Zoe had yet to offer a compliment on his appearance, their argument making things awkward and stilted between them.

“Mickey said that this'd be acceptable,” the Doctor said. “Apparently he's a big fan of films from this era. I haven't spent a lot of time in the Hollywood golden age. Should probably change that at some point. I could meet Marilyn.”

“I think I'd want to meet John Wayne,” she said, reaching out to fix his wonky cravat. “He was very handsome in his youth, and I used to watch all of his films.”

“You did?”

“Sometimes it was the only thing on TV when I was younger.” Tweaking his collar, she smoothed his appearance out. “Although, no matter who I meet, it'll never beat –”

“Florence Dixie,” the Doctor said with her, grinning when she laughed. “I remember. It was the first time I'd ever seen you starstruck. I actually worried you were going to faint at one point. I was getting ready to be embarrassed for you.”

She dug her fingers into his ribs. “I don't know why I ever missed you.”

“The charm, the sense of humour, _and_ the ability to make whatever drink you desire,” he said, slipping out from under her fingers and offering his arm. “Shall we?”

The Doctor escorted her through the crowd, his general presence creating a smooth path for them to the bar that was heaving with people. Jumping the bar and ignoring the scandalised look from the bartender, he pulled out a glass and set to work on making Sarah Jane a drink, her eyes watching him; she had forgotten how much she enjoyed watching him work, whether it was tinkering in his lab or cooking a meal, he made everything into an art form despite how typically clumsy he was.

“Here.” Setting the glass on a napkin, he slid it to her. “The closest I can get to a Dranan Surprise.”

She poked at the ice. “What's the surprise?”

“Seaweed,” he said. “But I don't have any seaweed so the surprise here is that there's no seaweed.”

Sarah Jane laughed and sipped the lilac drink. “This is actually really nice.”

“Despite appearances, I do know what I'm doing.” The Doctor reached beneath the bar and popped the metal cap off a bottle of ice ginger beer, her eyebrows rising. “Sometimes, the easiest the way to deal with Jackie's friends is to be drunk.”

“I didn't realise she was so popular.”

“She has her finger in most pies around here,” he said, leaning on the bar and ignoring anyone who approached to ask for a drink. “You need something doing then Jackie's the person to come to: contacts everywhere apparently. She thinks she doesn't do much but Priti was willing to throw down to keep her and Lorna safe when they needed it, so I reckon she does a lot more than she realises.”

“Doctor, that almost sounded like you were complimenting my mother.” Sarah Jane hid her laugh behind her glass when the Doctor jerked at the sound of Zoe's voice, the woman herself emerging from the crowd looking unfairly beautiful in a floor-length, red sequinned dress held up by thin straps. “Am I hearing things?”

“It was a semi-compliment, like a small nugget of one,” he said, mopping up the spilt ginger beer. “Where the hell did you come from? Were you lurking?”

“Hardly.” The roll of her eyes was devastating in how cutting it was, and Sarah Jane realised they were still arguing. “I thought you'd want to say hi to Harriet.”

“Harriet? _Harriet_!”

Sarah Jane considered that she shouldn't be surprised that the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was attending Jackie Tyler's birthday party as the Doctor tended to make friends with all sorts on his travels, and he had mentioned that she might be in attendance. Her mind churned with conversation topics and ways to get the other woman to sit down for an interview with her; Harriet Jones was all any journalist wanted to talk to and Sarah Jane wanted the scoop, though she was too well-mannered to make it obvious.

The Doctor released the Prime Minister from an enthusiastic hug that lifted her from her feet, hands resting on her arms. “How long have you been here?”

“About twenty minutes,” Harriet said, smiling into the large embrace. “Jackie saw me as soon as I came in and has already got me a little drunk. There's a free bar, you know.”

“So the rumours go,” he grinned. “Rassilon, it feels like an age since I last saw you. How are things? Zoe says you've been having a spot of bother with the Opposition?”

“Nothing I can't handle,” she said, glancing to Zoe. “I know you fancy him but, honestly, Harold Saxon is a headache.”

The Doctor's face soured, and Zoe looked to the ceiling. “I don't _fancy_ him, I just think he's a bit of all right. Anyway, shut up. I want you to meet someone. Harriet Jones, this is Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah Jane, Harriet Jones.”

Harriet shook her hand, eyes flicking over her, taking her measure. “Not the journalist?”

“One in the same,” Sarah Jane smiled, shaking her hand. “A pleasure, Prime Minister.”

“Harriet, please,” she said. “How on earth do you know the Doctor?”

“Oh, we travelled together back in the day,” the Doctor said, happily. “Sarah got me into all sorts of trouble.”

“Pot, kettle, black,” she said, flicking droplets of ginger beer at him. “Zoe told me you met him when Downing Street blew up?”

“It was quite the day.”

“It always is when he's around,” Zoe said, elbows propped on the bar as she faced the crowd, missing the way the Doctor's eyes swept over her exposed skin. “Fortunately, he wouldn't risk ruining Mum's day, not after the effort it took to get us here.”

“Yes, how is Jack?” Harriet asked. “I've tried to look for him but he's a bit difficult to spot with all these people. I want to see him for myself and make sure that he really is okay.”

“He is –” Zoe cast her eyes about the room. “I can't see. Even in these heels I'm not tall enough. Doctor?”

“He's with your grandmother,” the Doctor said. “They seem to have hit it off. I don't know if I should be worried. Should I be worried? I already have three Tyler women in my life, I'm not sure I'd handle a fourth.”

“That's my Nana Prentice, not Tyler, so you're in the clear,” she said. “The Prentice lot are a bit more sensible than the Tyler lot. Mum's sort of the odd duck of the family. Aunt Caroline is all up her own ass with her supposedly fancy husband and successful kids. She loves rubbing it in Mum's face about how _her_ kids went to university and Rose and I haven't.”

“You graduated from MIT,” Sarah Jane pointed out.

“I know that and Mum knows that but we can't exactly tell Aunt Caroline that,” Zoe said with a graceful shrug. “Not that it matters. We only see her once a year if we're really unlucky. Nana's much nicer but still a bit of a snob. It's why she likes the Doctor and Jack so much but doesn't really have time for Mickey. She thinks a doctor and a military captain trump a mechanic any day of the week. It's why she didn't like my dad either – Pete, I mean. Thought Mum could do better than a snake oil salesman.”

The Doctor laughed, and Zoe glared at him disapprovingly. “Sorry, sorry. I was just thinking of your dad actually. When I met him he had all these boxes in the flat filled with all sorts of stuff. I didn't get to have much of a chance to have a nose since Rose was annoying me and there was a massive paradox coming, but he was a little bit of a snake oil salesman.”

“Do you mind not insulting the man who died so I could live?”

“I wasn't –”

She turned her back on him again and looked at Harriet. “But to answer your question, Jack's doing better. It was rough at the beginning but he's sleeping properly now. Our therapist prescribed him sleeping pills and I really think the solid eight hours is helping his mind heal. It's his knees that are taking a while.”

“They're getting better though,” the Doctor said, irritation settled in his chest at how easily he and Zoe misunderstood each other when they were arguing. “By the end of the month, I'm hoping he'll be walking. We're going to be taking it easy for a long time, and he's got his Vortex Manipulator on him at all times so he can jump away if needs be. Still, he's not fully there yet.”

“The life you lead,” Harriet sighed. “Sometimes I worry one of you won't come back and I'll get a phone call telling me something awful.”

“It's not like this all the time,” Zoe said, reaching to take her arm, tugging her against her side, resting her head on her shoulder. “Just this one horrible instance.”

_And Mondas_ , the Doctor thought.

Harriet rested her cheek against the top of Zoe's head, Sarah Jane watching them with a quiet curiosity, before the Prime Minister straightened up. “Now, what's this about you two fighting? Jackie mentioned it when I arrived.”

“Oh, not you too,” the Doctor said, annoyed. “Can't Zoe and I have a fight without everyone getting involved?”

Sarah Jane arched an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“We're having an ongoing disagreement regarding the best way to approach recovering Jack's missing memories but don't tell Jack that,” Zoe said, not looking at the Doctor as she gave a half truth. “No one knows that's the reason we're at odds and we don't want Jack to feel guilty about it.”

Harriet and Sarah Jane exchanged a small, knowing look that was missed due to the Doctor and Zoe studiously ignoring each other.

“Our lips are sealed,” Sarah Jane promised, not wanting to touch their relationship problems with a ten-foot pole. “Doctor, Harriet needs another drink.”

The Doctor's eyes dropped to Harriet's empty hands and turned back to the bar to mix her a drink.

Harriet looped her arm with Zoe. “Mickey said that I should be careful of a few people here but then got swept off into the crowd. What did he mean by that?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Zoe assured her. “I'll introduce you to everyone, no fret. I mentioned to Bev that you were coming so she's spread the news, and no one's going to be surprised to find the prime minister here but I do recommend avoiding Keith –”

“Who's Keith?”

“He's over there.” She pointed to a short, broad man with slicked back hair and a bald patch who was talking to Deano. “He's a member of the BNP. Not an out and out racist but he always acts surprised when I can string two sentences together. He'll be after you to ban migration from countries where the skin colour matches mine.”

Harriet eyed his form with a touch of distaste, and Sarah Jane's nose scrunched. “Why is he even here then?”

“He runs this centre,” Zoe explained. “And he's one of those racists that you can actually have a civil conversation with if you avoid certain topics, which is the best you can hope for sometimes.”

“Here we go, another Dranan Surprise without the seaweed.” The Doctor's hand appeared between their shoulders with Harriet's drink. “Bottom's up, Harriet Jones.”

Sarah Jane offered her glass. “Cheers.”

Harriet smiled and clinked the rim of hers against the side of Sarah Jane's. “Cheers.”

“Alistair and Doris are knocking about somewhere,” Zoe continued. “So's David Llewellyn.”

That name made Harriet start. “The scientist?”

Zoe shrugged, mouth curling. “Apparently he and Mum are friends now, _and_ he's going through a divorce so she's sort of folded him into her sphere of concern, I don't really know.”

“Right, well, it seems like a lively crowd,” Harriet said. “As long as you don't blow any more buildings up then –”

“One, one building.”

“Technically two when we consider Downing Street.”

“You were at Downing Street,” the Doctor reminded her. “Pretty sure that makes that one a team effort.”

Zoe straightened up, excitement pushing her forwards. “ _Look_ , they're about to start the conga.”

Sarah Jane looked around. “The what?”

“It's a Tyler family tradition,” the Doctor said, smiling at his old friend, offering his hand. “No getting out of it, I'm afraid, and believe me, I've tried.”

Zoe knocked her drink back and dragged Harriet to join the end of the conga.

“Did I ever tell you I accidentally introduced the conga to the French a few centuries early?” She asked over her shoulder. “Bit of an accident but I was trying to impress my wife.”

Harriet rested her hands on Zoe's slender waist and laughed, the tension of the day fading from her, ready to enjoy the night.

* * *

“And now you do this –” the Doctor performed a complicated twisting movement, feet shaking in turn, hands twirling in the air before his hips swivelled. He stepped back into her personal space, hand on his back and the other snatching up her hand, easing her into the dance again. “And that's the Kantarian Frog March, a hit at every party.”

Rose leaned into him, forehead pressed into his shoulder, breathless from laughter. She looked up into his face, his hair neatly styled in the fashion of the 1930s and her heart flipped over in her chest. _He's so handsome_ she thought to herself, fingers curling against his shoulder where she was holding onto him as he turned her about the room, deftly avoiding bumping into anyone else while her hair flew around them, her hairdo long since dishevelled after dancing with him – he preferred a more energetic style of dancing than she was used to and hadn't fixed her hair properly to survive it. Zoe, on the other hand, had prepared and still looked put together despite David Llewellyn managing to turn her over his back with a laugh as they did the Lindy Hop.

“You're such a liar,” Rose said when she managed to get her breath back, hiccuping as they swept past a sour-looking Trisha Delaney who was watching Mickey with angry, bitter eyes. “What even is a Kantarian frog?”

“Like an Earth frog but with more legs,” the Doctor said, hopping. “And they can jump really high. I once went there with a friend and those frogs scared the shit out of me when they jumped up out of the pond and came towards me.”

She laughed again. “I bet. You must hate the frogs in Zoe's garden.”

“Julian, Margaret, Frank, Diana, and Paul, are you kidding?” He rattled off the names of Zoe's frogs that she was carefully cultivating with a mind of having them breed as she had an odd fascination with them. “I like them because they're nice normal Earth frogs.”

“They glow in the dark.”

“That's just cool.” He tipped her back, hands easily supporting her, and Rose stared up at him and that familiar urge to kiss him swept through her before she was back on her feet and the music changed. “Another?”

Rose was about to enthusiastically agree when Alistair bustled up to them, looking handsome and dapper in his own black tails but topped with a top hat that the Doctor eyed with jealousy. Having only spent Christmas Day and the Doctor's regeneration with him, Rose already adored him. He was funny, smart, kind, and reminded her of her maternal grandfather whom she missed.

“Doctor, stop keeping all the beautiful women to yourself,” Alistair chastised, holding his papery hand out to Rose. “I may not know whatever the hell that was you were just dancing but I can take you for a turn about the floor.”

“Oh, yes, please.” She put her hand in his and her tongue curled behind her teeth when she smiled at the Doctor. “Don't go gettin' into any trouble now.”

He dragged his fingers across his hearts in a promise, reaching out to steal Alistair's hat with delight, disappearing into the crowd before Alistair could reclaim it back.

“That man likes his hats,” Alistair sighed, clucking his tongue. “Shall we?”

“Absolutely.” It was a more sedate dance but Rose appreciated it as she was beginning to get a little out of breath and would soon need to sit down or, at the very least, find something to drink. “You enjoyin' the party?”

“It's great fun,” he enthused, face widening and crinkling beneath his white beard. “Been a while since Doris and I have got out like this. Normally it's just consulting for UNIT or visiting the kids, so we appreciate the invite.”

“We're glad you could make it,” Rose said honestly. “I think Mum likes seein' there are sensible people involved in this alien stuff. You know what she's like around the Doctor.”

Alistair chuckled. “They do have an interesting friendship.”

“Don't call it that around them,” she warned him. “It'll freak them both out. They like to pretend they don't like each other even though they do. Somethin' about havin' reputations to maintain.”

“Oh, the Doctor's always been like that,” he said, turning her carefully under his arm before drawing her back to him. “Likes to pretend that he doesn't care about anyone else but really he cares more deeply than anyone else I've met.”

“I reckon that's his two hearts,” Rose nodded. “More love.”

Alistair's face transformed into a soft, affectionate smile. “Quite right indeed, my dear. You know, I did want to dance with you for another reason than just dancing with one of the most beautiful women here.”

Rose felt herself blushing. “Yeah?”

“I was speaking to Colonel Mace this morning,” he told her. “And he was very impressed with your assistance a few days ago. He wanted me to extend an offer of employment to you.” Rose stumbled, tripping over her feet in her surprise. His surprisingly strong hands kept her upright. “You're surprised.”

“Course I'm surprised,” she exclaimed before lowering her voice when people looked around. “What sort of job is it?”

“Field officer.” Rose's head swam. “You'd need to spend about a month in training just to be familiarised with UNIT protocol but Colonel Mace believes that you'd be well suited to field work and leading your own team given the experience that you already have.”

She blinked at him. “What experience?”

“Travelling with the Doctor,” he said. “That makes you qualified for quite a bit, you know.”

“It does?”

Alistair laughed. “Yes, it does.”

“But I'm not qualified for anythin',” she said, standing in the middle of the dance floor and just staring at him. “I don't even have my A-Levels, an' my GCSEs aren't much.”

“You're doing yourself a disservice, Rose,” Alistair said, pausing with her, their bodies frozen in dance. “You're an exceptionally clever woman who understands what UNIT does better than most.”

She shook her head. “You've got the wrong sister. Zoe's the clever one.”

“There's no doubt that Zoe is intelligent but so are you,” he said. “You were the one who recognised the signal. You were the one who defused the situation when guns were drawn. You have the experience and UNIT would like to make use of that experience.”

“A job.” The thought of a job – an actual job with a decent salary and interesting work, a _career_ , not just folding clothes in Henrik's or frying chips at the chippie – made her go cold all over. Zoe was the one who was going to have the career, Rose was going to have odd jobs here and there. That was what she had always expected but now, suddenly, she had options and she didn't know what to do with it. “A proper job.”

“You won't be travelling with the Doctor forever,” Alistair said lightly, gentling his words, and though Rose had already accepted that fact, the reminder still stung. “When you're done and you're back home, give Colonel Mace a call and talk with him about working for UNIT. We need more people like you, leading with the values you've solidified with the Doctor. We can't run the risk of turning into a military operation: science and kindness must lead the way.”

Rose swallowed, her mouth dry. “I – er – I'll think about it.”

“I'll let Colonel Mace know that you've received the offer,” he said, releasing her when the song ended. “But take your time. Don't rush anything. You've still got so much to see and do out in the universe first.”

She laughed at that, feeling dazed and light-headed laugh. “I do.”

Rose parted ways with Alistair and quickly hid from Shareen who was flushed through with alcohol and had that familiar expression on her face that told Rose she wanted to vent about her most recent boyfriend. Having got over the Essex accountant by getting under Hari from Morrison's, she had settled for fear of being alone. Rose didn't particularly like Hari but he was a nice enough bloke if one didn't mind the slightly radical politics. He had glommed onto Harriet and was peppering her with ill-informed policy ideas. Rose contemplated going to her rescue, but she and Sarah Jane seemed to be amused by Hari more than anything else, so she left them to it.

“Vodka an' coke, please,” Rose said to the bartender. “Make it a double.”

As the alcohol burned its way through her system, Rose tried to get a grip on herself. She had been offered a job, and not just any old job but an interesting one. Having spent three days at UNIT helping out, Rose was fascinated by them and what they did. She had initially been opposed to them due to the uniforms and the guns holstered at their side, the Doctor's distaste for all things military having sunk into her, but it was staffed with good, honest people who were excited by the work that they did and wanted to make a difference. Colonel Mace was a bit stiff though he had a dry sense of humour that made her laugh once she realised he was joking, and she liked the personnel she worked with – Drew French, Ross Jenkins, Erisa Magambo, even Dr Malcolm Taylor. The thought of working for them full time once she came back to Earth properly wasn't a bad thought. Perhaps if Jack stayed in the 21st century and he, Zoe, and Mickey joined as well, they could form their own team within UNIT then the only thing that would have changed would be the fact that the Doctor wasn't with them.

_A career_ she thought to herself, staring into her empty glass, a smile beginning to pull at her lips.

“There you are,” Jackie said, emerging suddenly, startling Rose from her thoughts. “I need help.”

Rose turned to face her, brow creasing, pushing thoughts of Alistair's offer out of her mind. “What's wrong?”

“My bleedin' dress,” she hissed, turning to one side and Rose saw that the slit that ran up Jackie's thigh was now running up her waist. “It's only gone an' torn.”

“Where's Jack?” Rose lifted herself on to her tiptoes and peered through the crowd. “He's always got a sewin' kit on him.”

“No idea, he an' Mickey have buggered off, haven't they?” The telltale signs of stress started to appear in Jackie's face. “This is just what I need, flashin' my bits for all an' sundry to see.”

Rose set her empty glass down with a thunk, positioning herself so that she was at Jackie's side, concealing the tear from public view. “Come on, I know Zoe put some stuff in the supply room. I think Jack gave her a list of things to have to hand, you know what he's like.”

“All right, hurry up though,” Jackie said, grimacing as the material split further. “This goes any higher an' I'll traumatise the bloody Doctor.”

* * *

“Shareen, _Shareen!_ ”

“All right, John,” Shareen greeted, her dress tight and breasts spilling out over the top. She caught the straw of her drink between her mouth and sucked as her eyes flicked over him, eyebrows rising in approval. He knew he shouldn't have let Jack and Mickey choose his outfit. “What you needing?”

“I'm looking for Zoe,” he said, experiencing warning him to keep his distance from her hands after a few too many drinks even if she still seemed relatively sober. “Have you seen her?”

“Zoe, Zoe who?” The Doctor rolled his eyes and she laughed. “Last I saw her she was with Little Dave. That was about five minutes ago. Fancy a turn about the floor? You can do that weird dance thing with me.”

“Weird dance thing?” She mimicked hopping only to tip over, her shoes not made for jumping, and he caught her quickly. She fell against his chest, her hands beginning to wander. “You're firmer than you look.”

“And you're on your way to drunk,” he said, setting her upright. “Thanks for your help.”

“Pleasure.”

He angled his hip to avoid her hand, and he cast his eye around for Zoe. He was tired of arguing with her and wanted to spend some time with her at the party they had all been looking forward to but it was difficult to grab her when she was alone as she was either avoiding him or legitimately busy, it was hard to tell. He looked for Sarah Jane and found her talking with Harriet, the two of them getting along brilliantly, and he scanned and scanned before he caught sight of her dipping out of the room.

“There you are,” he muttered, cutting through the crowd.

“...tell you?” He heard Zoe demand, an angry lilt to her voice that made him walk faster. “I said, no drugs. And what do I find you doing?”

“No harm no foul, eh, love?”

“Don't you _love_ me,” she snapped as he hurried around the corner to find her lecturing a large man who towered over her, making her look frail and easily breakable. “This is my mother's birthday party and the fucking prime minister is here. I'm not going to have you ruin either of those things because you want to make a quick tenner.”

The man's tongue darted out and wet his lips, shifting until he was looming over her. “You keep flappin' that mouth of yours, Zoe Tyler, an' I'll show you a better way to use it.”

“Shut your – _Doctor!_ ”

The Doctor slammed Maurice into the wall, his hand wrapped around his throat, plaster cast drifting down from the ceiling at the impact. “What did you just say to her?”

“Let him go,” Zoe ordered.

“You ever speak to her like that again and it will be the last thing you do,” the Doctor threatened, blood rushing through his ears, fingers tightening. “Understood?”

Maurice garbled a sound, and Zoe whacked his arm with the back of her hand.

“If you want him to respond, you might want to loosen your grip.”

“A nod will suffice,” he said, and Maurice nodded. The Doctor released him, watching in satisfaction as he slid down the wall, gasping. “Go. _Go_!”

Zoe stepped aside and watched him flee. Silence filled the space between them before she hitched her skirt up her calves and crouched down, fingers plucking a small baggy of cocaine from the floor.

“Well, that was a dramatic overreaction,” she said, holding the drugs out to him. “Did you enjoy going all caveman there?”

The Doctor swiped the cocaine from her and put it in his pocket to deal with later. “He was threatening you. You heard what he said.”

“Maurice talks an absolute load of shit and is someone I'm capable of handling myself, thanks,” she said, tartly, shaking the bottom of her dress out to let it settle properly. “Where did you even come from? Are _you_ lurking around corners or something?”

“I was looking for you,” the Doctor said, ignoring the jibe. “And good job too since that man was three times your size.”

“Bigger they are, easier they fall, Jack taught me that.”

“You don't need to go picking a fight though,” he pointed out, angry at her recklessness. “What were you thinking? The local drug dealer? Rassilon, Zoe, use your common sense. You don't need to fight everyone.”

“You're absolutely right, why should I go looking for a fight when you're so happy to provide one,” she snapped. “I thought we had a truce for tonight? We both agreed not to ruin Mum's night and here you are –”

“Here I am saving you from getting knocked about by someone who looks like they have giant's blood in them!”

“Giant's blood isn't a thing!”

The Doctor released a growl of frustration. “Why are you so annoying?”

“Part of my charm, I suppose,” she said, words sharp. “But if you're just here to criticise then bugger off, I don't want it tonight.”

She turned from him.

The sight of her bare shoulders and the graceful curve of her neck made his hand shoot out, fingers wrapping around her upper arm. Ignoring the way her eyes flashed at him over her shoulder, he pulled her around to face him, grip light enough and gentle enough that she was easily able to remove herself if she wanted. Relief flooded through him when, instead of pulling back, she let him turn her, tilting her chin up to glare at him.

“I actually came to try and solve this fight we're having,” the Doctor said through gritted teeth. “I hate fighting with you and I miss you, so if you can get off your high horse for –”

“High horse!”

“For five minutes,” he said loudly over the top of her. “Then maybe we don't have to fight any more.”

Zoe's nostrils flared, jaw tight. “You do pick your moments, don't you?”

“You've been avoiding me,” he pointed out.

“I've been giving you space,” she said, pulling her arm free. “ _And_ I've been busy. With Rose off with UNIT and Jack sleeping every few hours, the final party planning fell to me and you know how much I hate that.”

“Yeah, well, it's turned out pretty great,” he said.

“I know, thank you.”

“I like the dessert table,” the Doctor told her, sensing a softening in her anger that he immediately took advantage of. “With the little banoffee pies, they're really nice.”

Zoe pulled a face. “I'm not a huge fan of how tiny they are but people seem to like it.”

“What's not to like?” He asked. “It's dessert, but miniature.”

She started smiling before she caught herself and frowned at him. “Stop it. You're being charming and we're fighting. You can't be charming when we're fighting.”

“Then can we stop fighting so I can be charming again?” He asked hopefully. “Because I'd really like to tell you how beautiful you look in that dress without running the risk of getting my head bitten off.”

A muscle in her jaw twitched before she looked around. The corridor was empty and the sounds of the party were muffled by the closed doors. Taking his hand, she dragged him into a room that looked to be half-utility closet, half-storage room, and he caught a mop before it fell and she turned on the light, shutting the door on them. Zoe fumbled against the walls before she found the light switch, and he blinked when the room was flooded with the aggressive lighting that 21st century humans preferred.

“Why does it smell like feet in here?” The Doctor looked around and eased closer to Zoe at the sight of something oozing down the wall. “What is _that_?”

“No idea, just don't touch it.”

“Can we maybe go somewhere else?” He asked. “Somewhere that doesn't have questionable bio matter sliding down the wall?”

“I've seen you lick all sorts of things,” Zoe told him. “You can handle a slightly gross room for five minutes.”

“All right,” the Doctor said, reluctantly, looking down at her. “Why did you pull me in here? Normally I'd assume for adult-only things but since you haven't been sleeping in our room this last week –”

“You said you wanted to not be around me,” she reminded him, hurt throbbing through her at the memory of those words. “So I was not being around you. Anyway, shut up, I need to talk first and then you can go, okay?”

Hands in his pockets to stop from touching her, he nodded.

“You were right, I was wrong.” His eyebrows shot up his forehead at the admission. “I still think you're being too hasty with Jack and I'd like you to slow it down so we can explore more options, but you were right to be angry at me for not telling you about Zoe Heriot. I was managing your emotions. I didn't realise I was doing until you pointed it out – well, actually, it took a few days for me to realise you were right but I got there. I was treating you like you needed the truth to be cushioned, and that was really condescending of me. I'm sorry, Doctor, I am truly sorry for that.”

The Doctor felt his body loosen, the tension of the last week draining from him. “Thank you.”

“Okay, you need to speak now,” Zoe said. “If you don't, I'm going to start running my mouth off and we'll argue again, so say something quickly.”

Amusement flickered through him, wondering if she had practiced her apology in front of a mirror, and he gripped the cocaine in his pocket to keep his hands off her.

“Why did you feel the need to keep it from me?” The Doctor asked.” I've been trying to work it out and I can't think of why you'd keep it from me.”

“It's like I said, I thought it would hurt you,” Zoe told him. “And I don't want to hurt you. I hate seeing you in pain and not being able to help.”

His eyes softened. “I'm a big boy, I can handle it.”

“Doesn't mean I don't want to try and take the some of the hurt from you,” she said. “It's hard for me to see people I love in pain and not do anything to stop it. Yatta says...” she cleared her throat. “Yatta says that not being able to save Reinette has made me want to save everyone else. Don't know whether that's true or not, feels like a bit of an oversimplification, but I wasn't able to stop her hurting. Not that that's an excuse for treating you like you need to be managed. You're not Reinette, and I shouldn't be putting my issues with her death into our relationship.”

“I know what losing Reinette did to you, I saw it every day for a year and I still see it in you now,” the Doctor said, softly. “I get it, you know I do. I just...I need you to tell me these things, Zo. I don't want you to keep these things from me because you think it'll hurt me. I need you to trust me that I'll be okay.”

“I know.” The line of her throat moved as she swallowed. “And I'm going to try and do better with this. No excuses.”

The Doctor's eyes flickered over her. “It's killing you not to say something about Jack's treatment right now, isn't it?”

“It's like this physical pain,” she agreed, a laugh tumbling from her. “I don't know what's wrong me.”

“You care,” he said. “About Jack and me and, well, everyone. _That's_ part of your charm.”

“Remember that next time we fight, please?”

“Can we maybe not fight again for at least, I don't know, a year or two?” The Doctor asked. “I really hate it. Also, everyone knows when we fight and I definitely don't like that.”

“We're friends with nosy people, that's the problem,” Zoe said. “Oh, I should mention that Harriet knows about us. I told her earlier. Figured since we're telling the others soon then she should also know. She was a little...I don't want to say grossed out but I think she still sees us at the same people we were that day in Downing Street.”

The Doctor stared at her. “You told Harriet.”

“Yeah, course I did.” Hesitation crept onto her face. “Are we not telling people now? I know we've been fighting but it's not like we've broken up, and she is my best friend, so I wanted her to hear it from me and not from –”

The Doctor stepped into her space and kissed her, stealing the words from her mouth. Her body gave one, small shiver before she was kissing him back, hands on his shoulders pulling him closer, sighing her relief into his mouth.

“Sorry,” he apologised in a whisper. “That was rude of me, I interrupted you.”

“No, no,” she said, breathless. “That's fine. Kiss me whenever.”

“You told Harriet,” he said again. “You told your best friend about us. I'm now understanding why you mauled me after I told Sarah Jane. It's very arousing, isn't it?”

Zoe's laughter warmed his mouth, her hands framing his face. “God, I love you. I'm so in love with you it's ridiculous.”

“Now _that –_ ” he kissed her again, slowly, hand on the small of her back. “Is something I'm never going to apologise for.” The tip of his nose brushed hers. “And before we get distracted, I want to tell you that I'm going to slow down with Jack. We all want him to get answers but this is probably something we should do in tandem with Yatta as well to make sure that he's in the right place mentally to receive whatever those missing memories are. If he's right and he really did take them himself, I can't imagine they'll be easy to live with. We'll do our research, we'll talk to the right people, and we'll do this extremely carefully.”

The look on her face made his hearts want to break out of his chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She swallowed. “That's...thank you.”

“Look at us,” the Doctor teased, fingers dancing across her back, finding the bare skin on display and placing feather-light touches up her spine. “Resolving our problems like healthy individuals. Yatta would be proud.” She laughed, the sound smoothing a balm over the irritant of their argument. “I do have a question about human customs though.”

“Oh?” Confusion creased her forehead. “Now?”

He nodded. “It's very important.”

“Okay,” she said. “Ask away.”

“So,” he began, splaying his hand across her back. “Is this the part where we have make-up sex?”

Her laughter was bright and beautiful, eyes creasing, her body tipping into him. The way her fingers dipped into his cravat and pulled it from his neck let him know that it was. After a week of not being allowed to touch her, his hands were clumsy and eager as he slipped the thin straps from her shoulders and placed his mouth there. The feel of his jacket being pushed from his shoulders made him roll them, helping ease the path, distracted by the taste and feel of Zoe's skin.

“I love this,” Zoe said, words catching when his teeth scraped over her skin, her fingers working on the dark buttons of his waistcoat. “Waistcoats are a good look on you. A really, _really_ good look.”

“ _This_ is a good look on you,” the Doctor replied, plucking at her dress, teeth scraping over her skin. “You look gorgeous. Do you have any idea how hard it's been to keep my hands off you tonight? All I've wanted to do is drag you away and do this.”

A small sound of surprise left her throat when he gathered the skirt of her dress and pushed it up her thighs, lifting her onto a box of vodka bottles that wobbled precariously beneath her weight. Standing between her legs, the Doctor kissed her again, harder and more thoroughly than before as she pried open his waistcoat and pulled his shirt from his trousers. Resisting the urge to rip it open as he had to leave the closet wearing clothes or else be faced with awkward questions, Zoe kept her fingers steady even as the Doctor's kiss made her fumble.

“You should take me dancing somewhere I can wear this,” she said when she was able to breathe again, one hand messing her carefully styled hair up while the other started sliding up her thigh. “This is a dress that needs to be danced in.”

“This is a dress that needs to be on the floor,” he corrected. “I'll settle for your underwear though.”

She opened his shirt. “Wait for it.”

“Zoe!” The scandalised tone made her laugh. “You're not wearing any underwear!”

“It would've ruined the line of the dress,” she grinned, hauling him closer by his shirt's collar, kissing him, drawing the groan she loved to hear from his chest as his fingers started working between her thighs. “Take off your trousers.”

His tongue swiped a path up her neck before sinking his teeth into the space beneath her jaw, making her twitch. “So impatient. Why rush a good thing?”

“It's been nearly two weeks,” Zoe complained, taking matters into her own hands and working his belt open. “Two long, difficult weeks. I'm not exactly needing a whole lot of preparation right now, so trousers – off – now.”

“Bossy,” he said, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth. “I love it.”

The Doctor braced himself against the floor as she grabbed hold of a shelf to keep herself from toppling off the vodka bottles, sighing in relief and pleasure when he finally pushed his way into her. The stretch and the burn felt _good_ after two weeks, the fingers on her free hand holding the back of his neck, his hot pants warming her skin. Conscious of the fact that they were in a public location with their friends and family nearby, the Doctor dropped his forehead to her shoulder and began making up for lost time. Later, when they were alone in their bedroom, he was going to spend _hours_ picking her apart and drenching her in pleasure but, for now, time was of the essence and he was too keyed up to worry about more than sending them both over the edge.

“Doctor –” his name dripped from her mouth, pleasure burning up his spine, hand cupping her neck as he thrust harder, chasing that sound. “God, don't stop.”

_As if I could_ , he thought, breaths ragged in his chest, his universe focused entirely on her and the feel of her and the way she made him want to be better. Somewhere behind him, he dimly heard the door open, mouth pressed against her neck, feeling the way her heart raced against his lips; it was only the way that Zoe's body rippled with tension, a sharp panicked gasp filling his ear that had him shifting, automatically blocking the view of her body, before turning dark, heated eyes over his shoulder.

His stomach plummeted to his feet, nausea threatening to choke him as, eyes sharp as flint, Jackie reached around a pale and shocked Rose to shut the door with a damning _click_.

“Oh god,” Zoe breathed, pale, hands trembling on him. “Oh god, _no_.”


	35. Chapter 35

Rose stared at the closed door, the grain of the wood blurring in front of her ears, blood rushing through her ears, and she rested her palm against the cool surface. Fingers splayed, her mind burned with the imagine of the Doctor standing between Zoe's legs _moving_. Sounds filtered out from behind the door, and she imagined Zoe pushing the Doctor away from her – _out of her_ – in an attempt to make herself decent again. The Doctor needed to dress too. He had been half naked, his pale, freckled back a long expanse of white broken only by Zoe's hand curled around his shoulder, holding on as he –

_Some things are worth getting your heart broken for._

Weeks had passed since the night Sarah Jane had come into her life, blowing in on a wind that brought with it harsh truths and a necessary awakening from the dream she had let herself live in for so long, _too_ long. The Doctor wasn't like other men because he wasn't a man. He was an alien from another planet and another culture who espoused on the inferiority of humans almost as frequently as he delighted in their superiority. Meeting Sarah Jane had been the push Rose needed to wrestle her feelings for him under control, the occasional urge to grab him by the ears and snog him senseless understandable when he was funny and handsome. Forcing herself not to love him the way she wanted him to love her had been difficult and was an ongoing process made easier by the fact that he didn't _dance_ with humans.

They all laughed and joked about Cleopatra but Rose quietly believed him when he said that nothing had happened between them. He wasn't the type to have a woman on every planet and in every century, and if Cleopatra herself wasn't enough to turn his head then Rose felt better about not being the one to break through and be the exception. That knowledge made coming to terms with reality easier – it wasn't her, it was the Doctor, he wasn't the sort to have those relationships with aliens. When she struggled to keep herself under control, when she wanted his hand to leave hers and slide over her waist to pull her closer, she remembered Cleopatra and Sarah Jane and comforted herself that she was in excellent company.

_Your sister's interesting_ , the Doctor had said to her once back when he had big ears and a leather jacket and eyes that looked at her with interest even though she was only a human. _Big brain, tiny body, lots of spirit._

Rose remembered that conversation, the clarity making her shake.

It had taken place after Downing Street, after twelve months away, after _everything_ changing; they had left in the TARDIS leaving Mickey, Jackie, and Zoe changed behind them, a promise to return for Zoe in the air around them, making their solitude electric as though they were both aware that things would change when she arrived. They had been on Eternal Hope sitting on a bench that overlooked the glittering park as dawn swept across the land, apple turnovers crumbling in their hand, when he mentioned Zoe for the first time since their departure six days earlier.

With the benefit of over a year's friendship with the Doctor, she knew now that he had spent those six days preparing himself to mention Zoe, building up the courage to get information about the thing that was playing on his mind. Not that Rose had realised it at the time as she liked talking about Zoe, her sister being one of her favourite subjects, and she had rattled away about her all through sunrise and all the way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor gently prodding her in the direction of information he wanted rather than ask her outright. He was gathering as much knowledge about her as possible before she joined the TARDIS though why he hadn't waited, Rose still didn't know.

Not that it mattered.

A year's worth of Zoe and the Doctor interacting filled her mind and was viewed under the light of the new information. She had come across them numerous times in the library, sitting far too close together to be simply friendly but passed off as obliviousness in the face of intellectual curiosity; the mornings she came upon them in the kitchen, clearly having been up and about for hours, deep in conversation that slid between the serious and the ridiculous; the way the Doctor's eyes found Zoe's from across the room, a small smile that was only for her/

And then, most damning of all –

_Love._

_Take us to the main city, love._

Rose's fingers curled against the door, a fist forming as the truth crashed into her. The signs had been there for weeks, possibly months, and she had ignored them, pushed them away because the thought of it was too ridiculous to comprehend. Two days ago she had spoken to Drew about her thoughts and dismissed them as her being stupid.

That was how she felt in that moment, a door the only thing between her and two people that had been lying to her for whoever long.

_Stupid._

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

Embarrassment washed over her, anger, bitterness, and jealousy quick on its tail.

Turning on her heels, she vomited into the base of a fake plant, dropping to her knees as her hands grasped hold of the pot. Alcohol combined with the sight of her sister and the Doctor having sex pushed everything she had eaten that evening out of her stomach and up through her oesophagus, the burn hurting. Jackie's hands settled on her back, scooping up her fallen hair, her shoulders heaving until her stomach was empty and her nose dripped with bile.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she said, emphatically.

“Here.” Jackie removed a pack of tissues from her small clasp and handed her a tissue. “Blow your nose. Was it the alcohol or –?”

“Both,” Rose interrupted, not wanting to hear her mother vocalise what they had seen. “Definitely both. Did you know?”

“No,” Jackie said, and Rose's eyes flicked to her face, stomach twisting at the sight of the anger that lay beneath her perfect make up, a brief flare of sympathy for the Doctor filling her. “I did not. Come on, on your feet. I know you fancied that idiot but you're goin' to have a bit of dignity right now an' then deal with everythin' later, understood?”

The thought of them finding her on the floor, physically sick at the sight of them together, had her climbing to her feet. The Doctor might not understand why she was upset but she knew Zoe would, and Rose didn't want to give her the knowledge that she was hurt by it.

As she stood, the door to the cupboard opened and Zoe stepped out. Had Rose not known what she had been doing in there, she wouldn't have thought anything was amiss. Her hair was perfectly styled despite the fact that Rose had seen one of the Doctor's hands buried in it; her lipstick remained perfect; and her dress fell neatly over her legs. Behind her, the Doctor was in a deeper state of disrepair, shirt on his shoulders but wide open, hair flying in each direction, and skin stained red at having been caught in the act.

“Mum. Rose.” Zoe's hands spread in front of her before clenching into fists. “About what you just saw. I – _Mum_!”

Rose watched Jackie lunge past Zoe and storm the cupboard, scraping her fist against the side of the door before she hit the Doctor. It was an odd angle – his body twisted and his height an inconvenience – but she drew a pained _oof_ from him when her fist collided with his ribs, sending him into the mop bucket that clattered, his limbs flailing. The second punch got him across his chest before the third broke on the sharp edge of his jaw, his arms rising to protect his face as Jackie rained punches down on him.

“For the love of – get off him!” Zoe stepped into the cupboard and grabbed Jackie around the waist, hauling her back, an annoyed look thrown in Rose's direction. “A little help would be nice!”

Rose stared at her. “Why would I help?”

“Let me go,” Jackie demanded, cheeks flushed and the split in her dress rising higher. “That _man_ has been –”

“Doing nothing I haven't welcomed,” Zoe finished loudly, interrupting her before she said something crude and uninformed. “Doctor, you okay?”

“Oh, just great, really, I'm lying in mop water.”

“You're fine,” she said, relief tingeing her words. She let go of Jackie and placed herself between the door and her mother, one hand extending as though placating a wild animal. “Mum, I know that was a surprise right now, and I'm sorry. That's not how we planned on you finding out.”

“Hello, hello, we all look serious.” The door to the men's bathroom opened and Jack emerged in his wheelchair, Mickey at his back. Jack looked up at them, eyes taking in the scene with a cheerfulness that indicated he had taken another dose of pain medication. “What's going on? Where's the Doctor?”

The Doctor examined his sodden shirt with a shudder, ribs a littler tender and blood pooling on his split lip. “In the closet.”

“Why?” Mickey asked, fingers tightening on Jack's wheelchair as he slid his eyes from Rose to Jackie to Zoe. “Have we missed somethin'?”

“Every time,” Jack complained. “Every time I go to the bathroom, I miss something. This is why my injuries are a pain in the ass, it's because I miss everything.”

“You needed to pee,” Mickey reminded him. “An' unless you want the Doctor to put a catheter in, you'll make do with missin' somethin' every now an' then.”

“I do _not_ want a catheter,” he said, firmly. “I just want to be there when things happen. So, what's happened? What did the Doctor do? Did he piss someone off? Was it Deirdre? Oh, no, it wasn't her, was it? I like her, by the way, she's a lot of fun and –”

“You're babblin'.” Mickey's hand came around to cover his mouth, glancing at the others who were frozen in the middle of an argument. “Sorry, I had to give him another injection for the pain. You know how it makes him ramble for a bit. But, seriously, what happened? You all look like you've –”

“Zoe an' the Doctor were havin' sex in the closet,” Rose said, calmly. “Mum an' I walked in on them. That's what you've missed.”

Jack and Mickey fell silent, shock rendering them speechless, and their eyes turned as one to Zoe who stiffened under their regard, grateful when the Doctor finally stepped out of the cupboard with his filthy shirt buttoned up his chest and tucked into his trousers. Rose pressed her fingers over her eyes and turned away, the sight of them standing so close together, his hand automatically finding hers, made her _ache_. Jackie made a move towards him, stilling only when Zoe stepped directly in front of the Doctor, her back pressed to his chest.

“I'm sorry,” Jack said after a moment. “This might be the drugs talking but did Rose just say that you –” he pointed at Zoe. “And you –” his finger shifted to the Doctor. “Were having sex? With each other?”

“Okay.” The Doctor's arms came around Zoe, hands gesturing. “I understand that this is all a little confusing for people right now, but if we could just take a second and discuss this without any violence, then we'll all be better for it.”

“Oh – my – god.” Mickey stared at them, horror growing as all the small bits and pieces he had noticed over the last few months started to click into place. “This is disgusting. This is _gross._ ”

Zoe's eyes sharpened in his direction. “ _Hey_ , I'm right here.”

“Yeah, I know, an' I don't want to think about you havin' sex with anyone,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut in the hope it would erase the knowledge from his mind. “Especially the Doctor. God, Zoe, are you drunk? Is this a drunk thing that you thought'd be a good idea?”

“No, it's not,” Rose said, a numb feeling spreading through her fingers and up her arms. “It's not a one night thing, is it? You two've been doing this for what, months? Years? How long have you been lying to us?”

“We haven't been lying.” Zoe's calm and steady voice infuriated Rose. “And this is not at all how we planned on telling you. We had a whole thing lined up for after the party where we'd sit you down and tell you that we're... _together_. This – you guys walking in on us? Not exactly part of the plan, right, Doctor?”

“Definitely not part of the plan,” the Doctor agreed, hands resting on Zoe's arms before catching sight of Jackie's expression and shoving them into his pockets instead. “Really not part of any plan, in fact. Now that I think about it, we probably should've locked the door. That was an oversight.”

Jack's head tilted. “You two have been doing this for a while? Since when?”

Rose watched the Doctor and Zoe exchange a look that carried an entire conversation. It was a look she had seen them share hundreds of times before in all sorts of situations and yet it held new meaning for her now; the intimacy contained within it, the fact they knew each other well enough to share a glance and understand perfectly what the other meant made anger and jealousy surge up within her. Her jaw ached from the humiliation of not having seen what was in front of her eyes, for having all the pieces of the puzzle in her hand and forming the image only to push it away despite the obvious.

She hated them.

In that moment, she _hated_ them.

“Right.” Zoe coughed, fingers laced with the Doctor's behind her back, eyeing Jackie with a lifetime's worth of caution. “I'm just going to put it out there since it's pretty clear anyway, but me and the Doctor are together. Romantically. We're romantically together, and we've been like that since –” a small hesitation tripped her speech. “Since Christmas. Just before the Sycorax arrived to be specific.”

Rose thought back to that day and tried to remember if she had noticed anything different about Zoe and the Doctor, failing as she had simply been overwhelmed at having the Doctor and Jack back. She rubbed the pressure from between her eyes, staring at the faded carpet they were standing on, wanting to laugh at the fact that her world was shifting in the back of the recreation centre she had had all of her birthday parties in.

“That was _months_ ago,” Jackie accused. “You've been hidin' this from us for months?”

“Not hiding,” Zoe said, quickly. “More...keeping it quiet.”

“That's hidin'.”

“This explains so much,” Mickey said, pushing Jack further into the hall so the bathroom door was able to finally shut. “All the looks an' the conversations an' the weird closeness. I thought you were just really close mates, I didn't realise you were shaggin' each other. Not that I thought about it a lot because it's Zoe an' sex an' that's just –”

He shuddered.

“Hot,” Jack finished for him. “It's hot. Confusing but hot. Can I watch?”

“No,” the Doctor and Zoe said together.

“I said, she wasn't for you.” Jackie glared, her voice cold and firm in a way that made everyone turn to her, her face set like stone as her eyes fixed on the Doctor. “In Cardiff, I told you to leave her alone, to let her live her life.”

“And I said it was up to her to choose,” the Doctor replied. “Jackie –”

“Of course she was going to choose you, of course she was,” she snapped. “How could she not? You're everythin' she's ever wanted. Someone's who smart, handsome, an' who can give her adventure an' respect her. But you know better. Dammit, Doctor, you know better.”

Rose watched the Doctor dip his head, a brief flash of shame lining his face before he was gone behind Zoe's head, hidden from view for the few seconds it took to absorb Jackie's anger.

“Mum,” Zoe said, squeezing his hand. “I'm happy. He makes me happy.”

“For now,” Jackie argued. “He makes you happy now, but what about in ten years? Twenty? _Thirty_? Don't you want someone to grow old with, love? Someone you can have babies with an' a house? Somethin' more than what you've got now?”

Zoe's face shuttered. “That was never me, Mum. Not really. Besides, I love what I've got now. Yeah, it's mad and sometimes dangerous, but I love it. And if I want kids then we can make it work somewhere down the line but that's never been a priority for me.”

“You're so young,” she said, hand pressing against her chest to ease the ache there. “Sweetheart, you're still so young. You throw your lot in with him an' you'll be like Sarah Jane before you know it. I like that woman a lot but she spent her life pinin' for him an' she's got no family to show for it. I don't want you makin' her mistakes.”

“If I become half the woman Sarah Jane is then I'll be very fortunate,” Zoe replied. “And she doesn't have nothing. She has a career, a life, adventures to tell. It's a good life.”

“You think she doesn't regret not havin' a family?” Jackie asked, sharply. “You ask her about it, see what she says.”

“It doesn't even matter.” Irritation began to creep into her voice, and the Doctor squeezed her hand with a gentle warning that had her wrestling it back under control. “I'm with the Doctor. We're dating, or whatever you want to call it, and I don't need your permission to do that. We'd like you to be happy about it, at very least tolerate it, but I'm not asking for your permission or opening this up to debate. I'm telling you how it is.”

Jackie's eyebrows lifted. “You are, are you?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Well, then, I guess that's that.” She dropped her hand to the split in her dress, holding the pieces together. “But you're makin' a mistake, sweetheart. An' he's not welcome in the flat while you are.”

“ _Mum –_ ”

“No, it's fine.” The Doctor settled a hand on Zoe's shoulder, thumb sweeping a small path across her skin to settle her. “It's her home. She's free to keep me from it if she wants. But, Jackie, you have to know that I wouldn't do anything to hurt Zoe. After all this time, that's something that shouldn't be in question.”

“I know you won't,” Jackie told him, jaw tense from clenching it. “I know you love her, I've seen it for months now. Doesn't change the fact that this is wrong an' you know it's wrong. You're stealin' her life from her. You're takin' the years she could have with someone who can give her all those human things you can't. It's selfish.”

“Maybe we should pause here,” Jack suggested, a knot in his chest tightening at the argument. “This is a heated moment full of surprises, and I think things might be said now that'll be regretted later, so we should all take a break right now. Don't you agree, Mickey?”

Startled at being looked to for support, Mickey nodded. “Absolutely, yeah. 'S a good idea.”

Rose pushed away from the wall, the bitter taste of vomit lingering in her throat, and she made her way towards the door. The cool, firm grip of her sister's hand around her arm stopped her in her tracks. The anger that passed through her at the motion Zoe had done thousands of times before surprised her. She looked at Zoe and watched her expression faltered at whatever was being displayed on her face, fingers loosening.

“Rose...” her painted red lips parted and all Rose was able to think was that the Doctor had kissed that mouth. “Can we –?”

“No.”

Yanking her arm back, she strode away, ignoring the flash of hurt and sadness that appeared on Zoe's face. She pushed her way through the crowd and reached the bar, gesturing for whichever drink was closest to hand, the image of the Doctor and Zoe tangled together pressing against her mind – her legs parted, his hands on her, the gasps of pleasure as he moved his hips. Vodka burnt its way down her throat, washing away the remnants of her disgust, and she took the bottle from the bartender's hand, pouring herself another glass.

“Rose, hey!”

Drew French appeared at her side, jostling her elbow and sending her drink across the bar, his face opening in surprise. A stream of words left him, apologetic and chagrinned, as he reached across her for some napkins that he wadded up to deal with the spillage. Leaning over her, she smelt his cologne – something generic and fairly inexpensive unlike the Doctor's subtle, distinctive cologne that she suspected cost a significant amount of money – and her eyes fell onto his jaw that was shaped differently to the Doctor's.

“Hey,” Rose said, letting her fingers drop to the back of his hand, taking note of the way he jerked under her touch, eyes wide and surprised. “D'you want to get out of here?”

“I – er – _what_?”

“You an' me,” she said, keeping her eyes on his face even as her fingers slipped around his wrist, lightly holding him in place. “There's too many people here, an' you can tell me more about what it's like workin' for UNIT.”

His skin turned various shades of red as his mouth moved. “You – you're thinking of coming to work with us?”

“Maybe.” Rose angled her body so his eyes fell to her breasts. “Figured I should probably ask a UNIT soldier for advice first. So, what d'you say? D'you want to find somewhere else where we can talk, just the two of us?”

The hope and surprise that leapt into his expression made guilt begin to lay a foundation in her stomach. He was a nice man who clearly fancied her, and she was using that to get rid of the memory of the Doctor and Zoe. She opened her mouth to tell him to forget about it, play it off as a joke stemming from too much alcohol, when his hand turned beneath fingers and his palm slid against hers.

“Yeah, I'd like that,” Drew said, his delight shaming her. “I know just the place.”

Rose set the vodka down and let him pull her through the crowd, mind swirling with worry and anger, eyes meeting Mickey's on the way out. The pinched expression of disapproval forced her to focus on the back of Drew's head, clasping his hand tighter as they burst out of the building and into the cold night air.

“Should we do something about that?” Jack asked, pointing after Rose. “I'm all for sexual freedom, but is she really in the right frame of mind to be sleeping with someone right now?”

“Probably not,” Mickey said, pushing him through the crowd. “But d'you want to be the one that goes after her? She'll shag that bloke, regret it in the mornin', an' then find another way to deal with everythin'.”

“It is a little surprising,” he admitted. “I'm trying to think if there was anything I missed and it's like I haven't been paying attention since Christmas. The two of them were clearly all over each other. Do you remember the dinosaurs?”

“The picnic before Jula?”

“That's the one.” Jack reached out and snatched a bottle of wine from a nearby table, wiping the rim clean before putting it to his mouth. “I'm now pretty sure they had sex while we were sleeping. Her dress was on inside out and –”

Mickey grimaced. “Please stop.”

“They could've avoided a whole lot of trouble by telling us about it,” he said, rubbing at the label on the bottle, disappointed in his friends. “Jackie's pissed. Rose is heartbroken. You're –” he tipped his head back and squinted. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” he grunted, twitching his hand away when Jack flicked it. “All right, not fine. Weirded out because Zoe's havin' sex in closets and it was only five minutes ago she couldn't hold someone's hand without freakin' out but here we are.”

“Oh, dear.” Amusement wrapped around Jack, and he grinned. “Are you only just now realising Zoe is a sexual creature?”

“Stop it.”

“A woman in the prime of her life with sexual needs?”

“Stop. It.”

“Someone who apparently enjoys a good shag in a closet?”

“I'll leave you in the middle of this room, don't think I won't,” Mickey threatened, refusing to smile even though the Jack's laughter was infectious. “You don't seem too put out. Don't you fancy the Doctor as well?”

Jack waved a dismissive hand. “I fancy everyone. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have minded a go around with him but I'm not cut up about the fact I didn't. Why would I be? I found someone much better suited for me.”

Colour heated Mickey's cheeks, eyes darting around, the music and conversation too loud for anyone to hear them. “Shut up.”

“Want to have a try at making me?”

Mickey wished Jack was more circumspect when in public. He had told no one outside of the few who knew about the existence of the Doctor, the TARDIS, and aliens that he and Jack were together; though, he hadn't actually told them, the news filtering its way down to them as most gossip usually did – through the Tylers. And he didn't mind them knowing. They were good people with open minds and an ability to understand that certain things were more flexible than most people thought they were. His friends on the estate – the same ones who turned against him when he was accused of murder – were a different group of people entirely, and he _knew_ that the second they found out, he wouldn't be able to continue living and working on the Powell Estate.

Murder was acceptable.

Homosexuality was not.

He opened his mouth to tell Jack to shut his only to falter at the sight of his face. Asking Jack not to fill his conversation with flirtation was akin to asking him to stop breathing; flirting was how he let people know he loved them, even if it had taken Mickey a bout of seething jealousy and a midnight revelation to figure that out. More than that, he didn't want Jack to stop. He liked the flirtation and the innuendo and the heated glances that made him squirm with want. Not for the first time, he wished he was as brave as Zoe who had embraced her bisexuality with a firmness that left no room for comment or abuse. Shareen had made one ill-advised comment at New Year's only to be left reeling when Zoe devastated her with a single, cutting remark that let everyone else know her sexuality wasn't up for discussion.

He wasn't brave like Zoe, he was only brave like himself, and he touched his fingers to the skin of Jack's neck that was visible above his collar.

“I reckon I do,” Mickey said, electricity darting through him. “Unless you want to stay for a bit longer.”

“Let's go, _right now._ ” Jack grabbed the wheels and attempted to move faster, the enthusiasm gratifying. “Why are there so many people here?”

Mickey laughed, batting his hands away from the wheels and directing him towards the exit, giving a small raised hand to Jackie who nodded at them from the bar. Watching them leave, she envied their ability to disappear together, finding that she missed Pete with an ache that increased the more she looked around the room and found no one there who she could talk to about what she had seen. Most days she didn't notice the absence of her husband, nearly twenty years having passed since his death, but some days the lack of his presence by her side was a noticeable, painful thing.

Lifting her drink to her mouth, she swallowed it down and fixed her eyes to the door where the Doctor and Zoe had yet to emerge from. Anger pulsed in her, fist aching from where it had connected with the Doctor's jaw, and she swallowed back the urge to go yell at them some more.

_I'm telling you how it is._

_I'm telling you how it is._

_I'm telling you how it is._

Rose was the stubborn daughter, the one who dug her feet in and screamed her head off if she didn't get what she wanted; Zoe was the easygoing daughter who went with the flow and did what she was told with a cheerfulness that was sometimes off putting.

She longed for the days when Zoe was small and was easily distracted with a new book shoved into her hands as Jackie doubted all the books in the world would be enough to distract her from the Doctor. She had made her decision and, for better or worse, she was going to have to live with the consequences. Jackie rubbed her eyes, make up remaining in place with a setting spray that worked like magic, and she looked into her glass of wine, the memory of Zoe _weeping_ over Reinette's picture coming to mind. Losing Reinette had been agony, Jackie didn't want to imagine how much Zoe was going to hurt when the Doctor inevitably left her.

“You look like you've got some heavy thoughts,” Alistair said, appearing at her side and making her start. “Surely the birthday girl should be in better spirits.”

Jackie huffed. “Should've told the Doctor that then.”

“Oh, dear.” He leaned heavily on his cane and gripped the bar, strength not what it used to be. “What's the old fool done now?”

“My daughter.”

Alistair stared at her, mouth opening and closing before he blinked. “I see. I take it you discovered him and Zoe in a situation you'd rather not see your daughter in.”

“Shaggin' in the closet,” she said, missing the way Alistair hid his sudden grin. “Wait, how did you know it was Zoe? D'you already know about them?”

Alistair hesitated before deciding that honesty was the only way to go. “Yes.”

“Since when?” Jackie demanded.

“The Doctor mentioned it to me during the Sycorax incident,” he said. “Forgive me for not using the media's phrasing but the Christmas Invasion is too Hollywood for my tastes and I'd prefer not to encourage it.”

“He told you?” She asked. “He told you straight away?”

Alistair wished for Doris to appear and save him from digging the Doctor's grave. “Well, it's important to remember that we are old, _old_ friends. Best friends, some might say, though certainly not me or him, we are gentlemen after all. It's only natural for certain news to be shared amongst friends that's a little slower to be given to the parent of one person involved, I'm sure.”

Jackie poured herself another glass of wine, anger boiling beneath her skin. “Who else knows?”

“That I can't tell you,” he said, gratefully. “Though I'm sure they've been discreet.”

“Discreet is havin' sex in a closet now, is it?”

“For some, I'm sure,” Alistair replied, catching sight of Zoe and the Doctor stepping out of a set of double doors. Manoeuvring his body so that Jackie was forced to look at him instead of them, he shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her. “Here, you should put this on. I don't know if you're aware but your dress is splitting.”

Helping her put the jacket on, his watched Zoe and the Doctor make a quiet exit through the front of the building and sighed at their idiocy.

“I don't see her anywhere,” Zoe said, breath forming a white mist in front of her face as she looked for Rose. “Where do you think she's gone? Back to the TARDIS or –”

“Zo,” the Doctor interrupted. “She didn't look like she wanted to talk right now. Give her a little bit of space.”

“If I give her space, she'll just get angrier and angrier,” she said, heels clicking against the concrete, pushing through the crowd of partygoers who were smoking cigarettes and snorting cocaine, Maurice dipping into the shadows when he saw the Doctor. “It's best we have it out now before we both have the chance to get more annoyed with each other.”

“Is she really going to be that angry?” He asked, draping his jacket over her shoulders and helping her make her way through the crowd. “She seemed upset but I'd be upset if I walked in Brax having sex, so I get it. Some things a person just shouldn't see their sibling doing, but angry?”

“You don't get it,” Zoe said. “It's not that I was having sex, it's that –” she caught herself before she finished, unwilling to divulge this one piece of information that Rose hadn't even told her but was obvious to anyone with eyes. “Never mind. Forget about it. Oi, Deano!”

“All right, Zo?” Deano ambled towards her dressed as a dishevelled gangster, his suit a little too large for his body, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “You look fuckin' gorgeous tonight, fancy a quickie?”

“Not in this or any other lifetime,” she said, dryly. “Have you seen Rose?”

“She got in a car with some posh bloke,” he said with a shrug, eyes flicking over the Doctor who stood a few feet behind Zoe. “The twat that's been pickin' her up every mornin' this week.”

“Drew? She's gone off with Drew?”

“Don't know his name.” Deano exhaled a plume of smoke that she waved out of her face. “C'mon, babe. Leave John an' come hang out with me. You won't regret it.”

“I'm certain I would.” She batted his hand away and turned her back on him, ignoring the muttered _dyke_ aimed at her back, eyes sharp when the Doctor opened his mouth to snap back. She slipped her hand into his and pulled him away. “I don't need you squaring up to people like Deano for me. He's a prat and not worth your time.”

“He shouldn't talk to you like that,” the Doctor complained. “Nor that drug dealer from earlier. I thought there was a little more respect here.”

“Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't,” Zoe said, pausing on the edge of the crowd and looking up at him. “My family's upset with me.” His face softened. “And you're back to square one with Mum. I can't believe she's banned you from the flat. What does she think that's going to accomplish anyway? We can just hang out at Mickey's.”

“It's about exerting what control she can over a situation she can't control,” he told her. “It's not as though we weren't expecting her to be unhappy. Really wish she hadn't seen us having sex, though. That's made everything a thousand times worse, but this wasn't news she was going to be happy about.”

She sighed and rested her forehead against his chest. “I know.”

“Do you want to stay at the party or go home?” His arms wrapped around her, holding her close and breathing her in, body keyed up from their interrupted sex, “Or get some fish and chips? That always cheers you up.”

“Definitely home,” Zoe said, huffing a laugh before wrinkling her nose and looking up at him. “You smell like mop water.”

“Yeah, I need a shower, c'mon.” He took her hand and set a quick pace across the courtyard towards the TARDIS. “If I ask nicely, can we finish what we started?”

“As long as we lock every single door between the entrance and our bedroom,” Zoe said. “The family walking in on us once is enough for one lifetime.”

“Agreed.”

* * *

Rose woke to a pounding headache and a mouth that tasted as though something had died in it. Cold air washed over her bare back and she shivered, huddling beneath the thick blankets, pressing her eyes into the pillow as the world swam around her. Struggling to free her foot from the covers, she searched for the ground to anchor herself, following the Jackie Tyler method of avoiding motion sickness. Every part of her hurt, pain pressing in from all sides to make her body _throb_ , the light slicing through the curtains not helping the headache that begged for her attention.

Breathing deep, unfamiliar cologne and detergent assaulting her senses, she tried to make sense of where she was. She definitely wasn't in the flat because everything smelt wrong and the TARDIS had a distinctive feel to it that was noticeable even when hungover. Flashes of the night before came back to her in the shape of the Doctor and Zoe pressed together followed by Drew leading her into his flat, playfully shushing her even though his flatmates were awake and in the living room, eyebrows rising as _Rose Tyler_ entered the flat and Drew's bedroom.

Regret beginning to trickle through her, and she carefully lifted her head, swallowing back a groan at the sight of the naked man sleeping next to her. Drew's hair remained fairly neat and tidy, his eyelashes a dark smudge against his cheekbones, lips parted as he slept, the blankets tangled in his arms.

“Shit,” Rose breathed, eyes shuttering as she assessed the situation. “Shit, shit, _shit_.”

Anger, alcohol, and jealousy had led her into Drew's bed, and she was ashamed for herself for using a good, kind man who fancied her as a means of exorcising her feelings about the Doctor and Zoe. Mickey's look of disapproval on her way out of the party had annoyed her at the time but she understood it now, mortified that she would have to face him and Jack at some point and talk about everything. Rolling onto her back, clutching the covers to her naked chest, she stared up at the ceiling and internally berated herself for another bad sexual choice. With the exception of Mickey, she hadn't made good choices as far as men were concerned and while Drew was attentive and kind, the fact that he felt more for her than she did for him put their encounter firmly in the box labelled _mistakes._

Glancing at Drew to make sure he remained asleep, she reached for her clasp purse on the bedside table and took out her phone to check the time. At 7.38 it was still early, which meant that she might be able to get back to the flat before anyone noticed she was missing; Mickey and Jack weren't the type of people to gossip about her sex life, such as it was, and she could rely on them to help her keep her dignity in tact when dealing with the mess the Doctor and Zoe had made of everything.

Opening her messages, she sent a quick text to Muhammad, the local taxi driver she had known for years, to pick her up outside Drew's – the location conveniently shown at the top of her screen, an app put in by the Doctor after Mickey had got himself lost in Hund on Torahl. Grateful for how responsive Muhammad was – a quick _ok_ pinging softly – she began the laborious process of removing herself from bed without waking Drew. She was halfway out and reaching for her discarded dress when –

“Morning.”

She froze, one foot on the floor, the covers tightening around her body at the sound of his sleep heavy voice that rumbled with satisfaction. His eyes opened only to squeeze shut when a yawn stretched his mouth wide open, a small smile making him look lovely and rumpled.

“Mornin',” Rose said, awkwardly balanced on one foot.

He rubbed his cheek against his pillow and squinted at her, hangover and a lack of sleep making him tired. “Are you leaving?”

“I need to pee,” she said, searching the ground for something – _anything_ – to conceal her nakedness quickly. Snagging his shirt with her foot, she pulled it towards her and shimmied into it, phone clutched in her hand. “I'll be back.”

Escaping from his bedroom led her straight into the living room where his flatmates were getting ready for the day with cups of tea, breakfast, and BBC news playing on low in the background. Their conversation stopped when they saw her, interested eyes taking her in, and she felt herself start to blush when she recognised them as being members of UNIT that she had seen earlier in the week. She gave them a small, stiff nod before making her way to what she hoped was the bathroom. After a wrong stop at the airing cupboard, she hurried into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, turning the lock and resting her forehead against the door.

“You _idiot_.”

A long sigh left her, and she pushed away to look at herself in the mirror. Her make up remained perfect, Jack's setting spray making her look as beautiful as she had the night before, and she exhaled, relieved that she didn't look as bad as she felt. Quickly peeing and stealing an unopened toothbrush from beneath the sink to clean the taste of regret from her mouth, she held her gaze in the mirror and tried to stop thinking about the Doctor and Zoe tangled together.

Her hand tightened on the toothbrush and she spat into the sink.

“Rose?” There was a small knock at the door and Drew's voice slipped through, stopping her anger in its tracks. “Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? I have juice as well if you fancy that, and some toast.”

His kindness made her feel worse. Rinsing the toothpaste from her mouth, she braced herself and opened the door, smiling into into his lovely face.

“I have to go,” Rose said.

He blinked, disappointment flashing in his eyes. “Oh. Really? I – why?”

“TARDIS stuff,” she lied. “It's really complicated, an' I don't even get it but if I'm not there then the Doctor starts complainin' an' it's a whole thing. Best to avoid it when I can so...” she swallowed, uncomfortable under his gaze. “I've got to go.”

“Let me put some trousers on and I'll drive you back,” he offered, the skin on his shoulders and chest bearing the lingering marks of her attention. “It's too cold to be walking around in your dress, and it's hardly chivalrous to let you go alone. My mother would kill me.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You're goin' to tell her about this?”

“Well, maybe not everything,” Drew said, cheeks pink. “But I think I'll definitely tell her that I met someone amazing.”

“ _Drew_.” Her tone carried a light chastisement drowned in embarrassment, her skin flaring with colour. “Stop it.”

“Too much?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Sorry,” Drew apologised. “It's just – I can't believe you even looked twice at me. You're _you_ and I'm not exactly the type of person someone like you would go for.”

Rose had no idea what he meant by that. “Someone like me?”

“You're amazing,” he said, his sincerity embarrassing her. “You're brave, funny, unbelievably beautiful, _and_ you've saved the world what, twice now? Downing Street and Christmas, right?”

“Three times,” she heard herself say. “The Nestene Consciousness too.”

“That's right, _three_ times.” Drew glanced over his shoulder, checking on his flatmates, before stepping into her space. His hand slid over her waist, the other resting on her cheek, and she made a small sound of surprise as he kissed her. “You're amazing.”

Rose felt her chest constrict. “So you've said.”

“It's something worth repeating.” His smile made his whole face come alive and, under normal circumstances, Rose would have been flattered by his obvious crush. As it stood, guilt gnawed at her for using him to forget, however briefly, about the Doctor and Zoe. “Do you want a shower first, or maybe a shower together?”

She managed a laugh, patting his chest nervously. “No, I really should – the Doctor gets impatient when he waits an' I don't want to listen to a lecture on humans' inability to be on time, so I'll just –”

Easing herself from his loose embrace, she walked quickly back to his bedroom. By the time he was framed in the doorway, her dress was halfway up her body and her eyes were scanning the room for her underwear. Looking back at him, tall and handsome in the doorway, dressed only in a pair of dark boxers, the urge to apologise pushed its way up her throat.

“I'm sorry about all of this,” she said, adjusting her straps.

“Why?” He moved forwards. The tips of his fingers froze her in place as he brushed her hair over one shoulder, taking hold of the tiny zipper on her back and pulling her dress closed, knuckles dragging against her spine as he went. “I'm not. Last night was _really_ great. I've fancied you from the moment I saw you, so last night was great for me. Was it – was it not great for you?”

“What? No, of course it was, don't be daft.” Her hands trembled lightly as she fussed with her hair, smoothing it down and twisting it so that it looked as neat as it could without running a hairbrush through it. Having never had a one-night stand before, she found herself wishing Jack was there to talk her through it. “I had a great time.”

Drew's face brightened. “Yeah? Good, that's good. I wanted it to be – that is, I'd thought about it – not in a weird, creepy way, but I hoped that – I mean –”

His rambling nervousness was cute though so sharply reminiscent of how the Doctor babbled that it made her anger and humiliation ache. Taking a leaf out of Jack's book, she cupped the back of his head and kissed him, knowing in her bones it wasn't fair to raise his hopes further than she already had. Breaking the kiss, she stepped back from him and grabbed the rest of her belongings, deciding that as long as she had her phone and wallet, her missing underwear didn't matter.

“Thanks for last night,” Rose said, not sure if thanking someone for sex was what people did after a one-night stand but deciding it was better to err on the side of politeness. “It was – I needed the company, thank you.”

“Any time,” Drew said. “Seriously, any time. I know you're not around a lot because of your life but maybe when you're in London, or even on Earth, you can let me know and I can buy you dinner?”

Rose hesitated, wanting to draw a line under the poor decisions that had led her to having a sweet man asking her out to dinner. It was on the tip of her tongue to let him down gently, to tell him that she didn't think it was a good idea, but common sense pushed through her hangover and reminded her that Zoe knew Drew through their book club. It wasn't as though he was completely separate from her life, a stranger she had picked up in a bar, and if she wanted to work at UNIT in the future then she would probably cross paths with him more than once.

“Sure, sounds great,” Rose said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. “But I really have to go now. Thanks again.”

Slipping out of his flat and hurrying out onto the cold street, she threw herself into the back of Muhammed's taxi before he had finished pulling up to the curb. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, a knowing look on his face that she scowled at before telling him to take her back to the estate.

By the time she got home, her hangover had increased. Knowing there was a hangover cure in the TARDIS made her hesitate but the thought of running into the Doctor and Zoe when she was clearly coming back from a one-night stand was horrifying. Choosing to avoid her second home for now, she entered the flat where her cousin Sabrina was snoring in the bedroom Rose and Zoe used to share, her daughter sitting in her highchair being fed by Jackie.

Rose looked around. “Are they –?”

“TARDIS,” Jackie answered, scooping up a spoonful of scrambled eggs that she extended towards Leia, who smacked her fists against her plastic table. “Where did you get to last night? I went lookin' for you an' you'd disappeared.”

She sighed, running a hand over the top of Leia's head, finger curling against her soft, chubby cheek. “I needed to get out of there. Went off with a friend for some drinks.”

Jackie's eyes flicked over her. “Just drinks?”

“ _Mum,_ ” she complained. “D'you really want to hear about my sex life too?”

“Not really.” She took advantage of Leia's open mouth and spooned cereal into it. “You were safe though?”

“ _Jesus_.”

“I've got enough to worry about with Zoe right now that I don't even want to think about you turnin' up pregnant in a couple of months time,” Jackie said. “Although, I s'pose it's for the best himself can't really get her pregnant.”

“It really happened, didn't it?” Rose sat down at the table and eased her shoes from her feet, rubbing the soreness from them and stealing Jackie's cup of tea to help chase the hangover away. “It wasn't some nightmare. Zoe an' the Doctor were – they're together?”

Jackie wiped dribbled milk from Leia's chin. “Yeah. An' apparently Alistair knew. Doctor told him at Christmas. Sarah Jane an' Harriet too, they both know.”

“So we're the last to know?” Fresh anger spooled through her. “They've been tellin' everyone else but us?”

“Seems so,” Jackie said. “Did you see anythin'?”

“Yeah, way too much,” Rose said, picking up Leia's toy that she had thrown off the table and brushing the stray hairs from it. “Thank God his trousers were still up. It would've been so much worse if his ass was on display.”

“Not that.” Jackie grimaced at the thought. “On the TARDIS when you were travellin'. This has been goin' on since Christmas an' you spend more time with them than I do. What've you seen?”

Rose's fingers tightened around her stolen tea.

“I don't know,” she admitted. “They've always been close because they're both huge science nerds, an' he's always been able to talk to her about all sorts of things. I used to be a bit jealous of that actually. Back at the beginnin', he sort of glommed onto her an' I'd find them havin' these cosy little chats but I didn't think anythin' of it because he still –” her heart ached, her hand rising to rub it from her chest. “He still flirted with me then. He hasn't done that in ages though. Not since – not since Zoe ended up in France, I guess. It was all different when they came to get me an' Jack from the dance festival. I thought it was just because of everythin', y'know. I didn't think...”

“He's fancied her since then,” Jackie told her, setting the spoon down and passing Leia her toy. “Definitely since her brain nearly exploded. I told him to keep his distance from her, an' thought he'd actually listened because I'd watch them together but it seemed so normal.”

“You knew?” Rose demanded. “You knew an' didn't tell me?”

“I didn't think there was anythin' to tell,” she said. “Zoe didn't even know at the time an' I thought he was just lonely. An' Zoe's beautiful an' she's got a big heart, an' I thought he was attachin' himself to that, I didn't realise it went deeper.”

“Well, clearly it does,” Rose said, bitterness seeping into her tone. “God, I feel like such an idiot.”

“Sweetheart –”

“I was fallin' for him, Mum, I really was,” she said, tears wetting her cheeks. “An' I thought he felt the same but he doesn't. He chose Zoe, an' I don't get it because Sarah Jane said – she _said_ –”

Jackie reached across the table and took Rose's hand in hers, squeezing. “Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry.”

“No, _no_.” She cleared her throat, shaking the jealousy and regret from her. “I'm not doin' this. I'm not this person any more, I'm _not._ I'm not goin' to sit here an' cry about a boy. That's not who I am.” Her mind whirled, latching onto Drew's words as though they meant something. “I'm Rose Tyler. I saved Charles Dickens from ghosts, I saved an entire planet from inside a computer system, _an'_ I saved the Earth three times already. There are people alive an' happy in the universe because of me, so I'm not goin' to sit here an' cry because the Doctor doesn't love me. I'm not that pathetic little girl any more. I'm not.”

Pride lodged itself in Jackie's throat, marvelling at how far Rose had come from the bruised, trembling mess Jimmy Stone had made of her. “Of course you're not.”

“What I'm goin' to do is go for a shower because I stink of alcohol an' other stuff,” Rose said, standing up and brushing her fingers across Leia's cheeks again, smiling down at her. “Then I'm goin' to do somethin' that isn't here. I'm not ready to speak to them yet. They lied to me, to us, an' I don't want to look at them, not right now.”

“Okay,” Jackie nodded. “You do that.”

“I'm goin' to,” she said, striding away, and Jackie watched her leave, worried.

“Was that Rose I heard?” Having forgotten Sabrina was in the flat, Jackie jumped as her niece entered the living room with smeared make up and a shirt that hung around her knees, making a beeline for her daughter who let out happy gurgling noises at the sight of her mother. “What was she crying about?”

“She wasn't cryin'.”

“Boy trouble?” Sabrina asked, hefting Leia into her arms and kissing her cheeks. “She dating someone new now or what?”

“She's not seein' anyone an' stop your gossipin',” Jackie chastised. “You're as bad as your mum.”

Sabrina grinned on her way into the kitchen. “The way she tells it, I'm bad like you.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. There was no love lost between her and her sister. Caroline was three years her senior and felt herself superior in every way. She had married the accountant while Jackie had married a street trader who passed himself off as a businessman; she had a house on a suburban street in Essex, Jackie lived in a council flat in Peckham on benefits. For a long time, Jackie had felt resentful of her sister and how Caroline would rub each and every success in her face and had sworn never to allow that to happen with her daughters. She had been successful for nearly twenty years only for the Doctor to step between them and create problems where there had been none.

“Have you seen Zoe yet?” Sabrina asked, stepping out of the kitchen with Leia in one arm and a cup of tea in her hand. “She said she'd look after Leia for me today. There's this thing I want to do and it's a no babies allowed thing.”

“What's that then?”

“Promise you won't tell Mum?”

“Course,” Jackie said. “What is it?”

“There's this workshop for single mothers who want to have a career,” Sabrina said. “It's free and I got a spot in it. Now that Leia's getting a little older, I want to start working. Mum'll say it's stupid but it's – I need to work. I need to show Leia that she can work even with –” her eyes dropped to her daughter's flattened nose and slanted eyes, a signal that she had an extra chromosome that defined her Down's Syndrome. “This workshop might help, it might not, but I need to give it a shot. Zoe said she'd look after Leia because of it.”

“You're best off textin' her,” Jackie told her. “She's probably still sleepin' somewhere, but if she said she'd look after Leia, she'll look after her. An' I think it's great what you're doin'. Don't mind your mum, you know she means well in her own way.”

“Just wish she'd mean well without the nagging and judgement, y'know?” She kissed the side of Leia's head. “C'mon then, you. Thank Aunt Jackie for giving you breakfast.” Leia blew a wet raspberry. “We're going to go clean up.”

Jackie listened to her leave, chatting merrily to Leia who still wasn't able to speak yet, and glanced over to her phone. All she had to do was pick it up and call Zoe, tell her that she wanted to talk, and it would end the cool stalemate between them – _I'm telling you how it is_ – but she shied away from it. The hurt at being lied to and the anger at the foolishness of both the Doctor and Zoe kept her from reaching for her phone, turning her attention onto cleaning up the mess Leia had made instead.

* * *

Mickey stared up at his ceiling, listening to the sound of his shower running. Jack was singing to himself under the spray, his rich baritone slipping out from under the door, drifting through the hallway towards him, and a shiver ran through him.

The last two weeks had been eye opening.

The fear and panic that had come with witnessing Jack's abduction and the aftermath of his torture had kicked everything up a gear for him, forcing himself to confront his feelings in a way that would have taken him longer. His decision that life was too short to deny himself the things that made him happy had led him to a revelatory night, the news of the Doctor and Zoe feeling years old in the cold light of morning where his body ached in new and interesting ways, thoroughly spent and deliciously satisfied.

“Look at you,” Jack said from the doorway, towel draped around his neck, balancing on crutches, his body gloriously naked. “You look smug.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Sit down before you fall down. You know the Doctor said not to stay on those things for long.”

“I'm pretty sure he said no strenuous activity either but we ignored that last night.” He swung himself from the doorway and onto the bed, water soaking into the covers as he climbed his way up, drying himself off as he did so. Sitting up, he rubbed the towel over his head and managed to fight his way back under the duvet. “How are you feeling? Any existential crises I should be worried about?”

“You're good but you're not that good,” Mickey said, dryly.

Jack laughed. “Liar.”

“Shut up.” The heaviness and worry of the past two weeks had lifted from him, and he rolled onto his side to face Jack, pulling the covers further up their shoulders as it was cool in the flat. “What about you? Regrettin' this?”

“Yeah, that's right, the four times we had sex was me being polite rather than enthusiastic,” Jack said. “Don't take this the wrong way but you're an idiot.”

Mickey laughed and pulled him closer, kissing him as he marvelled at how something he had been raised to believe was wrong felt so right. Jack's shower-warmed hand touched his face, fingers ghosting over his neck only to settle on his shoulder.

“Are you in any pain?” Jack asked, softly. “I know the first time can be a little...uncomfortable.”

“A little sore,” he said. “Nothin' to worry about. Not like we haven't done other things.”

Jack's grin was wolfish against Mickey's skin. “That we have. Hold on for one second though.”

“Hey, no, where are you goin'?” Jack rolled over Mickey, careful not to put weight on his knees that had proved a hindrance during sex, and reached for his Vortex Manipulator. “What's that for?”

“Roll over and find out,” he said.

Excited and curious, Mickey did as Jack instructed and settled on his front, head pillowed on his arms, muscles clenching in anticipation. The mattress shifted as Jack attempted to get comfortable without putting pressure on his knees, before the light touch of fingers ran down his spine made goosebumps erupt his skin. Jack's touch lingered on the firm curve of his buttock, and Mickey breathed in, not sure what to expect as Jack was hardly predictable at the best of times let alone when doing something sexual. He wasn't prepared for a flash of warmth and an immediate easing of the soreness that hadn't hurt but wasn't entirely comfortable either. Lifting his head from his arms and peering over his shoulder, he watched Jack slid something back into the wrist band on his Vortex Manipulator.

“What was that?”

“Something to help with the aches,” Jack said, leaning over and laying wet kisses up his spine, damp body pressing his into the bed, weight resting on his arms. He dragged his teeth over the soft patch of skin beneath Mickey's ear and felt him shudder. “Can't have you limping back to the TARDIS. Everyone'll know what we've been up to.”

Mickey huffed into the pillow. “Reckon the news is already out on that one.”

“Mmm.” Jack caught his earlobe between his teeth and tugged before reluctantly rolling off him. “You might be right. Still, we're not the only couple on the TARDIS any more.”

Grabbing the pillow from under his head, he whacked Jack with it. “Don't remind me.”

Jack laughed, stealing the pillow to put it behind his head, opening his arm for Mickey to rest against his chest. “Don't be sore. It's cute and a little bit sexy.”

“You're not weirded out by it?” Mickey asked, settling against his chest, splaying his hand across Jack's flat stomach that held a few lingering bruises from his torture, the Doctor unable to fix them when there was so much else wrong with him. “It's Zoe an' the Doctor. The Doctor an' Zoe.”

“It was weird for about ten minutes,” he admitted. “I honestly didn't see it coming, which is a touch embarrassing, but they make sense when you think about it. They're both clever, they both like the same things, they both respect each other...relationships have been built on worse things. Besides, it's not like she's a kid any more.”

Mickey tapped the side of his head. “Up here she is. It was only a year ago that she was seventeen. Hell, this time last year, Rose was still missin'. Things have changed a lot since then an' this is one thing too many for me.”

“They'll be good together,” Jack said, bowing his head to press a kiss to the top of Mickey's. “It might be difficult to get used to it but they've been together since Christmas and things haven't changed too much.”

He sighed. “I s'pose. I'm goin' to try an' actively _not_ think about it though. At least we didn't walk in on them like Rose an' Jackie. I know I wouldn't be up for dealin' with that.”

“Poor Rose.” Jack shook his head. “Having to walk in on the guy you're in love with getting in on with your sister? That can't have been easy. Has she text you back yet?”

“Not yet,” he said, having checked his messages while Jack was in the shower. “You're best tryin' her. She'll think I'm bein' overprotective if I text too many times, an' she's not likely to yell at you what with you bein' you an' all.”

“I can't help it that people feel comfortable around me,” Jack said, sounding pleased. “It's part of my natural charm.”

Mickey snorted and earned himself a small pinch for his troubles.

“They'll be okay though, right?” He asked, a thread of worry creeping into his words. “Her and Zoe? This isn't going to break anything, is it?”

“Not those two,” Mickey said. “It might be rough for a while but they'll come back together in the end. Rose just needs to get over her disappointment an' the feelin' of coming in second. She's always felt a little second best when it comes to Zo.”

Jack looked down at him, surprised. “Way Zoe tells it, she's always felt second best to Rose.”

“Sisters,” Mickey shrugged. “Zoe's been jealous of how easy Rose finds makin' friends because she doesn't really have any here, not any that weren't Rose's first. An' Rose has always been jealous of how easy school came to Zoe. The school bumped Zo up a year an' I know they wanted to do it again because she was gettin' through stuff quicker than the teachers could teach her, but Jackie had a quiet word because she knew Rose would hate havin' Zoe in the same class showin' her up. The two of them get quietly jealous of what the other's best at but they still love each other.”

Jack drummed his fingers against Mickey's arm. “It feels like things are changing, and I'm not sure whether it's for better or for worse. And now I'm worried about Rose being the only one on the TARDIS without a partner. I don't want her to feel like a fifth wheel.”

Mickey reached out and stilled his hand. “Guess we'll just have to be careful then.”

“Yeah.” Jack's eyes flicked over him, and Mickey felt his blood heat, already recognising that look on his face. “Do you fancy –?”

“Mickey! Jack!”

“For fuck's sake,” Jack sighed, falling back against the bed. “He has the worst timing.”

“At least it wasn't half an hour ago,” Mickey said, tugging the covers up quickly as the Doctor didn't seem to realise that a closed bedroom door meant stay out. Sure enough, the bedroom door opened after a perfunctory knock and he appeared in the doorway. Mickey scowled at him. “How did you get in?”

“Your lock's rubbish,” the Doctor said, eyes sweeping over them. “I'm not interrupting, am I?”

“Would it matter if you were?” Jack asked.

The Doctor thought about it for a second. “No.”

He laughed, rubbing his face. “Then what's up?”

“We're leaving before dinner,” he said. “Anchor's away and all that. Make sure you're on the TARDIS by 5pm local time at the latest because I will leave without you – actually, I won't, that's a lie, but be there anyway. Do any shopping and what not now because the way Jackie's ignoring me, we won't be coming back for a while.”

“She still not talkin' to you then?” Mickey asked, lifting himself from Jack's chest and sitting up against the headboard.

“Talking to me would require her to acknowledge that I exist,” he said with a long suffering sigh. “And she's not willing to do that right now. Zoe's looking after Leia today and –”

“Sabrina's daughter?” Jack interrupted. “She's a sweet little thing, isn't she? She fell asleep on me the other day and I wanted to keep her, Mickey said no.”

Mickey smiled. “Sabrina's kind of attached to her.”

“So?”

“Guys,” the Doctor said, gesturing to himself. “We're dealing with me right now.”

“Right, sorry,” Jack said, unapologetically. “Zoe's looking after Leia today and what?”

“And I was waiting outside the flat because of the current ban,” he continued, and if he was put out by not being allowed into the flat, it didn't show. “Jackie left with Sabrina who was perfectly lovely but Jackie just ignored me. I might as well not even have been there for the amount of attention she gave me. I've been ignored before but she seems to be able to really drive home that she's ignoring someone. It'd be impressive if she wasn't doing it to me.”

“That's Jackie for you,” Mickey said, grunting when the Doctor sat down on the bed and fell back, staring up at the ceiling. “She's capable of holdin' a grudge until the sun explodes, so good luck with that.”

“Thanks,” the Doctor said, missing the sarcasm. “See, I thought it wasn't going to bother me because I understand where she's coming from, but now that I've experienced it, it does bother. I can't have her hate me for the rest of her life.”

“You have been sneaking around with Zoe behind everyone's back,” Jack pointed out. “I think she's allowed to hate you for a little bit.”

“Sneaking around?” The Doctor repeated, incredulously. “We have not been _sneaking around_. What are we, horny teenagers?”

“Please don't use the word _horny_ when you're talkin' about Zoe,” Mickey requested, pained. “It's bad enough I know she has sex.” He stared at the top of the Doctor's head. “It's bad enough I know _you_ have sex. That was information I could've lived without.”

“Yeah, yeah, I have sex, turns out I'm just like every other man,” he said, waving a dismissive hand and making Jack grin widely. “That's not the problem here.”

“Seems to be the cause of the problem,” Jack said.

“You're not helping.”

“Are we supposed to be helping?” He asked, lightly, winking at Mickey. “Good to know.”

“You –” he pointed at Jack. “Be quiet. Mickey –” rolling over, his knees sliding off the bed to the floor, the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows, resting his chin on his fists. “You know Jackie better than either of us. What can I do to get her to tolerate me again?”

“Tolerate,” Jack repeated, amusement etched into his face. “I like that you're realistic in your goals.”

The Doctor threw him a filthy look before refocusing on Mickey. “Well? What can I do?”

Mickey dragged his hand across his unshaven jaw, wishing he had invested in a better lock for his front door. “Probably stop datin' Zoe.”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen, next.”

“That's it, sorry,” Mickey said. “Jackie can't be bribed or whatever into likin' you. Jimmy Stone tried it once with her when Rose brought him 'round before everythin' kicked off an' I honestly thought she was goin' to pitch him over the side of the buildin' when he gave her flowers. She doesn't like suck ups.”

“I'm not Jimmy bloody Stone,” the Doctor exclaimed. “Or a suck up for that matter.”

Jack looked between them. “Who's Jimmy Stone?”

“Rose's ex,” they said together.

“An' course you're not,” Mickey continued. “You're about as far from Jimmy Stone as it's possible to be. But it's not like the Tyler women have great luck with men, an' none of us ever met Reinette so it's not like we've got a baseline to judge Zoe's choices by. You're the first person she's brought home to the family, an' even though Jackie knows you, she's goin' to be suspicious because you're a man. In her book, men aren't to be trusted, not really. She wants to trust them but she's also ready to believe the worst of them. Hell, she turned on me fairly quickly when Rose went missin' an' she's known me most of my life. But she'll come 'round once she sees that you make Zoe happy, it's just goin' to take a while.”

The Doctor sighed and dropped his face into the bed. “I hate that you're making sense right now.”

“It does happen sometimes,” he said.

“I don't like doing it from this side,” the Doctor complained, voice muffled before he lifted his head. “It was so much easier and a lot more fun when I was terrifying the partners of my kids. I really don't like experiencing it the other way around.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Jack said, exchanging a startled glance with Mickey. “ _Kids_? You had kids?”

“Everyone's always so surprised,” he complained. “Yes, I had kids. What did you think I was doing with myself before I left Gallifrey?”

“Honestly, I assumed you were getting into trouble or something,” Jack shrugged.

The Doctor grinned. “Nah, my wife was the troublemaker. I was much more by the book towards the middle of my first body. A bit of a wild youth and all that, but I settled down after I married and my children were loomed. I was quite respectable for a time.”

Mickey snorted. “That I don't believe.”

“Hey,” he laughed. “I was a productive and useful member of society, thank you very much.”

“That'll be the day,” Jack said, yelping when the Doctor reached out and caught hold of one foot beneath the blanket, tickling it. “I take it back, I take it back!” Moving his feet out of reach of the Doctor, he threaded his fingers with Mickey's. “If you want my opinion –”

“Oddly enough, I do.”

Jack ignored him. “Just give Jackie time and space to accept that Zoe's chosen you and things will get back to normal soon enough.”

“He's right,” Mickey agreed. “They're family. This won't last forever.”

“I hope so,” the Doctor sighed. “I told Zoe it'd be okay and I meant it, I just hate that it bothers her. She was tossing and turning all night until she got up to go for a run, and I want to fix it and make it better so she's not worrying about her mum and sister and waking me up in the process. Oh, and there's another thing!” Mickey and Jack rolled their eyes. “What the hell's going on with Rose at the moment? Why's she acting strangely? I figured she'd be like you, asking inappropriate questions about the sex –”

“Which I still don't have answers to, by the way,” Jack reminded him.

“And you won't,” he said. “I don't know why she's gone all –” his twisted his fingers before him in a complicated gesture. “Swirly. Zoe started to tell me last night but told me to forget about it, which only makes me more curious. What's going on with her?”

Mickey dragged a hand over his face, torn between amusement and exasperation. “How is it that you're 900 years old, been married, datin' Zoe, an' you still know fuck all about women?”

The Doctor peered at him. “I feel like that's a trick question.”

He turned to look at Jack. “This is goin' to be a long conversation.”

“I'll put the kettle on then.”

Jack kissed Mickey before throwing the covers off his body, the Doctor's hand covering his eyes at the sight of him naked from the waist down. Skin flushed, he listened to Jack pull on a pair of boxers and wrangle his crutches under control before he left, the sound of him fading as he headed towards the kitchen. Hand clasped over his eyes, he was beginning to realise what he had walked in on.

“Mickey?”

“Yeah, mate?”

“You're naked under there too, aren't you?”

Mickey grinned. “Yeah.”

The Doctor leapt up from the bed as though burned and hurried out of the door. Watching him go, Mickey laughed to himself and pushed the covers back to start his day properly, mentally preparing himself for what he was sure was to be an awkward conversation regarding Rose's feelings for him.

_Mickey the idiot,_ he thought, amused. _Bloody hypocrite._

* * *

Zoe spread the picnic blanket on the ground and glanced over towards the Doctor, pausing in setting up their afternoon lunch, enraptured by the sight of him holding Leia by her tiny hands and introducing her to the frogs that were in the garden. He looked so natural with his body contorted to fit around a child's, holding her on his feet and keeping her upright as he pointed to one frog after another, telling her their names and attempting to get her to say them. It was no surprise that the Doctor had taken to Leia – babies stole his hearts on a near daily basis – but there was something different about seeing him interact with a baby who happened to be a family member. The sight of it spoke to something inside of her that warmed at the thought of him being a father.

She imagined a small child with her dusky skin and his everything, toddling up to him saying _daddy._

“Stop it,” she muttered, ripping her eyes from them. “Just stop it.”

Focusing on unpacking the picnic, she ignored the thought that she could make him a father again if he wanted and set up their lunch. Leia had helped her in the kitchen to make cupcakes, though her help took a similar form to the Doctor's in that it was more interference than actual assistance, but she had enjoyed decorating the cupcakes and that was all that mattered. While she and Leia had been baking, the Doctor had put together lunch for them and she was surprised that there was a decent selection of foods rather than the random assortment that they occasionally ended up with when he was in a whimsical mood.

“Lunch is served,” Zoe called over to them. “Come and get it while it's cold!”

The Doctor scooped Leia up and held her upside down, her small legs pushing against his shoulder as she giggled, and he jogged to close the distance. Dressed casually in his suit trousers and a simple T-shirt, Zoe thought he looked like any dad that might be found at the park with his kids. He placed Leia on her stomach on the blanket and dropped next to Zoe, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

“The frogs officially like her,” he said. “I think we're in the clear if we want to kidnap her.”

“We're not kidnapping her,” she told him, pouring him a glass of ice cold lemonade. “Sabrina wants to keep her and you've done enough kidnapping of my family, thank you.”

“Not a kidnapping,” the Doctor said behind his glass, eyes smiling when she rolled her eyes. “Leia, do you want lemonade? Aunt Zoe's packed you the boring non-sugary kind.” Leia burbled at him. “She wants the good kind.”

“She's not having the good kind,” Zoe said, finding Leia's sippy cup and decanting the child friendly version of her lemonade into it. Lifting her up, she placed Leia the fold of her legs and handed her the cup. “Drink up. Listening to the Doctor talk is exhausting.”

“Is it now?” He asked, archly, immediately distracted by the chicken sandwiches he had made, pushing one into his mouth and grinning at her faintly disgusted expression. “No' as bad as you an' eclairs.”

“Don't speak with your mouth full.” She assembled a small plate of food for Leia to pick at and squash between her fingers. “And, as I've told you before, I eat eclairs in a perfectly sensible manner.”

“I find it sexy if slightly horrifying,” the Doctor replied. “It's definitely not _perfectly sensible_ though. Leia here agrees with me, don't you?” He reached out and tickled her stomach before picking up a grape that had been split into quarters to avoid Leia choking and feeding it to her. “Good girl. Heard anything from Rose yet?”

Zoe sighed. “No. Mum said she's off with Sarah Jane but I think that's code for my sister hates me and is avoiding me.”

“Strange code,” he said, distracted by Leia showing him her toy for the sixth time that day. “I like this, this is a nice monkey. What's its name again?” Incoherent noises left Leia. “Monkey? That's a good name, excellent choice.”

Fondness consumed her as she watched him. “You're an idiot.”

“Says the person who can't speak baby,” he said, smile curving his mouth. “And Rose doesn't hate you, she loves you. Are you going to tell the rest of your family?”

“Pretty sure Mum'll take care of that for me,” Zoe said. “Nana'll be happy what with you being a doctor and all, and Aunt Caroline's going to be sick with envy, so that's going to be fun. I'm actually looking forward to that because Joel's wife is medical receptionist but Aunt Caroline goes around telling people she's a nurse. It really pisses Mel off.”

“Joel being your cousin, Sabrina's brother,” the Doctor remembered, forming an extended family tree in his mind. “Your Aunt Caroline's a bit of a snob, by the way.”

“Most of the Prentice lot are,” she replied, catching Leia's monkey before it fell into the food. “I haven't really missed them because we don't normally get together a lot but seeing Nana and Sabrina again has been nice. She did say I'd put on weight though – Nana, that is, not Sabrina – and that was less nice.”

The Doctor's eyes skimmed over her. “You have not. And trust me, I'd know. Your body is something that –”

“No dirty talk in front of the baby,” she interrupted, quickly, hands covering Leia's ears as her cousin smeared cupcake frosting over her face. “I don't trust Leia to keep her mouth shut. One bowl of ice cream and our secrets will be everywhere.”

“Is that right?” The Doctor leaned down until he was eye level with her. “Are you a snitch?”

“Careful, she'll –” her eyes went wide and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Do that.”

Stretching out his tongue, the Doctor attempted to lick the smeared icing from his cheek. Laughing, she slipped her fingers beneath the collar of his T-shirt and tugged him up, kissing the frosting from him, smiling when he turned his mouth into hers.

“I always forget how messy kids are,” he said, brushing his nose over hers. “Mine used to be covered in all sorts of stuff at the end of the day. Couldn't keep them clean for a minute if our backs were turned.”

“Troublemakers like their parents then?”

“Of course.” Removing Leia from Zoe's lap, he set about cleaning the frosting from her chubby hands and fed her pieces of cupcake instead. Zoe reached out for a miniature sausage roll and he frowned, catching hold of her hand and bringing it to his eyes. “Where's your wedding ring? Did you lose it?”

She reached beneath her jumper and removed the chain on which her wedding ring hung. “Uncle Ben wouldn't stop mentioning on it, so I've taken it off until we leave. He was getting really weird about it.”

“He's married to Aunt Caroline, right? The one Rose called Ben the Bore?” Leia gurgled, Monkey's ear going back in her mouth, even as Zoe grinned. “I'm not sure I like Ben the Bore. He seems like a bit of a –” catching the insult before it left his mouth, conscious he had the man's granddaughter in his lap, he tapped Leia's flat nose with the tip of his finger. “Not very nice man.”

“Smooth,” Zoe grinned. “And no one really likes Uncle Ben, least of all Aunt Caroline. She's only with him because he's got money and she feels that she can't look after herself. Bullshit in my opinion, she's got all sorts of skills but it is what it is. I think she's learnt to tune him out now.”

“That sounds an awful way to live your life,” he said with a frown that morphed into a silly face when Leia looked up at him. “It is, isn't it? Look, Leia agrees with me.”

She rolled her eyes and popped a grape into his mouth. “Does Rose know we're leaving tonight?”

“I asked Jack and Mickey to let her know,” the Doctor said. “We won't leave without her.”

Zoe picked the grapes off the stem until she had a small handful. “Do you think she'll want to come with us?”

“Of course she will,” he said even though he wasn't sure now that Jack and Mickey had filled him in on Rose's feelings for him, his stomach squirming with discomfort. “Stop borrowing worry. We'll all be together on the TARDIS and you and Rose will be able to talk. If it gets really bad, we can just look the two of you in the kitchen and keep you there until you work it out.”

She laughed. “Think we can do that with Mum?”

“I kind of don't want to get within punching distance of Jackie any time soon,” he admitted, the bruise on his jaw having come and gone overnight. “But I'd absolutely do that for you if you wanted.”

“I know you would,” Zoe said, smiling at him. “Sorry, I'm going to be like this until everything sorts itself out. You've got a lot of repetitive conversations coming your way in the near future. You're going to have to learn to tune me out.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

She bounced a grape off his forehead. “You're a comedian.”

“There's something I haven't tried yet, stand-up comedy.” The thought filled Zoe with horror that reflected itself on her face. “That's a no then?”

“I think you're very funny,” she said. “But stand up is always a little –” she see-sawed her hand back and forth. “I find it cringey.”

“Duly noted,” the Doctor said, Leia's fist bumping his jaw. “Oof, what was that for? Huh? What did I do to deserve that?” She held a raspberry in her fingers, her grip too tight and crushing half of it, but he patiently let her feed it to him. “Thank you very much.”

“You're so good with her,” Zoe told him, heart threatening to burst with love for him. “You're good with all kids. It's one of your more attractive qualities.”

He clucked his tongue, looking pleased. “Women and babies, you're living up to stereotype right now.”

“I can't help it,” she laughed. “The sight of you with Leia is doing strange things to me. I've never felt broody before but I'm beginning to feel it now. I feel I should tell you to put down the baby and step away for my own good.”

“And here I was thinking you didn't like children,” he teased. “You're nothing but a fraud. Look at how good you are with Leia, you think that's not affecting me?” She looked at him, surprised. “Come on, the beautiful woman I'm in love with playing with the cutest baby on Earth? I'm going to have thoughts.”

She watched him bop Leia lightly on the nose, trailing his finger to the middle of her forehead, smiling when her eyes crossed. The night they had decided to try a relationship, he had told her that he wouldn't be able to give her children and despite what she had told Jackie the night before, it wasn't something they had discussed in any depth. She knew his love for children was endless, and he knew that she was mildly uncomfortable around them, although Leia was the exception because she was sweet and easy to handle.

“Do you want to do that again?” Zoe asked, brushing crumbs from her lap. “Be a parent, I mean?”

His long finger traced the light shadows of Leia's eyebrows before brushing down her nose, letting her use his finger as a teething ring.

“Having children was the best thing I ever did,” the Doctor said, honestly. “It was expected of me, as it was of all good Time Lords, but I enjoyed them a lot more than I was supposed to. Most bonded couples have one of two like my parents did, Lev and I had four and would have had more if we could. They were such a source of joy from the moment they were placed in my arms, and losing them was a pain far worse than the loss of Gallifrey and everyone else. Their deaths cut me apart in ways I haven't fully recovered from, but, when I think about it, I think that maybe, yes. I wouldn't mind doing it again.”

“Even knowing how it might end?” She asked, careful as she always was when touching on the subject of his family.

“We never know how any of it's going to end,” the Doctor said. “And even though it ended the way it did, I'd do it all over again in a heartsbeat knowing what I do.”

Her finger fluttered at her neck, pulling her necklace out to twirl her wedding ring around the chain. “I don't know if I want kids.”

His eyes flicked to her. “Zo –”

“Even when I was a kid, I wasn't sure. Rose was always the one who was good with them and understood them, I was just awkward and in the corner.” Her mouth felt dry and, for the first time in his presence, she felt nervous. “Teaching them is different – I like teaching. I don't know if I ever want to be a mother though.”

“That's okay,” he said, reaching out to pry her hand from her wedding ring, stroking her knuckles with his thumb. “Like I said when we started this, us having kids would be difficult. There's all sorts of poking and prodding I'd have to do to get it to work, and even then there's no guarantee that it would. My people never reproduced outside of our species before so it's hard to tell what would happen. Although, thinking about it, I imagine my genes would sort of overwhelm yours so any kids of ours would end up more Time Lord than human, which isn't bad really.”

She squeezed his hand and scrunched her nose at him.

“I said I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I also wouldn't mind _not_ doing it.” Leia resting in the cradle of his lap, he reached across and brushed her hair from her face as an excuse to touch her. “We'd make beautiful children but you're all I want.”

She turned her head and kissed the inside of his wrist. “And if I change my mind?”

“Then we can talk about it,” he promised her.

She worried her bottom lip, and he reached out and tugged it from her teeth. “I don't hate the idea of there being something left of me for you once I'm gone.” He stilled, the only reaction to her words. “If a child would really be more Time Lord than human, I can be sure that you wouldn't be alone after I die. You'd have something to remember me by.”

His thumb pressed against her lips, pain buried deep in his eyes.

“I don't need a child to remember you. You're seared into me, Zoe Tyler, body and soul.” She closed her eyes and kissed the pad of his thumb. “Now, enough of this, we have a small human to entertain and we're not doing a very good job. Did you bring the stuff I asked for?”

“The painting stuff, yeah.”

“Good, because we're going to paint something for your mum to put on her fridge,” the Doctor said, tickling Leia lightly. “And we're going to get nice and messy in the process.”

Zoe swallowed, wondering if one day it would be their child he would be holding, and got to her feet to fetch the bag she had left by the bench. ““I'll get the paint out. I hope you don't mind losing that shirt – she splashes.”

“What a coincidence,” he beamed. “So do I.”


	36. Chapter 36

Rose checked the time on her phone and her mouth tightened with displeasure. A missed call from an unknown number was dismissed with a swipe of her thumb, the message from Zoe catching her attention, settled as it was in their private chat where they discussed presents for Jackie's birthday and stupid things that had culminated in a heated debate over whether they would prefer to own a horse the size of a cat or a cat the size of a mouth. The middle finger emoji that streamed across her screen was the last remnants of normality between the two sisters before the revelation of Zoe's relationship with the Doctor. Leaving her on read had done nothing to abate the persistence that Rose found annoying and oppressive, and her thumb hovered over the message alert, weighing up the pros and cons of looking at it. With reluctance making her chest ache, she tapped the message with the awareness that, if she didn't, she would spend the rest of the day thinking about it.

**Can we talk?**

And then, minutes later, a single word had appeared under the request.

**Please.**

Rose examined the plaintive word and closed her eyes, the memory of the Doctor and Zoe tangled together pressing in on her. Anger licked at her chest, and she clicked out of messages and turned her phone onto silent so it wouldn't bother her. Picking up her jacket, she put it on and paused in front of the mirror where she sucked her stomach in and frowned at her reflection; normally, she was happy with how she looked, aware that she was never going to be tall and slender like the models she had once idolised in Shareen's glossy magazines, but she was happy with how she looked. Compared to Zoe though – her taller, slimmer, and far more beautiful sister now that she had shed the puppy fat of youth – she felt short and dumpy.

Feeling ridiculous, she turned sharply from the mirror and left the room, nearly tripping over Leia who was scooting towards the front door with her favourite stuffed toy hanging from her mouth.

“Where d'you think you're goin'?” Placing her hands under Leia's sticky armpits, Rose lifted her up onto her waist and carried her through to the living room where Sabrina was standing in a towel, her wet hair dripping over her shoulders, checking her messages on an old Nokia. “Your kid's makin' a break for it.”

Sabrina's mouth lifted up. “Don't know where she thinks she's going to go, she's got no money.”

“Don't think she cares too much, reckon she just wants an adventure,” Rose said, reaching for the pack of wet wipes on the table. “Also, she's got jam in her armpits.”

Sabrina sighed, eyes fluttering shut with exasperation. “I swear to god, this child...”

Laughing, Rose cleaned the jam from Leia's arms and then her hands before she stepped over K9 to put her into the playpen that was filled with stuffed toys and wooden bricks. Her eyes caught on the engravings on the side of the bricks, reaching in to turn it over to examine, swallowing when she recognised the swirling writing of the Doctor's native language, unsurprised that he had given Leia a present. Setting the brick back down and smoothing her hand over Leia's head in farewell, she turned and scratched K9 behind his ears, waking it up from sleep mode.

“Hey, buddy,” Rose said. “Keep an eye on Leia, would you? Make sure she doesn't escape, okay?”

K9's ears twitched. “O-kay.”

Her nose scrunched at the sound of his voice. Distinctive at the best of times, it had taken on a rough, broken hue that made it sound as if he was congested, microwave parts still clogging up his systems, and she ran her hand down the length of his back.

“Voice circuits still givin' you some problems, huh?” K9 shifted a little, moving against her hand, seeking more attention. “Poor thing. Can't be nice.”

“Master's programme is in process of updating my systems,” he said, brokenly. “In three hours and fifty-eight minutes, I will be restored to full functionality.”

“I'm sure you will.” She petted his flank and gave his ears a tweak. “You're a good dog.”

His tail twitched in a wag. “Affirmative.”

Straightening up, Rose paused when she caught sight of Sabrina watching her with a small frown on her face. There had been a small discussion over what to tell the extended family regarding the fact that she and Zoe travelled but had no pictures to show for it – the pictures they did have raised more questions than they answered. The Doctor had suggested telling them the truth, Jack bobbing his head in agreement next to him, but Mickey, Rose, Zoe, and Jackie had hesitated. In the end, Jackie had decided to keep things as they were, concluding that it didn't matter as they rarely saw their grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Following her lead, they continued with the story that the Doctor was John Smith, Jack's American cousin and a different John Smith from the Northerner who had gone back home at Christmas never to be seen again.

It was a fairly flimsy story, one that Rose expected it to fall apart at some point in the near future, though she wondered if they might as well simply tell Sabrina. Out of all the Essex-based family, Sabrina Powell was easily the nicest and most open minded of them all, accidentally fumbling her way to basic human decency while the rest of her family slipped deeper into snobbery and disdain for others. Rose's senior by four years, she had made it through her three-year university course studying geography before falling pregnant at her graduation party where her birth control failed her.

“John's an inventor, right?” Sabrina asked, eyes on K9 who was peering into her daughter's playpen, interested in the small human as he had never seen one before. “One of those genius types?”

“Yeah,” Rose said, adjusting her jacket awkwardly as her cousin inched closer to the truth with each clue that was laid at her doorstep. “He builds all sorts of stuff, an' K9's one of the few things he's built that doesn't actually blow up when you touch it.”

Her frown deepened. “Are you sure it's safe around Leia?”

“Couldn't be safer,” she promised before turning her back to look for her bag that she was certain she had left in the living room. “I'm headin' off. Tell Mum that I've gone to meet Sarah Jane – she'll know who that is – an' that I'll be back later.”

“Okay,” Sabrina replied, hand tightening on her towel as Leia slapped a hand to K9's nose and laughed. Rose's words took a moment to penetrate her concerned haze and, when they did, she turned in mild alarm. “Wait, you're not staying? Zoe said she'd look after Leia and I assumed you'd be there.”

“Don't worry about it,” Rose told her, finding her bag behind the sofa and giving the strap a yank to pull it free, nose wrinkling as she brushed the cobwebs from it, a sign that Jackie needed to vacuum more thoroughly. “The Doc – John'll be with her. They're attached at the bleedin' hip right now, an' he's great with kids. You might have trouble gettin' Leia back from him at the end of the day though. Don't worry about it.”

“Last time Zoe babysat, she ended up reading The Shining to her,” she complained. “Leia had nightmares.”

“Leia's two,” Rose replied. “How much is she really gettin' right now?”

Sabrina sighed, annoyed. “You're no help right now.”

“Not tryin' to be,” she said with a grin. “An' just tell Zoe no inappropriate books, but, seriously, you don't have to worry about it. Like I said, John's great with kids. Now, shut up, I need to go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sabrina grumbled, waving her off, attention drifting back to K9 and Leia. “Have a good day, you useless sod.”

“You too!”

Despite the lift having been fixed for some months, Rose automatically bypassed it and made her way down the stairwell as she popped two paracetamol tablets from a blister pack in order to ease the headache that hadn't disappeared despite two cups of tea and a plate of toast. What she wanted was Zoe's cooked breakfast, a staple after a heavy night out, followed by the Doctor handing over the hangover cure with an amused expression on his face that was only funny when she wasn't hungover and in pain. Swallowing the tablets dry, she pushed open the doors to the outside and held it open for Maurice to pass, watching him in surprise as he missed the opportunity to comment something foul and sexual to her.

“Oi, Maurice, what's wrong with you?” Rose asked, making him pause on the staircase. “Bad trip or somethin'?”

“What?”

“You didn't hit on me just then,” she pointed out. “Not that I mind, to be honest, could easily do without that first thing in the mornin', but it's out of character an' all. You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Maurice said, eyes darting towards the door. “Just tell that mate of yours to mind his own, all right?”

“Which mate?”

“The tall one,” he said, unhelpfully. “Bloody attacked me last night when I was havin' a nice chat with Zoe. Fuckin' psycho is what he is.”

“The Doctor?” Surprise whipped through Rose, not sure if she had ever seen the Doctor become physically violent with someone. “What did he do?”

“Shoved me against a wall an' threatened me,” Maurice complained. “All I was doin' was talkin' to Zoe. We were mindin' our own business when he came along an' got violent. I could press charges.”

“You're a drug dealer,” Rose said, pointedly. “You press charges an' you'll probably end up in jail instead. Aren't you on probation anyway?”

“Only until the end of the month,” he said. “Just tell him to watch his back.”

She rolled her eyes. “You pick a fight with him an' you'll regret it. He might look like the wind'll knock him over but he's somethin' else when his back's against the wall. If I were you, I'd leave well enough alone.”

Maurice muttered something under his breath that Rose chose to ignore, leaving him behind as she exited the building. Whatever had happened the night before between the Doctor and Maurice, she was certain it had been something to do with Zoe. Ever since they were kids and had entered puberty – Rose earlier than Zoe – Maurice had been dropping sexualised comments in their presence, directing them to their faces when they turned sixteen. No matter how many threats Jackie had levelled at him, he hadn't stopped, and she found it interesting that one altercation with the Doctor was enough to draw a line under years of interactions that had left her questioning whether she was the one to blame for his attention.

She would have thanked him had she not been avoiding him.

Passing swiftly in front of the TARDIS, ignoring the brush of disapproval in the back of her mind from the ship itself, she made her way off the estate. Vague plans of messaging Sarah Jane and asking to meet her for a chat about _everything_ fell apart when a horn honked, a jump running through her, and she turned.

“Are you kiddin' me?” Rose muttered, surprised and annoyed when she recognised Drew behind the wheel of his UNIT-issued jeep, waving at her. “Don't be a stalker, please don't be a stalker.”

“Rose, hey, hold on a second!”

He drew the car onto the estate and parked it, rummaging with something in the front cabin as she considered making a run for it and pretending she hadn't seen him, though she suspected it was too late for that. He clambered out of the car with two takeaway cups in his hands, kicking the door shut behind him.

“Morning,” Drew said brightly when he reached her, holding a steaming cup towards her. “Coffee? I don't actually know if you drink coffee but I know Zoe mainlines it so I thought maybe you liked it too. If you don't, I also have tea. Everyone likes tea.” He offered her the other cup. “I have sugar and milk in the car as well.”

Rose stared at the cups and then at him. “What are doin' here?”

“Picking you up,” he said, brightness not dimming in the face of her less-than-enthusiastic response to his presence, reminding her – somewhat unkindly – of a Labrador puppy. “Colonel Mace suggested you might like to have a tour of UNIT before you make a decision about whether or not you want to work for us. He did try to call – well, his assistant called but you didn't answer – and I offered to come and get you since I know where you live and everything. I told him you had TARDIS stuff to do today but on the off chance that's already finished, you could come and see UNIT? Properly, I mean. The colonel doesn't get excited about, well, anything, to be honest, but the thought of you coming to work for us is bringing out the red carpet treatment normally reserved for VIPs.”

Used to listening to people who released streams of consciousness from their mouths, she was easily able to parse Drew's meaning. Ignoring the warmth that bloomed in her chest that came from the fact that Colonel Mace considered her _VIP,_ she frowned.

“Why would he ask me to tour UNIT?” Rose asked. “Alistair only passed on the offer yesterday.”

“Yeah, the Brig called earlier and said the colonel should offer you a tour,” Drew said with a small shrug. “I guess he thinks you're close to agreeing and wants to sweeten the deal.”

“Alistair suggested it?”

Understanding slotted into place and sent a sigh rolling out of her. News travelled fast but gossip travelled faster, and it was clear that Alistair had been informed about what she and Jackie had walked in on the night before and was taking it upon himself to remind her that she had options. Reminded that there was no privacy on or off the TARDIS, everyone but the man himself aware of her feelings for the Doctor, annoyance rose up in her chest and she took the tea from Drew with a rough hand.

“Why are people so bloody interferin'?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an answer?” Drew asked, bringing the coffee to his mouth and taking a sip, eye twitching in distaste.

“Rhetorical, I think.”

“Are you okay?” He asked, eyes sweeping over her face with the faintest hint of concern peeking through his cheerfulness. “You seem... _off_.”

The demand to know exactly how he knew she was _off_ when he didn't know her well enough to know she liked one sugar in her morning tea rested on the tip of her tongue. Anger at Zoe, annoyance at Drew turning up without warning, and embarrassment that her feelings were spread across London made cruelty step within reach. Unleashing it on Drew would be satisfying for however long it took her to put her emotions into words, but she knew that she would feel guilty immediately afterwards. He was a nice person and snapping at him made her think of kicking a puppy: unnecessary, cruel, and not who she was.

Aside from an eagerness to spend time with her, he had done nothing to earn her vitriol and she forced the cruelty back from her lips, pushing it down and down and down until she was certain it wouldn't hurt him.

Opening her mouth to dismiss his concerns, the sound of the Doctor's laughter reached her and her stomach twisted. Looking back over her shoulder, she watched as the Doctor bounced on his feet outside the TARDIS, hands tucked into his pockets, waiting for Zoe who had dashed back inside to grab her coat. Grabbing Drew by the front of his jacket, she hauled him out of sight, ignoring the spluttering he made when she half strangled him in her haste to make herself unseen. One hand on his chest to keep him behind her, she peered around the corner and watched with a sour feeling growing inside of her as the Doctor helped Zoe into her coat, gently removing her hair from beneath the collar before taking her hand.

“Why are we hiding?”

She jumped, Drew's breath warm against the side of her face. “What?”

“You pulled me over here,” he told her, moving to look around the corner but she pushed him back. “We're hiding from something. What is it? Is it dangerous? Do I need to call it in?”

“You don't need to call everythin' in,” Rose said, eyes rolling. “Sometimes you can deal with it yourself, y'know?”

“That goes against UNIT policy,” Drew said. “It's in the employee handbook.”

“Of course there's a handbook,” she muttered, shaking her head before gesturing for him to remain where he was, inching around the corner. The Doctor and Zoe walked into Bucknall House, unaware that Rose was watching them. As soon as they were out of sight, she relaxed, leaning back and resting her head against the wall, eyes closed. “Sorry 'bout that, I'm just...I don't want to see Zoe or the Doctor right now.”

“Oh.” Drew shifted at her side. “They're not giving you problems about last night, are they?”

Her eyes snapped open, a glare levelled at him. “What d'you know about last night?”

“I was there,” he said, uncertainly, thrown by her sudden shift in mood. “Were they making fun? My brother's like that. Sometimes I want to strangle him.”

“Yeah, somethin' like that” Rose said, deflating, and she searched for a change in topic that she hoped made her seem less volatile. “How long does a tour at UNIT take then?”

“Depends on the person, but you're a VIP,” Drew replied. “A _V_ VIP. Yours will probably take a few hours. Definitely into the afternoon. He'll want to show you everything, even stuff that most UNIT officers can't see. Classified doesn't really work when you're the expert on alien tech.”

The idea of being an expert at anything made her laugh.

“Is there food at UNIT?” She asked when she was done. “I'm starvin'. I haven't eaten anythin' yet an' it's all I can think about.”

“There's food,” he reassured her, hesitating before seizing the opportunity before him. “I could also take you to breakfast if you'd like? Colonel Mace doesn't know what time we'll be getting in. He told me to wait for as long as you needed to get ready if you were coming so having breakfast somewhere wouldn't be a huge problem., as long as you promise not to tell him. That's – that's if you want to come, I mean.”

Since Rose's plan for the day had been to find something to eat before texting Sarah Jane to see if she was free to talk, the idea of breakfast – even with a man she had hoped would be a one-night stand – was tempting.

Touring UNIT was also something she had wanted to do since arriving there on the Monday gone, unable to do so at the time as she was whisked into the field before she had a chance to poke around in the nooks and crannies; and, it would be a lie for her to claim that she wasn't interested in UNIT's offer of employment. Last night it had felt like distant opportunity, something for her to think about further down the road when she was ready to leave the TARDIS, but in the aftermath of learning about the Doctor and Zoe, she looked at the offer in a different light.

Stripped of naïve dreams and foolish hopes, she was forced to reckon with the fact that she _needed_ something after the TARDIS if she didn't want to become bitter with her best years behind her.

Zoe's insistence on getting her A-Levels made sense to her now.

“Go on then,” Rose said, certain she was going to feel less pathetic at UNIT then weeping on Sarah Jane's sofa even though the smile that bloomed across Drew's face caused spasms of discomfort in the pit of her stomach. “Somewhere not here though.”

Drew nodded, pushing away from the wall after pausing for permission to move, a quick nod letting him straighten up.

“I know this great breakfast place near the Tower of London,” he said. “Well, it's technically brunch but brunch is like breakfast just at a different time really.”

“Breakfast fan, are you?”

“Yeah,” he said, smile spreading across his face as she began to thaw, warmth seeping into her voice and softening the stiff line of her body. “Waffles, pancakes, any baked goods from the continent, a fry up, obviously, cereal if I'm feelin lazy –”

Rose laughed. “All right, all right, I get it. You're a dork.”

“A dork who happens to know the best breakfast place in all of London,” Drew told her, eyes sparkling as he lifted his coffee to his mouth again, forgetting he didn't enjoy it in the face of her laughter. “Shall we?”

“I guess so,” Rose said, resigning herself with amusement to more time spent in Drew's company, irritated with herself for finding him charming despite her best efforts. “What are you doin' workin' on Saturday anyway? Don't you get time off?”

“Sundays and Mondays,” he replied, opening the passenger door for her. “But flexibility's key when working at UNIT. You'll find that out.”

“I haven't said yes yet.”

“What's not to like about working for us?” He asked, leaning against the open door. “Good salary, good benefits... _me_.”

“Get in the car,” she said, pulling the seatbelt across her torso. “I'm hungry.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Drew laughed when she scowled at him through the car window and shut the door, thrilled with how his morning was turning out.

* * *

As the early afternoon sun spread through the windows of the meeting room within UNIT's London-based headquarters, the rapid, incessant clicking of a ballpoint pen was slowly driving Colonel Mace mad. It had started seven minutes earlier when the presentation was showing the optimum positions of the fifteen satellites that were being considered to be put into orbit of the Earth through an unprecedented international agreement drawing governments and organisations all over the world into the defence of the planet. Deliberately ignoring the sound, he kept his attention focused straight ahead to the annoyance of the man with the pen.

The Master clicked the pen faster, his face the picture of perfect attention even as his mind wandered far and wide; the meeting had bored him two minutes in and annoying the people around him was the closest he was able to get to entertainment without risking the future of the Archangel Network. Lucy had suggested that morning that perhaps they should take another trip in the TARDIS, his irritability growing with every minute spent on Earth among the natives, but the thought of travelling to the end of the universe _again_ filled him with a sense of boredom that threatened to overwhelm him.

The fact that the TARDIS controls were locked in place was a sense of ever-present frustration and anger that grew with each failure at opening the controls up. He suspected the TARDIS was working against him but the controls were melted and fused to each other, delicate switches irreplaceable without visiting Gallifrey and parking the TARDIS in a repair shop. As returning home was something he wasn't willing to do – particularly with a stolen TARDIS and a missing Doctor – he had to make do with the bits and bobs he was able to find in the TARDIS and around London.

For that, Torchwood had been helpful in turning a blind eye when he slipped alien technology into his pockets on his near-weekly visits there – since the humans were stupid enough to begin aiming a particle gun at the weak points in the wall between one universe and another, he wanted to keep a close eye on them so he knew when to leave Earth on the inevitable day they made a mess of it. His trip to UNIT that day was twofold: deliver a presentation on the Archangel Network that was ostensibly to protect the human race against another Sycorax incident while leaving the way clear for him to sow his special brand of chaos, and to have a discreet rummage in their R&D department for something that would replace the burnt out circuits in the fifth-adjacent control panel.

Had the Doctor been taking better care of the TARDIS, the Master wouldn't have had to go to such lengths to repair the damage inflicted on it at the end of the universe.

As it stood, he wasn't sure whatever the UNIT vaults held in way of alien technology was worth the boredom of sitting through a three-hour meeting to discuss the finer details of the Archangel plan. Were he a normal politician, he would have sent an aid to run through it for him, the few people that he kept on staff capable enough to answer questions without drooling their stupidity over themselves, though only barely; it was his boredom that was the problem.

It had been five months since he arrived on Earth, skin thrumming with regeneration energy, laughter in his mouth and remembering who he was, and delight burning through him at having a TARDIS – the Doctor's TARDIS – around him. Those first few days where he tried to make sense of his life as Professor Yana – dull and uninspired – and the powerful, aching gap where Gallifrey and the Time Lords were supposed to lie in his mind blended together to form a mess of memories and emotions, clawing his way into some semblance of normality before he explored the TARDIS and took in the changes since he had last been inside. Clear from the first that the Doctor was travelling with humans again, which meant that the war was over, the Master had poked around the various rooms and stood in the Doctor's bedroom and frowned at the sight of female clothes that spoke of a presence other than the Doctor.

With the TARDIS computer down and uncooperative, he had to piece together information from other sources and watched from a distance as the TARDIS appeared on a council estate in Peckham twice a week without the Doctor anywhere to be seen, only Zoe Tyler emerging alone and returning to the TARDIS alone. As he began to piece a life together – fake documents, a bestselling memoir, a beautiful new wife – he kept an eye on the Powell Estate and was rewarded for his patience when the Doctor appeared two months after he had arrived on Earth only to immediately regenerate after getting a broadsword through the chest – _idiot_ – and then head back to the stars.

His questions about the Doctor answered, life fell into a routine that bored him. Not even Lucy with her delightful desire to inflict pain and witness suffering was enough to pull him out of it. At times he thought he should just give up and go knock on the Doctor's door – exhausted from the war and desperate for answers about Gallifrey's absence in his mind – but he knew if he did approach the Doctor with the hand of friendship extended, it would be rebuffed as it had been so many times before.

_No_.

He knew the only way to get the Doctor's attention and keep it was to set fire to the things he loved, and burning Earth to a cinder seemed like a good way to go about doing it. Perhaps if Earth was gone and the insipid humans that lived on it were nothing more than ash, the Doctor might finally return home.

“Mr Saxon.” The Master lifted his eyes from the presentation and looked to Colonel Mace, thumb hovering over the thrust device, a brief spark of _thrill_ rolling through him. “Would you like to have a tour of the facilities while you're here? I don't believe you've had the opportunity yet, have you?”

“You know, I'd be delighted,” he said, tucking his pen away with a final click. “I've heard such wonderful things about UNIT that I wouldn't mind having a poke around.”

With more restraint than the Master thought he possessed, Colonel Mace nodded to an officer lining the wall and issued an order to show him around the facilities. Smiling widely at those who had to remain in the meeting, he strolled from the room with a small bounce in his step, his decision to enjoy the smaller things in life – one of Lucy's silly human customs had been to come up with New Year's resolutions – going well so far. Holding his hands behind his back, he moved through the hallways of UNIT and examined the man next to him. Harriet Jones was the type of person to ask the names of those she came across, taking a personal pride in knowing each and every person who worked for her from her personal assistant down to the cleaners. It seemed exhausting to him but also a good way at getting information, and so he turned to the man.

“Who are you then?” He asked.

“Lieutenant French, sir.”

“Do you have a first name with that rank, lieutenant?”

An easy smile stole across his face. “Drew, sir.”

“Did you have a late night, Drew?” The Master asked, reaching out to pluck at the man's collar, pulling it down to reveal light bruises across his neck. Colour rushed through his cheeks and Drew pulled his collar back up, making him laugh. Humans were strangely disparate in their attitudes towards sex – some flaunted it, others concealed it – it was baffling. “Now, now, no need to be embarrassed. I hope it was good.”

Drew coughed, flustered. “I – it was, sir.”

“Good man,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder as he had seen human males do in what he assumed was a bonding ritual. “Don't suppose we can have a look around R&D, can we? All that alien technology has really captured my imagination.”

“Of course, sir,” Drew replied, not meeting his eyes even though a small smile was playing at his lips. “Right this way.”

For a species who had only recently crawled out of the primordial soup they were cultivated in, UNIT was almost an impressive organisation that was built deep into the earth below the Tower of London, creating layers upon layers of secrecy in their heart of Britain; not like the Americans who slapped everything alien into the Nevada desert and pretended like nothing alien was there. He appreciated the British approach to hiding things beneath the day-to-day life of its citizens, the secrecy nearly reminding him of home. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he followed Drew through the building and down the long journey where the doors opened up onto a wide laboratory filled with scientists and engineers who were like children playing with toys the Master had long since set aside.

Lip curling disdainfully, he failed to see the Doctor's fascination with them.

“Here we go, sir,” Drew said, scanning his card in front of the reader to let them pass through the security protocols. “This is our Research and Development department. Shall I get Dr Taylor for you?”

“Who's Dr Taylor?”

“The man in charge around here,” he said, hesitating briefly before leaning in, voice lowered in confidence. “If I were you, I'd probably just look around myself. Dr Taylor's a little... _eccentric._ ”

The Master made a sound in his throat. “Funny, I know an eccentric doctor too.”

“Is there anything in particular you'd like to see, sir?” Drew asked.

“Not really,” he said, eyes taking note of what was in the room and might be useful for what he needed. It was a shame he couldn't take everything with him but his pockets weren't deep enough and the TARDIS was refusing to do even short hops in the same time zone without screaming blue murder in his mind. “Tell me about what you do with the technology. As I understand, it's different to the Americans.”

_And Torchwood_ , he thought, preferring Yvonne Hartman's approach to keeping the technology for themselves.

“It is,” Drew said. “Where the Americans, the Chinese, the Russians, and others keep the technology for themselves, we work at repurposing it into tech that's suitable for human use. One of the things that came out of this lab was DNA profiling that's used around the world now to help solve crimes. It was all thanks to a species reader the Zygons left behind in the 70s, I think it was. It took a few years but one of our geneticists was able to make sense of it in the end.”

“Fascinating,” the Master lied, ambling over towards a table with what looked to be a piece of an Aeolian communication dish. Fingering it, he distracted Drew with another question before slipping it into his pocket. “Didn't fancy the R&D lifestyle, eh?”

“I prefer a bit more action myself, sir,” he said with a grin, and the Master marvelled at how _easy_ it was to get humans to trust him. “I'm hoping to get an assignment overseas once my current one ends. London's great and all and, thanks to the Doctor, the centre of a lot of alien activity, but I'd like to work in one of the field offices we have.”

“A man with ambition,” the Master nodded. “I like to see that. Perhaps I can put in a good word for you in the future.” _And send you to the Arctic circle_ , he thought, sliding a Zask transmitter into his pocket, eyeing a scientist close to him with a neck that was slender, the urge to wrap his hands around it and hear it snap making his jaw ache. “Was UNIT able to recover anything from the Slitheen incident of last year?”

“The ship, sir,” Drew replied. “That's not here though. It was transported out of the city to our larger storage facilities.”

Annoyance passed through him. “Shame, I wouldn't have minded seeing a proper alien spaceship. It's terribly exciting, isn't it? Aliens and the like.”

Drew nodded. “Yes, sir, it is. I couldn't believe it when I was briefed about UNIT. It felt like a practical joke, to be honest. I'd come up through the Army, trained at Sandringham, and I thought it was a prank my squad mates were pulling on me until I came here myself.”

“I bet,” the Master said, uninterested and growing bored once more as he turned an Abzorbalovian teleport button over in his hand, twisting it between his fingers, wondering if he should use it to send his mother-in-law somewhere that wasn't near him, tiring of her incessant chatter. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed someone he had only seen from a distance and in pictures, and his whole body turned, body lighting up with opportunity. “Is that Rose Tyler?”

Recognisable from the times he had seen her on the estate with Zoe prior to the Doctor's return from wherever he had been, she was prettier than he expected. Not as tall as her sister, and her blonde hair clearly came from a bottle, twisted onto the top of her head in a messy bun, the type that Lucy favoured when she was on her knees for him; she seemed softer than Zoe did, less brittle around the edges, and she looked up from what she was examining, her eyes brushing over him to settle on Drew, a strange expression of reluctance and acceptance settling on her face.

He chuckled.

“Well, I'll be damned,” the Master said, looking at Drew with fresh appreciation. “Rose Tyler was your partner last night?”

The colour stained Drew's skin in patches, a smile struggling over his mouth. “How did you guess that?”

“I'm a very clever man,” he said, seizing the chance that fate had given him. “Introduce me.”

The brief contact he had made with Zoe Tyler two weeks earlier at her dinner with the prime minister had been enough to let him know how carefully he should tread with her, her intelligence razor sharp and her attention to detail unusual for a human; her sister was an unknown entity that might provide him with the insight he needed in the Doctor's current movements while the TARDIS computer remained stubbornly and firmly out of action. Eager to spend more time with her – a feeling the Master doubted was mutual given the way she stiffened imperceptibly at his approach –, Drew led him across the open laboratory, his pockets growing heavier as he went, until he was in front of the Doctor's travelling companion.

“Hey,” Drew said, hand twitching towards her only to pull it back, remembering where he was. “How's your tour going?”

“Fine, thanks,” she said, eyes flickering to the Master who smiled brightly at her. “Thought you'd been pulled into a meetin' or somethin'.”

The Master wondered if the Doctor enjoyed the London accent that came out of Rose's mouth or if it made him want to rip his ears off.

“My fault he's not there,” the Master said, pulling her attention to him. “I do believe I was annoying Colonel Mace a little bit.”

Her mouth curved in a smile. “Annoyin', are you?”

“Only sometimes.” He held out his hand. “Harold Saxon, Leader of the Opposition.” The name registered with her and her hand gripped his in a surprisingly firm handshake. “I know who you are, of course. You're the Doctor's companion.”

“We prefer _friends_ these days,” Rose said. “Companions is a bit outdated.”

“I'm sure it is,” he said, faintly amused. “Since you're not male and American, nor are you Zoe Tyler whom I've already met, you must be her sister.”

The muscle beneath Rose's eye twitched, his words hitting a sore spot that he filed away for use at a later date. “Rose. My name's Rose.”

“Of course,” he replied. “You should call me Harry. Only my mother calls me Harold, and I don't know why I keep introducing myself like it. Do you think it sounds more ministerial?”

“Harold?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't really know,” Rose said, looking to Drew, silently questioning if the Master was entirely sane. “S'pose it's what you prefer, isn't it? Not that I'm helpin' you, by the way. I know about you. Zoe gets into a right state when you give Harriet problems at PMQs.”

He laughed, delighted by the information. “Does she now? Would it help you to know that I'm simply doing my job in providing a robust opposition to Her Majesty's government?”

“Don't pay much attention to politics really,” she admitted. “But you're not gettin' my vote or whatever. Harriet's a mate so I'm votin' for her party when there's an election.”

The Master held his hands up in an offering of peace, mildly entertained by her. “Not to worry, plenty of people will vote for me when the time comes. If I were a betting man, I'd say that I'm going win the next election with a landslide.”

“You're confident,” Rose noted. “An' a little bit smug.”

“Fault of the job, I'm afraid,” he said. “Politicians aren't exactly known for their modesty.”

“Or their honesty.”

The Master grinned. “Or that.”

“I don't mean to be rude,” Rose said in a tone of voice that implied she was about to be rude. “But what're you doin' here? I thought UNIT was classified. Actually, I thought everythin' alien was classified.”

“It was until the Sycorax invaded,” Drew explained, standing a little too close to her than was considered appropriate, and the Master caught Rose's eye, a smile shadowed on his mouth, inviting her to trust him, and he was rewarded by the sight of her attempting to hide a smile. _Pathetic,_ he thought, pleased with himself. “With the knowledge of aliens now public knowledge, UNIT's opened up its archive and services to all members of parliament, not only those in key Cabinet positions.”

“Mighty generous of them, I think,” the Master said. “It's been a whirlwind few weeks since I received my security clearance. It's not at all what I expected when I was elected to office.”

Rose frowned. “Weeks?”

“Since the invasion,” he clarified.

“Right, yeah, sorry,” she apologised, pink dusting her cheeks and making her look beautiful for a human. “Er – how much d'you know about the Doctor?”

“Oh, this and that,” the Master said with a vague gesture of his hand. “Enough to know that things don't always happen at the same pace for you as it does for the rest of us. I guess it's been longer for you.”

“Yeah, a bit.” Her hand fluttered against the side of her head, smoothing stray hairs back, her eyes watching him with more interest than she was showing her surroundings, suggesting to him that science and technology was not something she was overly interested in. “Time travel, y'know?”

“Not really,” he lied, pleasantly. “How are you finding UNIT?”

“It's a hell of place, an' they do good work,” Rose admitted. “The attention's a bit much. I'm not used to people askin' me to come an' work for them, so the VIP treatment's kind of overwhelmin'.”

Seeds of concern and panic planted themselves in his chest. Most of the Doctor's companions had to be forced out of the TARDIS and yet Rose was entertaining a job offer from UNIT, which he couldn't allow to happen. If she took the job while he was attempting to get the Archangel Network up and running, his plans would come to nothing. He expected little to nothing from the people at UNIT, scientists and engineers and statisticians who worked theoretically rather than practically, but someone who had travelled with the Doctor would be able to recognise the low level telepathic field he was threading through the satellites, the design based off the TARDIS systems. She would recognise the Gallifreyan symbols running through the circuitry and call the Doctor in, ending everything far too soon.

World domination was no fun if there was no time to dominate it.

Drew leaned in, head dipping an inch, voice pitched low and intimate. “Do you think you can see yourself working here?”

“Maybe,” she said, stepping away from him to pick a laser spoon up off the table and examine it, her fingers automatically finding the safety and flicking it on without thinking about it. “I'm still not sure _now's_ the right time thou –” she stopped talking abruptly, snatching up an artefact identity card from the table and flashing it to Drew. “Van Statten? What the hell's UNIT doin' workin' with van Statten?”

“I don't know who that is,” Drew said.

“Henry van Statten,” the Master informed him. “An American billionaire who has his fingers in most pies.”

“Fuckin' idiot is what he is,” Rose muttered, tossing the card down in a small fit of irritation. “Might be worth comin' to work here just to stop UNIT doin' stupid shit like workin' with van-bloody-Statten.” Sighing heavily, she rolled her neck and winced at the sharp pain that rolled through her from a pulled muscle. “I think I'm done. Drew, any chance you could get someone to show me out of this place? It's like a bloody maze with hundreds of locked doors.”

“There's no need for that, Lieutenant French,” the Master said before Drew offered to do something gallant such as driving her home himself. “My business has also come to an end, and I happen to know the way out. I'd be happy to help you through the locked doors, Ms Tyler.”

She eyed him. “'S just Rose.”

“I'll have to sign you both out,” Drew said. “Security protocols. And do you need to contact your staff, sir?”

“My people know what to do without me.” The Master dismissed the question with a wave, offering Rose his arm with a smile. “Shall we?”

At the security station, the Master watched in amusement as Drew attempted to prolong the time spent with Rose by making her sign multiple forms and stretching the conversation until it was so thin awkwardness shimmered in the air between them. Only when Rose's irritation became too obvious to ignore did Drew open the door to the outside with a swipe of his card and enacted what – to the Master's eye – looked to be the most awkward hug in all of human history. Rose patted Drew on the back and twisted herself out of his arms, cheeks burning with embarrassment, she avoided looking at him as they stepped into the fresh air and let the chill of February wash over them, his car pulling around to collect him.

“No need to be embarrassed,” the Master said after letting the silence stretch until she was beginning to squirm. “We've all slept with people we regretted the next day.”

Her eyes flashed, shocked.

“What makes you think –? Did he tell you that we –?”

He chuckled and pulled on his butter-soft leather gloves. “Anyone with eyes can see that he's pining for you, and the marks on his neck suggest that you were a little amorous last night.”

“It was a mistake,” she said through gritted teeth, skin blotching with colour. “I was drunk an' needed a distraction. He's a nice enough bloke, just not –” another heavy sigh left her. “Not what I need right now, y'know?”

“Trouble in the TORDIS?”

“TARDIS,” Rose corrected.

His brow wrinkled in faux confusion. “Are you sure? Doesn't it stand for Time or Relative Dimension in Space.”

“Time _and_ ,” she said, emphasising the conjunction. “It's Time _and_ Relative Dimension in Space.”

“Fascinating,” the Master mused. “So, the Doctor's ship is capable of travelling through time _and_ space at the same time in one journey? It doesn't have to make multiple stops along the way.” Rose shrugged, never having cared much to learn about how the TARDIS worked, content simply to know it did. “Gosh, what technological wonders those Time Kings have.”

“ _Lords_ ,” she corrected again. “He's a Time Lord, an' don't get too impressed. He's an idiot about 80% of the time. Sometimes I think his lot chose the name to make themselves sound better than they are.” Anger burnt through the Master like a wildfire, the urge to smack the words from her mouth making his fingers ache, her sigh cutting him off. “Sorry. Jesus, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be – it's been a bit of a weird twenty-four hours an' my sister's pissed me off an' I'm complainin' to you when I don't even know you.”

Swallowing back his anger, he smiled. “That's okay. Sometimes talking to someone you don't know if helpful.”

“Should probably see a therapist for that instead of the Leader of the Opposition,” Rose said with a small grin. “Pretty sure it's not in your job description.”

“Well, you may not be a constituent but you are a British citizen so an argument could be made for it,” the Master said, glancing at the car and then back at her, an idea forming in his mind, the opportunity to extract information from her too valuable to let go to waste. “I don't know about you but dealing with UNIT always leaves me in need of a unwinding. Care to get a drink with me?”

She stared at him. “It's the middle of the afternoon.”

“It's also a Saturday,” he told her. “I believe that makes it a little more civilised.”

Reaching up to adjust the collar of her jacket, Rose's eyes flicked over him. “Are you askin' me out on a date?”

His gaze turned interested. “Would you like me to?”

“Not really,” she confessed, the blow to his ego only a small one. “Like I said, it's been a weird twenty-four hours, and I've already made the mistake of shaggin' one person I shouldn't, I don't need to add Harriet's political enemy to the list.”

Eyes sparkling with amusement, he let his smile grow across his face, hours spent practising in the mirror and receiving Lucy's feedback to know exactly how to make himself look more handsome than he was.

“In that case,” he said. “No date, merely a drink between two potential friends.”

Rose hesitated before checking her phone quickly. Whatever she saw on it made his interest pique and her face purse as though she had sucked on something sour. Tapping at the screen, she dropped it back into her bag and plastered a fake, bracing smile on her face.

“Sure,” she said. “Sounds like a great idea.”

When he was first getting to known London, he had stumbled into a number of drinking establishments that made his nose wrinkle and his disdain for humans to grow. It was only after meeting Lucy and letting her show him around – _you showed me the stars, let me show you London_ – that he had come across a handful of decent bars that were worth him gracing them. He took Rose to a bar in the West End that made excellent cocktails, one of the very few saving graces of the human race, even if the bar itself occasionally filled with tourists after The Lion King let out. Fortunately, it was the middle of the afternoon and the show was in the middle of its Saturday matinee, which meant there was plenty of space for them to sit in a corner and talk.

He had found that humans were startlingly susceptible to alcohol, and he discreetly plied Rose with cocktails to get her to loosen up, talking about unimportant topics that veered clear of the Doctor, Zoe, and UNIT. Boring though it was, he watched her slowly become intoxicated until she was at what he deemed the perfect level, whereupon he ordered a cheese pizza from the waiter – not able to stomach the consumption of animal flesh the way the humans did, no matter how native he was trying to pretend he was. Watching her devour a slice, he nudged her gently with questions about the Doctor, slipping them in as small afterthoughts, greedily hoarding the answers she gave him.

When she was on her fifth drink, she leant her cheek on her hand and stabbed the colourful umbrella into her drink, ice clinking as he turned over and over in his mind that the Daleks weren't gone.

He had assumed that the Doctor's presence on Earth meant the war was over and the Time Lords had won – a victory that could only have been assured by the total destruction of the Daleks – but the ambling story Rose had told him of the Game Station chilled the blood in his veins.

“You ever been in love with someone who didn't love you back, Harry?” Rose asked, words slurred around the edges.

He looked at her sharply, annoyed at being pulled from his thoughts, before he remembered himself and lifted his eyebrows. the warm buzz of being shy of drunk making her want to confide in her new friend. “Oh, dear, this sounds serious. Should I get more drinks in?”

She laughed and kicked him lightly beneath the table, an assault that he allowed stand since she was proving talkative. “ _No_ , but also yes because I'm nearly finished.”

“Affairs of the heart are best accompanied by alcohol,” he informed her, gesturing for another round of drinks. “At least that's been my experience.”

“If I drink anymore, my liver's goin' to stop workin'.”

“Grow a new one.”

She snorted into her drink. “That's funny. You're funny.”

“Thank you,” the Master said. “Go on then, tell me your problems.”

Her eyes rolled towards him. “You really want to know?”

“More than you can possibly imagine,” he said, wishing Lucy was there to help keep the frustration at bay. “Who's broken your heart?”

“My sister.”

He blinked, rapidly re-evaluating what he knew of humans and their mating rituals, almost certain he would have noticed something like _that_ before, even as disgust clawed its way through him.

“That's...huh.” It wasn't often he found himself lost for words, and he wondered if the Doctor knew about this quirk of humankind. “I have to admit I didn't expect your sister to be responsible but I'm not judging. Love, I've been told, comes in all shapes and forms.”

Rose squinted at him before she gagged. “Ew, gross, _no_. Jesus, what the hell's wrong with you?”

“You just said –”

Balling up a damp napkin, she threw it at him. “Don't go repeatin' it, it's bad enough it's been in my brain once, I don't need a re-run.”

“My apologies,” the Master said, relieved to cross _incest_ of the list of human oddities. “I misunderstood. How did your sister break your heart?”

The disgusted expression lingered on her face before she sucked the bright pink liquid of her cocktail up through a swirly straw. “I found out last night she's been lyin' to me for _months_. She's been havin' it off with the Doctor behind my back since Christmas. Walked in on them havin' sex yesterday.”

Blood rushed through his ears and deafened him, his hearts beating loudly in his chest, as Rose dragged the world out from under his feet.

It was commonly acknowledged that the death of the Doctor's wife in the TARDIS matrices explosion had knocked whatever common sense and good behaviour he possessed out of him, casting him off into the universe without anything anchoring him to Gallifrey, his children almost relieved to see the back of him, grief so overwhelming it infected everything it came across. The Master had given him space to breathe after Levokania's death, space to figure out what he wanted, but he had always believed that the Doctor would return to Gallifrey and the two of them could work together and shape Gallifrey into the planet they wanted as they had dreamt of as children before arranged marriages and being good Time Lords got in the way.

The Doctor's flight from Gallifrey with Arkytior had dented those plans but the Master had held onto the hope that he would come back. When he never did, he allowed the sound of the drums in his head – the constant cacophony of noise – to take over, giving into the darker, crueller impulses the Doctor had tempered in him through friendship.

The one thing that had comforted him through the long period of waiting and the sharp edge of disappointment that came with the realisation the Doctor was never coming home, not properly, was that the Doctor _would never_ replace him with a human. Their friendship was complex and ageless, moments scattered throughout time and space, and the thought of the Doctor finding refuge and companionship with Zoe Tyler made his blood burn. The more he aligned himself with humans, the more he developed intimate relationships with them, the further away he drifted from the man the Master had known on Gallifrey. It was enraging, and the struggle to keep his face neutral, not to give himself away to Rose as he tried to calm the rapid thundering of his hearts was painful; the drums in his head roared a beat that told him to _kill, kill, kill, kill_ Zoe Tyler for getting in the way.

Instead of rising from the table to seek Zoe out, he reached for his drink and sipped it.

“Oh?”

“An' it's not just because they're shaggin' each other,” Rose continued, having not noticed the battle that raged inside her drinking partner. “It's that they didn't tell me. It's that _Zoe_ didn't tell me. We used to tell each other everythin' an' it used to be the two of us against the world. Now...” another sharp jab at the ice in her drink. “Now it feels like it's her an' the Doctor an' I don't know where I fit in with that. I don't know if they want me to fit in.”

The Master considered the decorative umbrellas and thought of thirteen separate ways he could utilise it to kill Zoe Tyler.

“Hence your interest in UNIT,” he said.

She squinted at him. “Yeah.”

“Get out before they toss you out, clever,” the Master nodded, finding himself oddly sympathetic towards Rose even as he focused on the need to keep her on the TARDIS. “Of course, that's assuming they want you out. My understanding is that the Doctor likes a bit of a crowd to show off for. I imagine having you there will puff up his ego and your absence only deflate it.”

“Huh?”

“Do you really want to leave?” He asked. “Or do you think that's what you should do?”

“What's the alternative?” Rose replied, finishing her drink and pulling the fresh one towards her, tucking the yellow umbrella behind her ear. “I stay on the TARDIS an' mope? I don't want to see them all lovey-dovey with each other.”

“No, I quite agree,” the Master said, thinking of how he had shaken hands with Zoe at the restaurant when he could have wrapped a hand around her throat and choked the life from her. “Of course, if you leave then you are implying imply that they've won.”

She blinked. “Won?”

“I find the best way to not care about someone or something is to act like I don't care,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “Eventually it comes true.”

“What?” Her brow creased. “I go back to the TARDIS an' pretend everything's fine?”

“If that's what you want,” the Master said, not caring what she did as long as it was off the planet and out of the 21stcentury. “Or you could make the Doctor jealous by having sex with people in front of him.”

Rose laughed, startled. “What?”

“Men are simple at the end of the day, my dear,” he said, catching the affectation too late; Lucy had told him it marked him out as being older than he was, a small slip in his cover. “Did he even know you were an option?”

“No, I – I don't know.” Her face twisted in thought. “I mean, it's not like he's blind. An' he's definitely flirted with me before. I know I wasn't imaginin' that. I just – I don't know when that stopped though.”

“There you go then,” the Master said, reaching beneath the table to hook her back around his toes, pulling it towards him out of her sight. “Go off on your travels and flirt with people in front of him. Let him know what he's missing.”

Rose considered his suggestion before shaking her head, her nose scrunched. “No, I can't do that. Not to Zoe.”

“The sister who's been lying to you?”

“I'm pissed at her but that doesn't mean I want to hurt her,” Rose replied, staring at the table as the Master reached down into her bag and removed her phone. Taking his, he pressed them together, face-to-face, and squeezed the side, a small green light scanning the contents of Rose's phone and taking a copy. “Not much anyway, an', honestly, it's not like the Doctor'd look twice at me when he's got Zoe. You've met her. You've seen how gorgeous she is.”

_Only for a human,_ he thought, derisively.

“To compare you and her would be to compare the sun and the moon,” the Master said. “Both are beautiful though in different ways.”

Rose's mouth slipped open, and she stared at him in surprise, his compliment piercing the drunken haze that consumed her. Smiling, he rested their phones on his thigh and took another sip of his drink.

“Have you ever looked at someone an' just not known who they are anymore?” She asked once she regained herself. “Because I saw Zoe last night an' I didn't see my sister. All I saw was this woman who had taken her place an' I hadn't realised it. D'you know what I mean?”

He tapped the edge of his fingernail against the table. “I have some idea.”

I don't know who she is anymore,” Rose said, his presence no longer necessary as she worked through her issues out loud. Glancing at her and making sure her eyes weren't on him, he flipped the phones face up and checked that he had everything from her folders, dropping it back into her bag. “I don't think I've known for a while. The sister I knew...the sister I knew died in France. I don't know this woman who came back. We haven't...there hasn't been time to get to know her. Not really. Not with everythin' that's happened. I guess we've just tried to pretend everythin' was normal but it's not. She's my little sister who's now ten years older than me. Nothin' about that's normal.”

The Master looked up, attention sharpening on her. “France? What happened in France?”

“She got trapped in the 17th century – _no,_ 18th, I think.” Her eyes drifted to the rest of the bar. “Six years she spent there. She was only a kid when she got stuck, barely seventeen, an' I knew the girl she was at the beginning. I remember sayin' goodbye to my sister an' then this other person with my sister's face was telling me that it was seven years later an' she'd lost a wife an' had this whole life without me.”

“She's married?”

“Widowed.” Rose clumsily took her drink again, missing the expression on the Master's face as he received more information about Zoe Tyler in the space of one afternoon that he had in three months of careful research. “Her wife died. Cholera, I think. I don't know, she doesn't really talk about it.”

“That's a shame,” he murmured.

“Yeah.” She stabbed at the ice in her drink. “An' here I was thinkin' she wasn't ready to date because she was still gettin' over Reinette.” _Reinette_ he repeated in his mind, _Reinette, Reinette, Reinette_. “S'pose she followed the Jack method though. Get over someone by gettin' under someone else.”

“There are worse methods,” the Master considered, lightly. “Perhaps their relationship is a passing fancy. Two lonely souls coming together.”

She looked up. “You make it sound like poetry.”

“Is life not poetry?”

Her eyes rolled. “Never liked it much.”

“You haven't been reading the right poems.”

“Oh?”

“Tell me not, in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream,” the Master recited easily from memory, choosing one that he hoped would be enough to encourage her to stay off Earth until he was ready. “For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem.”

She rubbed her forehead. “Sounds depression'.”

“It is a little, I suppose,” he agreed. “It's something of a clarion call to do great things, however small they may be, and that even though it's not always fun or easy, you must do it anyway. The body dies but the soul lives on, that sort of thing.”

Rose swallowed, mouth sugary sweet and aching from the cocktails. “How's the rest of it go?”

The Master leaned his head back against the wall behind him and closed his eyes, imagining Gallifrey as he preferred to remember it: beautiful and safe. Slowly, he began to recite the poem for her, letting the words fall from his lips, the anger inside his chest dying down to low embers, the drums in his head quietening for a brief moment. As he spoke the last stanza, he almost felt at peace.

Rose sighed slowly. “You've got a nice voice.”

His eyes opened.

“You've had too much to drink,” he replied. “It wasn't my intention to get you drunk.”

“Think I got myself drunk,” Rose admitted, sighing again as she reached into her bag that the Master had pushed back beneath her seat and pulled out her phone where there were multiple missed calls from Zoe, several messages from Jack, Mickey, the Doctor, her mother, and even one from Sarah Jane. “God, can't even bugger off for an afternoon without people panickin'. Bunch of bloody worrywarts.”

Thoroughly tired of her company and eager to be on the TARDIS where he could peel back the layers of a life being lived and take in the surroundings with his new understanding, seeing if there was anything he missed on his first run through, he leaned over the table and placed his hand over hers. She froze in surprise, eyes wide as she stared at him, mascara beginning to smudge beneath her eyes, her lips stained pink.

“Would you like some advice, Rose?”

“May as well,” she said, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “'S not like you can make more of a mess than I've already made of things.”

“UNIT can wait,” the Master said. “It sounds to me like there are more things for you travelling the universe than there are for you here right now, unless you want an eager UNIT puppy trailing after you.”

She laughed. “Drew's not that bad.”

“Just eager,” he said, waggling his eyebrows to draw a grin from her. “Go, be angry at your sister where she can see you. Take it from me, letting these issues fester will change your relationship irrevocably. And, if you change your mind about taking the higher road, you can always remind the Doctor what he's missing by flirting up a storm in front of him.”

Her head tilted to the side. “I really don't want to leave the TARDIS.”

“Then don't.”

“But I'm embarrassed,” she said, voice curving into a whine that made his jaw ache even as he smiled.

“Embarrassment, I'm pleased to say, isn't fatal.” He slipped his fingers into her palm and lifted her hand from the table, thumb running over her knuckles. “Once you face them head on, everything will be easier to deal with. The waiting is much worse.”

“You're very wise.”

“I'm older than I look,” he said. “Now, come on, you need to go back to the TARDIS and I need to get home and back to work. Unfortunately, the life of a politician isn't the nine-to-five I'd like. Come on, on your feet. There we go.”

Tucking her arm into his and helping her put her bag on over her torso, he threw down enough money on the table to cover three times as many drinks as they had and guided her out of the bar that had filled up with and emptied of Lion King audience members in the time they had been there. Outside, night had fallen, the streets illuminated with the orange light that the British government appeared to think was acceptable to light the way for its citizens after dark, and nodded at his driver to open the door to the car that waited outside for him.

“Here,” the Master said. “Use my car to take you home.”

“No, I couldn't,” Rose protested, swaying into him. “What about you?”

“A little bit of fresh air never hurt anyone,” Harry said, helping her into the backseat and watching her fumble with the seatbelt before he tired of it and took over, clicking the metal into place. “Don't forget: _illegitimi non carborundum_ , Rose.”

She frowned. “I don't speak nonsense.”

“It's Latin,” he told her. “Dog Latin, to be precise. It means, _don't let the bastards grind you down._ ”

Her head rested against the head rest, her face slack with alcohol and her smile verging on charming. “Thanks, Harry. You're pretty decent for a Tory.”

The Master grinned. “I try to be. Good luck with everything.”

Shutting the door, he stepped back from the edge of the pavement and raised his hand in farewell, watching as the car pulled away and joined London's evening traffic, certain there was another hour or two ahead of her before she got home. As the car moved away, the smile leeched from his face and he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, _squeezing_ , to ease the pressure there.

“God, that was exhausting,” he complained to no one. “Humans. I don't know how the Doctor stands them.”

* * *

“Ah, shit, Doc, I thought you were waitin' with Zoe.”

Screwing the lid of the Thermos shut, the Doctor turned and grinned widely as he took Mickey in. Evidently, putting on a shirt and trousers was too much trouble when Jack was waiting for him in bed, and his friend shifted beneath his eyes before scowling at him.

“Fuck off,” Mickey said, embarrassed.

The Doctor laughed and tucked the Thermos under his arm, picking up Zoe's soft cardigan that she liked to wear when pottering around the TARDIS. “Don't mind me. I'm just getting some supplies. It looks like we've got a long wait in front of us, and I'm pretty sure Zoe's not planning on moving an inch until she claps eyes on Rose.”

“Good luck with that,” Mickey said, pressing his back against the wall as the Doctor walked by him. “Not a word about this to the girls, yeah?”

“Your secret's safe with me,” he replied before pausing. “Make sure you go easy on Jack though. His knees still aren't up to a lot of strain right now. You may want to take charge of the whole thing.”

Mickey's swearing followed him out of the kitchen, giving him a good laugh until he reached the front door. Certain that Zoe would take any show of good humour the wrong way at the moment, he reorganised his face before opening the door and stepping outside.

A sigh caught in his throat at the sight of Zoe sitting in the same place he had left her after she had stubbornly plopped herself down onto the bench, folded her arms over her chest and declared that she was going to wait for Rose to arrive even if it took all night. Not even Jackie had been inclined to wait, citing the cold and the Doctor's presence as a reason to retreat back into the flat, telling them she would either see them in the morning or the next time they visited, her abrupt departure leaving the Doctor feeling awkward and uncomfortable, wishing Sarah Jane had stayed for a little longer after picking up K9. As it was, Jack and Mickey had lasted ten minutes longer than Jackie before making the flimsiest of excuses to go into the TARDIS that Zoe had allowed them the dignity of maintaining despite the fact she met his eyes and raised her eyebrows, the hint of a smile playing on her lips.

Leaving the TARDIS, he pulled the door firmly shut behind him and crossed the distance to join her at the bench. She looked up at his arrival, tiredness settled around her eyes, and she murmured appreciatively when he draped her cardigan around her.

“Thanks.”

“It's only going to get colder,” he warned her, waiting until she had shoved her arms into the cardigan before sitting down and wrapping an arm around her, pulling her back against his chest. “And I'm a fan of you unfrozen.”

“It is cold,” she agreed, colour inching back into her cheeks, eyes falling to the Thermos hopefully. “Coffee?”

“As if I'd bring anything else out to you,” he said, pouring her a cup and placing in her hands. “Although, we've got some mulled wine left over from Christmas that I didn't know about. I thought we'd drunk our way through the Christmas stuff.”

“There's also some fruit cake leftover,” Zoe said, nose buried in her coffee. “In the cupboard over the fridge.”

“I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow.”

She laughed lightly, shoulders wriggling as she made herself comfortable. “You don't have to wait here with me. I'm sure you've got a list of things that need doing. Didn't you say earlier that you wanted to review my telomerase data?”

“I do, at some point, I definitely want to do that,” the Doctor said, not enjoying the reminder of the work he was starting to suspect was _more_ than he had first imagined. “But there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now.”

Zoe huffed and glanced up at him. “Romantic.”

Leaning in, he kissed her cheek, breath warming her cool skin. “Honest.”

He shifted his weight so that she could settle against his side, her eyes focused on the mouth of the estate, and he wished that he had the ability to draw her into the TARDIS and not worry about whether or not Rose was going to turn up but he didn't. For as long as he had known them, the Tyler sisters were close and loving, even if it had drifted in recent years – or months, depending on who was counting – and he found himself missing the days when he would come across them, their hair on the top of their heads, face masks on, giggling over one thing or another. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen them do that but he knew it had to have been before France.

The fact that Rose wasn't there and hadn't responded to anyone's messages worried him. He thought that perhaps she had been abducted – Jack's recent experience far too fresh in his mind to think anything else – but once Zoe had sent out a text blast to her Earth-based friends, Drew French had let her know that Rose was at UNIT having a tour, and the Doctor relaxed for all of ten seconds before Jack wondered whether she was going to accept the job they had offered her.

Having not realised Rose staying was an option, the Doctor worried that she was going to leave the TARDIS; while he didn't know how to make sense of the complex emotions running through him at the thought of it, he knew he didn't want her to leave.

Not just for Zoe's sake but for his too.

Rose was his friend, his first friend from after the war, and the woman who pulled him out of the darkness and forced him to start living again. If she left because of him and Zoe, he wouldn't forgive himself.

“Where do you want to go when we leave?” The Doctor asked to distract himself from his guilt. “Got anymore places to tick off your list?”

“I'm not seventeen anymore,” she reminded him.

“Doesn't mean you can't have a list,” he said.

“There's nowhere in particular I want to go,” Zoe said, absently resting her hand on his inner thigh, lifting her coffee to her mouth. “Maybe Mickey's got some place in mind. He's still relatively new to everything.”

“And, rather like you, keeps having a rough go of it,” the Doctor mused, considering that at least Rose and Jack had a good introductory period to the TARDIS unlike Zoe and Mickey. “But I'm pretty sure he'd be happy to stay in the TARDIS with Jack for the next few weeks.”

A grin split across her face. “You can hardly blame them. As I recall, when we started sleeping together, you didn't want to let me out of our room for a good few weeks.”

“I still don't,” he murmured, tucking his nose beneath her ear and kissing her there, delighting in the fine shiver of pleasure that ran through her, her fingers giving his thigh a warning squeeze. “Do you remember that day in Jamaica when we snuck away to the waterfall?”

Zoe turned into him, The memory of him in the clear blue water, the moon full and silvery overhead, reaching out for her filled her mind's eye, and she swallowed. “It's pretty hard to forget.”

“We could go back there, just the two of us,” the Doctor suggested, trailing suggestive fingers down the length of her arm. “Make a small holiday of it.”

A small, pleased sound rumbled through her chest. “Tempting.”

He rubbed his nose along her jaw, and she turned her head, her mouth within easy reach, and he lifted his hand to brush her hair back from her face, murmuring when she closed the distance and kissed him. Hand falling to cup her cheek, the Doctor enjoyed the few quiet moments of bliss that came from kissing Zoe, his mind silent and the world settled around him, before she pulled back a solitary inch.

“You're distracting me,” she accused, a soft murmur rolling across his mouth. “I don't appreciate it.”

“You kissed me,” the Doctor said, kissing her again with a smile. “It's hardly my fault you can't keep your lips off me.”

The brown of her eyes turned dark and liquid, flecks of gold spooling through them as they turned fond, her fingers lifting to scratch the underside of his jaw. “You are pretty kissable, but even these lips aren't enough to get me to leave right now.”

Cold air rushed between them when she pulled back to settle at his side, eyes moving back to the mouth of the estate, and he was left disoriented by the abrupt change in mood.

“Zo –”

“I've waited a year for my sister to come home before, a few hours is nothing.”

“She probably just lost track of time,” the Doctor said even though, out of all of his friends, Rose was the most time conscientious, which he suspected probably had something to do with the fact he had brought her home late _once._ “UNIT can be fun when it wants to be.”

“D'you think they really have offered her a job?” Zoe asked.

“Probably,” he said, honestly. “She's perfect for them. Look at how well she handled everything this week.”

Her right knee bounced. “Good, that's good for her. D'you think she'll take it?”

“ _That_ I've got no idea,” the Doctor said, arms going around her again, keeping her warm as best as his cooler body temperature could. “Do you not want her to take it?”

“I want her to talk to me,” she said, petulant and annoyed. “I want her to stop being a little cow and acknowledge that things are different instead of ignoring me like we're kids and I knocked over her make-up case.”

“It's only been a day,” he said, gently. “And you've both been busy.”

The scoff that left her throat was devastating. “If I'd walked in on her shagging you, I'd have made the time.”

“It's not me your angry with, love.” Rubbing her arm to soothe her temper, he pressed a kiss to the back of her head. “And it's not really Rose you're mad at either. We can not talk about it all we want but you and I both know you're angry at yourself for not telling her sooner.”

“I know,” Zoe said, wincing when she heard the sharp tone. Breathing deeply, she sighed and turned her face into his neck. “I keep thinking about the look on her face when she opened the door. She looked _betrayed_.”

Not knowing what to say to make the situation better, the Doctor held her tighter against him and murmured his love into her hair.

“I'm sorry,” she said into his neck. “She's just...”

“Your sister?”

“I was going to say a pain in the ass.”

The Doctor snorted and kissed the top of her head before the sound of a car turning into the estate had them looking up. Sleek and black – the likes of which weren't typically seen on the estate – it slid to a smooth stop near them, and the driver got out dressed in a well-tailored black suit, a gun holstered at his hip. Stepping to the rear of the car, he opened the back door and Rose half-fell, half-stumbled out of the car.

“She's _drunk_ ,” Zoe said, flatly. “She's fucking drunk.”

“Rose?” The Doctor called out, releasing Zoe and getting to his feet as he watched her grip the car door tightly and pat the driver with a heavy hand. “You okay?”

Rose heaved herself upright and took a step forward. Between lifting her foot from the ground and placing it back down in a step, she found something to trip over – the Doctor suspected air was the main culprit – and the driver swiftly caught her before she face planted the ground. Her hands gripped his shoulders tightly as he set her back on her feet.

“Thanks, Frank.”

“Ma'am,” the driver – _Frank_ – said with a polite nod. “You take care now.”

The Doctor watched her give a small salute to the driver who climbed back into the car and pulled away from them, silence stretching before –

“You're drunk.”

“Oh no,” the Doctor muttered.

Rose turned and stared at her sister who had risen to her feet and was glaring accusatory across the length of concrete between them, the Doctor realising he was physically in the middle of them only when it was too late to move.

“Says the girl who drinks a whole bottle of wine by herself on a bloody Tuesday,” Rose replied, tightening her bun with a violent _jerk_. “Save the judgement for someone who doesn't know you, ZoZo.”

“Maybe we should all go inside,” the Doctor suggested, not enjoying the childhood nickname that he hadn't heard in a while, certain it wasn't meant affectionately. “I'll put the kettle on.”

Zoe ignored him, arms folded across her chest, a frown darkening her features. “I thought you were at UNIT today but you've been out drinking instead?”

“I was at UNIT then I went drinkin', not that it's any of your business.” Rose rummaged through her bag, dropping a half-eaten pack of Starburst to the ground and scattering some loose change along with it. She pulled out her TARDIS key that was attached to a keychain purchased on Thanatos before the rain storms that had forced them inside for a week and brandished it at Zoe. “I can drink when I want.”

Zoe's expression flattened. “With Drew?”

“What d'you know about Drew?”

“Deano said you went home with him last night,” she said, and the Doctor worried that the aggressive approach she was taking was the wrong one. “What were you thinking? Drew's a nice guy, he's not someone you have a one-night stand with.”

“You're judgin' me for sleepin' with Drew?” Rose demanded, weight resting heavily on her back foot. “You don't get to judge me for sleepin' with anyone considerin'.”

“Considering? Considering what?” The Doctor discovered he wasn't as invisible as he hoped when Rose gestured obscenely at him. Zoe's arms dropped from her chest and she took three long steps forward, stopping before she got too close, irritation splayed across her face. “Can we finally talk about this now then? “You've been avoiding me all day –”

“I've been busy,” Rose snapped. “UNIT's offered me a job.”

“So we've heard,” she said, shortly. “Are you taking it?”

“Why?” Rose demanded, striding past the Doctor who quickly side stepped out of her way. “Want to shag your boyfriend in peace?”

“Oh my god, why d'you have to be such a bitch about it?” Zoe snapped as Rose jammed her key into the lock and opened the TARDIS; his ship giving a mournful sigh in the back of his mind, not enjoying conflict within her walls anymore than the Doctor did. “It's not the end of the bloody world that I'm with the Doctor. You don't have to go out and get plastered because of it.”

“I didn't get drunk because of it, you egotistical cow,” Rose shot back. “I got drunk because someone bought me drinks.”

“Someone other than Drew? Get you.”

“Fuck you, Zoe,” Rose said, fury burning through her as she stormed into the TARDIS, Zoe on her heel. “You're not the only person who can have a sex life on this bloody ship. Get off your fuckin' high horse?”

“I don't have a high horse, you –”

The Doctor breathed out slowly, his breath misting before him, and he looked into the warmth of the TARDIS where Rose and Zoe's angry voices echoed back at him, and he found himself contemplating spending the night in Mickey's flat as he suspected it was more welcoming than his home at the moment.

“Right,” he said, bracing himself. “This is going to be fun.”


	37. Chapter 37

“...doesn't look good, I'm afraid,” Behrouz Tofighian said from the screen of the Doctor's laptop. “The hippocampal lesions are deeper than anything I've ever seen before. It's like someone went in there and scooped sections out with a spoon.”

“Literally or metaphorically?”

“Metaphorically, Doctor, of course, he wouldn't be alive if someone had used a spoon on him,” he said, creases of amusement appearing around his eyes. “The point stands though that the damage done to the region might make memory retrieval impossible.”

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and tapped the end of his pen against the desk. “I'm not a fan of that word. _Impossible_. It's so final. What about partial regeneration? I know you've been doing work with biomolecular gel implants lately. Couldn't we inject them into the damaged area and see what happens?”

“It's a possibility,” Behrouz agreed. “However, if your friend gets his memories back, they'll probably be fragmented, nearly incomprehensible. From a mental health viewpoint, it might be better if it's left as is. You say he hasn't been experiencing any headaches or blurred vision?”

“No, he hasn't,” the Doctor said. “But he is having fractured sleep. His nightmares seem to be memories leaking through, which to me implies that there's still something there, something that can be recovered.”

Behrouz ran his fingers over his lips, salt and pepper moustache twitching. “They're ghosts of memories, most likely. Shadows. You can see the outline but the substance isn't there. I'll know more when I get to examine your friend in person but, from the initial scans you've sent me, I can't say anything that'll give you hope. His memories are probably gone.”

“I wish you wouldn't say that,” the Doctor complained with a heavy sigh. “I was looking for some good news.”

“Sorry,” he apologised with a wry grin. “However, even if the memories are lost we can still heal the hippocampus. It's not a good idea to leave it scared like that for too long. Bring him in as soon as you can and we'll get to work.”

“I appreciate the help, thank you,” the Doctor said, shifting forward in his chair. “I'll give you a call when Jack's ready”

Exchanging farewells, the Doctor tapped the screen and ended the call, his disappointment reflected back at him in the dark of the screen. It wasn't as though Behrouz had told him things he didn't already know. Upon examination of Jack's brain scans, he had been surprised by the level of damage done to Jack's hippocampus by the memory block. Whoever Jack had gone to for the block was clearly not a licensed practitioner as no one worth a damn would consider the job done on Jack's brain a good one. The thought of Jack – careful, safety-focused Jack – opting for a back alley memory block made the Doctor's chest tighten, wondering what sort of memories drove a man like that to do something so dangerous.

“This is shit,” he said, lifting his arms above his head and stretching to hear his back pop merrily. “Shit, shit, shit, sh –”

“Fuck you, Zoe!”

“Mind your fucking language!”

The Doctor froze, arms stilling above his head, and held his breath in his chest as the corridor echoed with the sound of a slammed door that followed the bright, angry burst of raised voices. Slowly, he drew his arms down and eyed the closed door cautiously. Rose yelled something rude that was muffled by the TARDIS soundproofing kicking in a moment too late, a reminder he needed to have a look at the system at some point in the near future. A wince stole over his features when Zoe's muffled anger, interspersed with colourful vocabulary, spat made the situation worse.

If he had thought that time and proximity would help settle the differences between Rose and Zoe, the last three days proved him categorically wrong.

From the moment they woke up on the morning after their departure from London, the TARDIS happily letting the currents of the Vortex buffet them along, they had been at each other's throats. Nursing a hangover, Rose hadn't been in the best frame of mind and Zoe had gone to bed angry only to wake up angrier; the combination of those two factors made that first day _hell._ Jack and Mickey had the good sense to lock themselves away in their room and avoid the blistering fury that crackled between the sisters; the Doctor wished he was able to do the same but he lived with Zoe and avoiding her temper in such close quarters was difficult.

In a desperate attempt to try and inject some normalcy and civility back into their relations, he had taken them to Spain the previous day, landing them in the court of Isabelle of Castile, a pious, sharply intelligent woman.

While they were able to work together when in trouble, they had reverted to sniping and bickering at each other once the danger passed. Meeting them at the door – him and Jack wisely opting to remain behind –, Mickey had given him a sympathetic look as Rose and Zoe stormed past him, fighting about everything except what they needed to fight about. After a week of not properly speaking to Zoe and the stress of what had happened to Jack, the Doctor wasn't in the mood to play referee between them and had retreated to his office to try and get some work done.

Beginning a countdown in his mind, he reached _two_ before the door opened after a perfunctory knock, admitting Zoe in a state of flustered anger. Tension rippled through his body. Fingers tightening around his pen, his eyes tracked her warily. Driven into fits of high emotion after arguing with Rose that left her restless and fidgety, she had developed a method of exorcising those negative feelings from her in a way that he hadn't minded at the beginning, delighting when she pressed him against a wall or bundled him into the nearest empty room –

It was just that even his body had a limit before he had to tap out and beg for relief.

“Hey,” the Doctor said, discreetly pushing against the balls of his toes to ease his chair away from her. “Do you want to go get something to eat? I know this great little Romanian place in Buzău you'll love. They do the single best papanaşi you'll ever eat. Best prepare yourself though because your socks _will_ be blown off.”

“We can eat after,” Zoe replied, grabbing the bottom of her tight black shirt – the kind she preferred when exercising – and lifting it over her head. Letting it drop from her fingers, it covered the printouts of Jack's brain on his desk, and she reached behind her to unhook her sports bra. “Right now, I'm going to need you to take your trousers off.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” he said, quickly raising a knee to ward her off and reaching out to take hold of her hands. The look of surprise on her face might have made him laugh had he not felt guilty about refusing her advances, something he hadn't yet done and couldn't quite believe he was doing. “I'm sorry but I can't.”

“Experience tells me you can,” she said. “Very well in fact.”

He grinned. “Stop it.”

“Make me.”

“As much as I would love to – and believe me, _I would_ – I'm really sore right now,” the Doctor admitted, grin widening at the look of delighted amusement that curled across her face and made her look smug. “And while I appreciate the renewed enthusiasm for my person, I need a break. Parts of me need to heal. That thing we did this morning with the honey and the singing pots was amazing –”

“Yeah, it was,” she beamed. “Who'd have thought substituting glasses for pots would work?”

“Inspired,” he agreed. “But I think I pulled a muscle. And I'm sore. Did I mention that I'm sore? Clothes are chafing right now. And this is me. I've got the superior biology. How are you not walking funny?”

“I've got youth on my side, old man.” Laughter filled his office as she attempted to dodge the light slap he aimed at her side, falling into his arms and then his lap, his face pressing kisses to her bare shoulders. “If you don't want to have sex, this is giving off very mixed messages right now.”

“Can't help it,” the Doctor said, words muffled by her skin. “You taste good.”

“Edible moisturiser.”

“Really?”

Zoe laughed. “ _No_.”

“You're the worst,” he told her, smiling. “Getting my hopes up like that.”

“I could get something else up if you've changed your mind,” she said, shifting back on him, and his hands flew to her waist, holding her in place. Freeing an arm, she draped it around his shoulder and rested her forehead against the side of his head. “I've really worn you out, haven't I? My poor Time Lord.”

The Doctor's eyes fluttered closed as her fingers carded through his hair. “You have. Don't get me wrong, I love having sex with you, I just need twenty-four hours to breathe. Besides, I'm feeling a little superfluous to requirements at the moment.”

“You're very much perfluous to requirements,” Zoe said. “Kind of a key role actually.”

“Perfluous isn't a word, you should be ashamed of yourself.” She grinned. “And the sex loses some of its lustre when you're using it to make a point to your sister.” The amusement dropped from her face like a brick; she sat up straighter, and he pressed a kiss her shoulder to soften what he was about to say. “You've been seeking me out for sex after every argument with Rose, and at first it was nice, who doesn't enjoy a quickie in the bathroom? And the library... _and_ the swimming pool. Not to mention the marathon that took place after you picked a fight with her about her shoes.”

Her nostrils flared. “I didn't pick a fight.”

“You absolutely did,” the Doctor disagreed. “She was minding her own business and you went in on her with a snarky comment. The two of you were yelling at each other for a good twenty minutes before you stormed off to find me. And as fun as that was, I'm not really loving my role in all of this.”

He felt the tension ran through her body, fingers twining with the back of his collar, and he wondered if an argument was brewing. After a beat, she deflated with a sigh and pressed her lips to his temple.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured. “I didn't mean to make you feel like that.”

“Will you please talk to Rose?” He asked, not above using her remorse to restore peace and quiet to the TARDIS. He missed Jack and Mickey and wanted them to be able to leave their rooms without the careful air of men avoiding landmines. “Properly and without all the yelling and the weird, weird things you two have chosen to fight over? You spent ten minutes yesterday arguing over something that Mickey swears blind is from a TV show you used to watch.”

“She's being a bitch,” Zoe said.

“You're not exactly helping matters, love.”

“I know,” she complained. “It's just every time she opens her mouth she says something annoying. And if she doesn't, then it's her tone.”

Jiggling his knee, he bit her shoulder lightly. “Do you think maybe you might be reading into her tone?”

“ _No_.”

He rolled his eyes where she couldn't see them. “Please try and talk to her. For me if not for yourself. Also, for Mickey and Jack. They haven't left their room in days, and I'm beginning to worry they're going to starve to death.”

She snorted. “They had breakfast with us this morning.”

“Jack's recovering from surgery _and_ torture, he needs more food than breakfast, particularly since him and Micks are going at it like rabbits lately.” Her nose crinkled delicately at the thought. “Do it for them.”

“They're fine. Actually, what time is it?” Leaning back over his desk, she turned a small, antique clock towards her and sighed. “Damn. I promised Jack I'd meet him in the gym. He wants to start doing upper body exercise again,. I said I'd spot him with the weights and here you are distracting me with your handsomeness. Stop it.”

“Can't help you there, I'm naturally like this,” the Doctor said, holding her on his lap until she kissed him. “Have a good work out.”

She gave him a small salute, Jack's small gesture having been picked up by the others much to his chagrin, and she pulled her shirt back on before pausing at the door, fingers rapping against the doorframe. “You'll have to let me know when you want to have sex again, by the way.”

“Twenty-four hours and I'll be good to go,” he promised, treasuring the smile she gave him in return.

Struggling to return his attention to his work, he gave up after twenty minutes and pushed back from his desk and stretched again, wincing when he pulled a muscle in his back. Rolling his shoulders to ease the pain, he made his way to the kitchen to make himself a pot of tea and see if there was any of the small desserts left. In a stroke of brilliance, when Zoe had placed the order for the dessert table for Jackie's party, she had ordered extra for the TARDIS and the Doctor had enjoyed picking at them over the last few days. Hoping that there were still some banana-based desserts left, he froze in the doorway when he caught sight of Rose at the counter in the process of making herself a cup of tea.

Sensing a presence, she glanced over her shoulder and the air turned chilly.

His conversation with Mickey and Jack in Mickey's flat the day after Jackie's party replayed in his mind. It had come as less of a surprise to him when it was revealed that Rose had caught feelings for him as he had slowly become more and more aware of the lingering looks that she had turned in his direction – subtler than Jack's brash and honest come-ons were – but he had misconstrued the attention. Instead of seeing it for what it was, he had worried that it was down to the fact that she was getting suspicious of how close he and Zoe were. Not for the last time, he was sure, he had put two and two together and got five. Embarrassed that his friends had had to spell it out for him, he went over his friendship with Rose in his mind and tried to view his behaviour from her eyes, ashamed of how easily his affections were misconstrued.

Giving her the wrong message was the last thing he had intended, though he knew he was guilty of flirtation, particularly early on when he and Zoe were more strangers to each other than anything else. Rose was beautiful and kind and the woman who had dragged him back into the light after the Time War; had he not met Zoe –

It wasn't worth thinking like that as he _had_ met Zoe and that was what mattered.

His part in the distance that had grown between her and her sister and made everything messy and awful sent spasms of discomfort through him.

“Hello,” the Doctor said, carefully. “How's your sunburn?”

Rose's fingers touched her once bright pink cheeks. An afternoon spent trekking through Castile on a mission from Queen Isabelle of Spain had left her with a fierce sunburn and the beginnings of heatstroke.

“Fine, thanks.”

“Good, that's good.” Stepping into the room, he tugged on his jacket and readjusted his tie, rumpled from an afternoon spent working. “Don't mind me. I just fancy a cup of tea and those desserts. I'm hoping there's some banoffee – oh, careful.”

Ignoring the flare of hurt that passed through him when she flinched away from him, a spoon clattered to the ground, knocked off the counter by her jerked movements. Before she could bend down, he scooped it up and held it out to her.

“Careful with that,” the Doctor said with a smile. “It's my favourite spoon.”

“You don't have a favourite spoon.” Rose took it without touching him. “It's just a spoon.”

“I do too,” he said, pointing. “It's that one.”

She sighed, eyes meeting his for the first time in days. “ _Doctor_.”

“Is it really so bad that Zoe and I are together?” He asked, cutting through the tension that lay between them with a plaintive note to his voice.. “Enough for you to hate us?”

The kettle popped, steam rising out of the spout, and Rose turned her back to pour hot water into her mug. “I don't hate you. Either of you.”

“You don't seem to like us very much at the moment,” he noted. “You haven't spoken to Zoe properly since Jackie's party. Unless you count fighting as talking, which I don't.”

She stirred the milk in, spoon clacking vigorously against the side, specks of tea spitting onto the counter's surface.

“Is this how it's goin' to be now?” Rose demanded, the anger in her words startling him. “Zoe gets upset an' she sends her boyfriend to make things right?”

The Doctor frowned. “That's not what –”

“If Zoe wants to tell me somethin', she can tell me herself.” She picked up her hot tea and met his eyes again, mouth flat and tight. “She doesn't need to send the bloody Oncomin' Storm after me.”

“Now wait just a second,” he said, contrition fading into annoyance. “That's not what –”

Darkness fell over the the kitchen with an abruptness that plunged them into silence before the TARDIS shift and _fell._

Rose screamed, hot tea spilling and scalding her. A loud scraping sound broke through the chaos, and the table slammed into the wall behind it, shattering two chairs under its weight. Lunging through the darkness, the Doctor's ankle turned beneath him but he grabbed hold of Rose as the cupboards burst open to rain crockery and food stuff down upon their heads, a tin of baked beans narrowly missing the top of Rose's head. Arms around her, he half-dragged and half-carried her to the heavy kitchen table that vibrated and rattled where it was pressed against the wall, shards of wood digging into his shins and knees as he shoved Rose beneath it, crawling in after her.

Covering her body with his, Rose cried out into his chest as they fell and fell and fell, the drop endless and terrifying, before the TARDIS slammed into the ground with enough force to dent wherever they had landed, teeth clacking together.

The silence was absolute, neither of them daring to breathe until –

“Are you okay?” The Doctor asked, blood in his mouth. “Rose, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, shakily. “You?”

“I think I bit my cheek.” His tongue probed the sore flesh inside his mouth. “Don't suppose you've got a torch on you, have you?”

“Not on me, no.” She squirmed beneath him, hissing at the hurt to her burnt hands, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. “Got this though.”

“That'll do.” The Doctor took it from her and upped the light on the screen, crawling out from under the table to angle the phone around, illuminating the broken mess the kitchen had become. “Shit.”

“What the hell happened?” Rose asked, following him out. “Did we crash? _Can_ we crash?”

“We can but not into just _anything_.” The Doctor looked around at the wreckage of the room, noting that even the fridge light was off. He reached out and shut the door to keep the cold in, protecting the desserts that remained boxed, steadfastly refusing to notice the absence of the TARDIS in his mind. “Come on, follow me.”

Rose curled her fingers around his and followed him out of the room. The corridors were dark and quiet, the normal lights absent, not even the emergency lighting available to guide their way. The Doctor peered into a few of the rooms that they passed, taking stock of the damage, before they reached the console room. Relief passed through both of them at the sight of the others, clearly having made their way through the wreckage to reach the centre of the TARDIS. Mickey was setting up battery-operated torches, balancing them precariously on the console, while Jack tended to Zoe's arm that had snapped in half, bone piercing through her skin.

“Thank God,” Mickey said, catching sight of them. “You two okay?”

“We're fine,” the Doctor said, checking him over. “You?”

“I was in the library,” he said. “Managed to get under the coffee table before any of the books killed me. It's a bloody state in there though.” He gestured to Zoe who looked grey and nauseous in the broken light. “Zo's the only one injured.”

“She'll be okay,” Jack assured them, setting her arm with a quick twist. She yelled out, the heels of her feet slamming into the grating, skin flashing pale. “Sorry, really sorry. Thought it was better to do it quickly.”

“What happened?” Rose asked, stomach churning at the injury that came into sharper focus when the Doctor shone his light over it.

“I was holding a weight for Jack,” Zoe answered, skin shining with cold perspiration, chest heaving. “I had the bar above him when the TARDIS went haywire. I managed to keep it away from his neck but it snapped my arm back. It's a miracle neither of us got hurt worse as the equipment was thrown about the room like it was nothing.”

The Doctor reached into his pocket and removed a pain relief patch, slipping it onto the pulse point behind her ear. “This will help a little.”

“So will this,” Jack said, wrapping a thin piece of black material around her arm. They watched it form to her skin, tightening, locking her arm in place. “Plaster cast for the discerning patient. Give that twenty-four hours and your arm will be back to normal.”

Zoe managed a smile. “Thank you, Dr. Harkness.”

He winked at her before turning to the Doctor, wincing at the pain in his knees. “What the hell just happened?”

The Doctor pressed his fingers lightly against Zoe's calf before rising to his feet, eyes fixed on the dark Time Rotor. “We fell out of the Vortex.”

“ _How_?”

“No idea,” he murmured, approaching the console. An overwhelming sense of nausea solidified in his stomach as he gently probed the back of his mind where the TARDIS lived, bile slicking his throat when he found nothing there except a blank, empty space. His mouth went dry and heat pressed against his eyes. “She's dead.”

Zoe looked up, startled. “What? No, no she's not. She's just – out of power.”

He shook his head, hand trembling as he passed it across his face.

“She draws her power from the universe, it's not possible for her to run out of power. She's just dead.” Pressing his hands to the side of the console, he willed himself to feel something other than the gaping expanse of where his ship lived. “She's gone. She's _gone_. After everything – after the Time War and everything we've been through together, she's dead. I can't – she's my _home_ and she's gone.”

Zoe gestured for someone to help her up and, after a moment's hesitation, Rose stepped forward and grabbed her under her arms, heaving her to her feet. Staggering, Zoe caught hold of the console and stood next to the Doctor, her unbroken arm across his back.

“Hey, look at me.” The Doctor bowed his head, emotion thick in his throat. “Sweetheart, look at me, please.”

“Zo...” her name pulled from his throat on a ragged sigh, and he lifted his eyes to hers. “I –”

“We'll figure something out,” Zoe promised, rubbing his back. “We just need to find out where we are. If we're on a planet, we can get help, we can build something. The TARDIS is full of stuff. We're not done yet.” Doubt wavered on his face. “Don't look like that. It's only over when we say it's over, so let's think this through before we start grieving.”

“She's my TARDIS,” he whispered, pained. “She's the only home I have.”

She curled her fingers into the back of his jacket and gave him a little shake. “Sixty seconds.”

“What?”

“You're allowed sixty seconds of feeling like shit and then you've got to shake it off,” she told him. “We need your brain for this, so sixty seconds.”

He stared at her, grounding himself in her familiarity and love. “That works for you, does it?”

“Most of the time,” she said with a small smile. “If I felt sorry for myself constantly, you and Jack wouldn't be here.”

Rubbing his thumb over the edge of the console, he nodded.

“All right. Yeah. Okay.”

He drew in a deep breath and shoved his grief and guilt deep down inside of him to deal with later, dragging all the spikes of pain and remorse that rocketed through him and shoving it away, forcing himself to focus. Through it all, the heat of Zoe's palm bloomed across his back and tethered him to her.

“Right.” Straightening, he pressed a kiss to Zoe's forehead, hand squeezing her shoulder, before he turned to face the others. “Finding out what happened is the most important thing right now because that'll give me a better understanding of whether we're in the Void or if we've passed through into something else. We've got food, water, and shelter for as long as we need it but with the power gone, she really just is a wooden box and that means anything can come through those doors.”

“Okay.” Jack flexed his muscles and leant heavily on the console, taking the weight from his knees. “How do we find out where we are? We could be anywhere in the universe and with the scanners down, we won't know.”

“I don't know,” the Doctor said. “We fell out of the vortex though. Through the Void, into nothingness. There are things that exist here but, honestly, not things we want to meet. The last time I was here...” he trailed off into a frown. “We're in some sort of _no_ place where nothing exists, or nothing should exist. The silent realm. The lost dimension.”

Sunlight slipped through the door as Mickey looked out. “Otherwise known as London.”

Jack looked back. “What?”

“Did you say London?” Rose asked.

“London, England, Earth,” he repeated and made the Doctor's hearts to constrict when he casually stepped outside. “Come and see.”

The Doctor gaped at the open door, a frown brewing like storm as Rose looped an arm around Jack's waist to provide him support in lieu of his wheelchair and made their way out after Mickey. A slender hand tucked into his and gave a gentle tug, pulling his attention from the bright sunlight onto her.

“We'll find a way to fix this,” Zoe said, softly. “I promise.”

“Zo...”

“We will find a way to fix this,” she repeated, the conviction in her voice bolstering his lowered spirits. “She's not gone. I refuse to accept that.”

A small, faint smile curled on his lips and he nodded, leaning into her. Tilting her chin up, he kissed her lightly, fingers touching her hair before they ghosted over her shoulder. Guiding her through the tangled mess of grating and out of the TARDIS that was, miraculously, upright rather than on its side, they stepped into daylight.

Shielding his eyes against the bright light, he squinted and realised they were on the south bank of London, the Houses of Parliament standing on the other side, the grey water of the Thames rippling in the wind. Cars idled in traffic on the road, and a dog on a lead squatted down to relieve itself as people – normal, human people – walked around in jeans and jumpers, the occasional coat pulled on over the top to make up for the chill in the air that left Zoe and Jack shivering, dried sweat on their bodies that were still dressed in their exercise clothes.

“Lost dimension, the silent realm,” Mickey mocked with a shake of his head. “This is London, mate. First of February _this_ year accordin' to this paper.” He gestured with the paper he had picked up off the bench. “Not exactly far flung, is it? Though we've gone and doubled back on ourselves a bit.”

Jack looked up into the sky and paused. “Mickey –”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “So this is London?”

Zoe followed Jack's gaze and her mouth dropped.

“Yep,” Mickey said, hands in his pockets.

“Your city?”

Jack reached out and tapped Rose's shoulder, pointing up. She looked and gasped.

“That's the one,” Mickey replied.

“Just as we left it?”

Mickey nodded. “Bang on.”

“And that includes the Zeppelins?”

The Doctor pointed up.

Set against the brilliant blue sky above them, moving between the stray clouds that littered the canvas, huge Zeppelins moved glacially over the Houses of Parliament. Fat, _gleaming_ silver airships were dotted throughout the sky, advertising splayed across the bodies of a handful of them, others bare. A sense of wonder building in her, Zoe felt a smile pull at her mouth and she let go of the Doctor's hand, moving towards the stone wall that kept people from tumbling into the River Thames, standing side by side with Rose as they stared up into the sky, fascination drenching their expressions.

“That's beautiful,” Rose murmured. “It's amazin'.”

Mickey blinked rapidly, taken aback. “Okay, so it's London with a big international Zeppelin festival that we missed the first time around because we were distracted?”

“Bit weak there, Micks,” Zoe said, unable to tear her eyes away. “Have we done what I think we've done?”

The Doctor's hands came to rest on her shoulders. “Somehow, against all the odds, _yes_. I think we've done what you think we've done.”

“But you said –”

“I did.”

“Because the Time War –”

“It did.”

“Then this is –”

“Highly unlikely, next to impossible.”

Rose tore her eyes away from the Zeppelins and glared at them. “Stop talkin' in code. What's happened?”

“Oh my god.” Jack staggered forwards and grasped the stone wall, eyes wide as he looked from the Zeppelins to the Doctor, pointing excitedly. “We've fallen through to a parallel world, haven't we? Tell me we have. Make my dreams come true, Doctor. Tell me this is a parallel world.”

“It's a parallel world.”

Jack whooped with delight, punching the air, and the Doctor let himself enjoy his friend's excitement as a parallel world was far better than being trapped in the Void where Omega would eventually find them. _Once_ was enough for him, and the thought of his friends in Omega's hands filled him with a terror that made his hands shake as he removed them from Zoe's shoulders.

“A parallel world,” Zoe repeated, folding her arms around herself, voice teetering on the edge of excitement that she kept under control for the Doctor's sake more than for anyone else. “This is something new.”

Mickey rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and frowned. “Does anyone else taste that? It's like...pepper?”

“Parallel worlds always taste strange,” the Doctor said, sticking his tongue out to analyse the composition of the air. “Things are just different enough for your senses to recognise that you're out of place. Try not to think about it too much.”

“This is so weird.” Rose turned and looked back the way they had come, eyes scanning the area to see if anything looked different, entertaining herself at the realisation she was playing an inter-universal spot the difference. “It all looks normal.”

“Except for the Zeppelins,” Zoe said.

Rose ignored her, attention focused on an image over Mickey's shoulder, heart fluttering in her chest, a wave of dizziness washing over her. “ _Dad_.”

“What?”

“It's Dad.”

Rose rushed away from the wall and crossed the pedestrianised walkway until she stood in front of an information stand: map on one side and a picture of Pete Tyler on the other. It moved like a hologram. Nothing like the sophisticated ones she had seen on her travels that popped out of the projector and had messages for all occasions. The image twitched and jerked, flickering to life when she got close enough to register on the proximity centre. She stepped back, watching as her dad smiled at the camera and raised his thumb.

“ _You can trust me on this_.”

“Oh my god,” Zoe said, coming up to the screen and staring. “It is him.”

“He's alive,” Rose breathed, reaching out with trembling fingers, stopping short before she touched his face. “He's here.

* * *

Looking out of the TARDIS, the Doctor rested his eyes on Rose who was sat on a bench. Head bowed as she turned her phone over in her hands, a posture of defeat dragging her shoulders down after their brief and bitter argument. He hadn't meant to be so stern while laying out the facts to her but the memory of her altering the past for Pete Tyler was a potent one – the fear of finding the TARDIS hollowed out bit into him even years later – and she had decided not to join them inside for a discussion of what they needed to do.

While parallel universes were something he was able to deal with, it was going to much harder than it would have been only ten years ago. His people once strode across the universes as though moving from room to room, searching for their counterparts in universe after universe, always coming up empty. Romana had taken the time to calculate that for every billion of possible universes, there was only one Gallifrey to each. The likelihood of him finding help in _this_ universe was slim to none. That hadn't stopped him from bonding together the multiple phones Zoe kept on the TARDIS with Jack's old blaster and the Delta Wave generator that was gathering dust and sending out a signal that he feared was too weak to make a difference.

For the seventeen minutes it took him to create the transmitter though, he had felt better.

“We're not supposed to be here,” the Doctor said, cross legged on the ground, fingers steepled in front of him as he thought out loud. “Since the TARDIS draws it's power from the universe – _our_ universe – we've got no way to refuel what was lost but this is the wrong one. It'd be like putting diesel in a petrol engine, it just chokes it and breaks it.”

Jack raised his hand, comfortably seated in his wheelchair that Mickey had managed to recover from the wreckage. “Over here.”

“Yeah?”

“Couldn't you just change the type of fuel the engine takes?” He asked. “Make it diesel instead of petrol.”

It was Mickey who answered. “No can do. Petrol an' diesel run on different energy outputs. You'd have to strip the engine clean out an' start again. I'm guessin' the TARDIS doesn't have a spare engine lyin' around that we can transform either.”

“It does not,” the Doctor agreed. “And Mickey's right.”

“But your lot travelled between the universes a lot,” Zoe said. “Didn't they have some way to make sure _this_ didn't happen?”

“Yeah, we used inter-universal ships,” he said. “Very different design to the TARDIS. I'm a little surprised the old girl didn't get ripped apart in transit as she's absolutely not built to pass through Void space.”

Jack nodded. “So we need something that's already juiced up with energy from our universe, right? Something we can transfer over. There must be something onboard that fits the bill. You've got so much junk –”

“Not junk.”

“That there has to be at least one thing we could use,” he finished.

The Doctor shook his head. “It doesn't work like that. The things onboard that aren't connected to the TARDIS are things that have their separate power sources. There's nothing that's charged from the TARDIS directly.”

“Actually,” Zoe said, removing her phone. “This is. Our phones are. All of them. We charge them straight from the TARDIS all the time.”

“This might just work. _Maybe_.” The Doctor took it and turned it over in his hands, mind whirring. “It won't be enough juice though, even if all of them are fully charged. We might be able to access the systems for a few minutes but not enough to power flight. What we need is an active power cell linked to the ship.”

“I don't get where the energy went though,” Zoe said. “We fell with what I assume was a full- _ish_ tank of energy. Why don't we still have it now?”

“She probably used it all to keep the atmosphere and shields going to keep us safe,” the Doctor said, hand rising to touch the console again. “Last thing she did was try to make sure we'd be okay.”

“Oh,” she murmured, a sudden sweep of emotion misting her eyes. Clearing her throat, she pulled herself back together. “Power cell then. Where will we find those?”

The Doctor jumped to his feet in one smooth motion and pointed down at the floor, directing them all to search and do so as quick as possible. Unable to get onto his hands and knees, Jack made sure that there was light beneath the grating by pointing two torches into the dark underbelly of the console.

Holding her broken arm closely against her side, Zoe pried away the grating and lay flat on her stomach, hanging into the opened chamber, searching through the wiring to see if anything was active. On the other side of the console, Mickey was on his hands and knees pulling apart the grating to access the base of the TARDIS console that was partially hidden by thick wires. The Doctor held a torch between his teeth, dangling off on of the coral struts, as he pried open the round protective coverings that were placed over the Chameleon Arch and searched for anything that looked alive and active within.

“Didn't you say that the the walls between the universes were closed when Gallifrey fell?” Zoe asked, speaking louder than normal so the Doctor would hear her.

“I did.” Banging his head against a protective covering that popped free, the Doctor grunted. “And they did. What we've done should've been impossible, and that's actually impossible not just improbable.”

“It's like when you crack a glass,” Mickey said, short of breath as he heaved a heavy wire out from under the grating.

The Doctor twisted his head back to look at him. “It's like what now?”

“You know when you drop a glass but it doesn't break?” Zoe shuffled back from under the console and leaned around the console to stare at Mickey. “But it leaves this crack in the glass? You can't put water in it because the water will come through, right?” The Doctor nodded, bewildered. “Well, way you tell it, your people used to go back an' forth like no one's business, through doors or somethin'. When they died, there would have been cracks, wouldn't there? Where the doors were.”

From his wheelchair, Jack beamed with pride.

“Mickey, that's actually an excellent point and possibly explains what happened,” the Doctor said, stunned. “How the hell do you know that though?”

He rolled his eyes. “You think I was doin' nothin' after you took Rose with you that first time? I read up on all the scientific theories about space travel an' time travel, an' I came across a lot about parallel universes as well. I'm not thick.”

“Yeah, no, I see that,” the Doctor said, dropping back to the grating with a _thump_. “I think you've hit the nail on the head. I still don't know exactly what the consequences of the Time War are. With Gallifrey gone it's hard to get a proper handle on it. But it makes sense – the more we travelled between the universes, the more worn the paths became. Just because the walls closed doesn't mean that those passages stopped existing. There are probably fissures all through space. Some big, some small. We must've accidentally slipped through one.”

“This was just an accident?” Jack asked.

“Looks like it.” The Doctor's eyes snagged on Zoe who was angling herself awkwardly to check the underside of the console. “Careful, love. You'll stress your arm leaning like that. Let me.”

“I've got it,” she grunted.

“You're going to make it worse, just –”

“Doctor, stop fuss –”

“Found something,” Mickey called out, interrupting them. Jack turned both torches onto him, dust smeared across his nose as he squatted, peering into the darkness. “It's somethin' small but it's definitely got juice. Get over here an' have a look.”

The Doctor sidestepped Zoe and scooted around the console to lie on his stomach on the floor, leaning over into the whole as he braced himself on Mickey. Pulling the wires back, the Doctor grinned at the sight of the small, green light nestled amidst a tangle of cables.

Jack examined it from his elevated vantage point and clicked the torches off, looking around the room, searching for another source of light that might be causing it.

“I don't think it's a reflection of anything,” he said.

Zoe peered over the edge. “It looks like a light.”

“It is,” the Doctor said, Mickey out of the way in his excitement – Zoe reaching in to help him climb out – before he dropped into the nest of cables with a soft _oof_. Bending and gently scooped the light source up, he held it up to them. “It's alive!”

Zoe laughed.

“Frankenstein,” Jack recognised.

“Right on the money,” the Doctor said. “This is it. This is all we need. We've got power, baby!”

“Is that a generic baby or are you callin' Zoe baby?” Mickey asked. “Because I'm not sure I'm comfortable with either.”

“Definitely a team baby,” he grinned. “This is teamwork right here. This tiny, little insignificant power cell that no one ever thinks about as it goes about its day just chugging away and minding its own business. This little thing is clinging to life with one teeny-tiny speck of our universe tucked up in its circuits. This is home.”

Zoe pressed her lips together, hiding a smile. “You want to name it, don't you?”

“I really do,” the Doctor beamed. “Pathfinder?”

“Doctor...” warmth bloomed through her, her hand pressed against her chest. “Is that a Star Trek reference?”

“Starfleet created the Pathfinder project to bring the USS Voyager home from the Delta Quadrant,” he said with a nod. “Pathfinder. Fitting, don't you think?”

Zoe stared at him. “I am so in love with you.”

“This is gross,” Mickey muttered, turning away to rub his eye with the heel of his hand. “Jack, make 'em stop.”

“Not a chance, this is adorable,” Jack said, watching them with a bright smile. “You two are so cute talking Star Trek to each other. Is this what passes as foreplay between you? The Doctor quotes Star Trek and Zoe quotes Harry Potter?”

“Hey,” she protested. “No kink shaming.”

“Can we please focus on gettin' back to our universe?” Mickey asked, desperately. “Is there enough fuel in that thing –”

“Pathfinder,” the Doctor said.

“To get us home?” Mickey said, ignoring him.

Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, the Doctor eyed it. “Not yet. I need to charge it up first. I just need a minute.”

Hands cupped around their one hope at returning home, he took a deep breath. Far down inside of him on a cellular level, he triggered his regenerative process. The power built and made his hair stand on end. Skin crackling with his cells coming alive, warmth flooding through his veins, he felt the aches and pains of Zoe's attentions over the last few days fading and the small twinge in his ankle from where he had twisted it disappearing as his body healed itself. Focusing on the power source, he pursed his lips and exhaled directly onto it.

The light grew stronger and stronger as it absorbed his energy until it was full.

Breathing in again, he looked up and smiled, triumphant. “Et voilà. Now it's charging.”

“That's it?” Jack asked. “That was a little anticlimactic, wasn't it?”

“Sorry, captain,” he said, not sorry in the least. “It's on a recharging cycle. It'll loop round, power back up and be ready to take us home in about twenty-four hours.”

Zoe frowned down at him. “What did you just do?”

“I put a little bit of me in it,” he explained. “It took about ten years off my life –” he flicked his eyes up at her and saw the look of displeasure that settled on her face. “But it's more than worth it to get us all home.”

Her jaw worked before she nodded. “You're still an idiot.”

“Probably,” he agreed.

Pushing the Doctor's self-sacrificing stupidity to one side, the threat of being stranded in another universe lessened in the face of good news. Zoe allowed excitement to creep back into her.

“If we're going to be here for twenty-four hours,” she said. “Then I want to go to a library and check out the history section and find out how our worlds diverged. I'm going to assume that the Hindenburg didn't happen.”

Jack looked to her. “The Hindenburg?”

“Big airship, went boom in the 20s –”

“30s,” the Doctor corrected. “1937, to be precise.”

“ _Big_ disaster,” Zoe said. “It's where _oh, the humanity_ comes from.”

Jack pointed at her. “That means nothing to me, but thanks. Still, this is great. We're on a parallel Earth. Inter-universal travel was only ever a rumour at the Agency but it's something we thought about when we were drunk, but I'm actually standing in another universe.” He looked to Mickey and beamed. “There are so many things I want to do first, I don't know where to start. Test the water? Or the soil? _Birds_! Maybe the birds are different.”

Mickey frowned in confusion. “Why d'you want to test the soil an' water?”

“To find out if the periodic table is the same here or if it diverges,” he replied. “The laws of physics and chemistry are standard across the board in our universe but what about other ones? Are these laws truly the building blocks of everything, or does each universe have their own laws?”

“They can vary,” the Doctor said. “I was once in a universe where the laws of physics were made by a mad man. Wasn't the best trip of my life.”

Zoe glanced at him. “Omega?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You're a complete nerd an' I can't believe I'm with you,” Mickey said to Jack. “But if you want to test the water, we'll test the water.”

Jack beamed before locking his wheels in place to help pull the Doctor out of the hole who brushed himself off and carefully pocketed their ticket home, patting his pocket gently. He reached out for Zoe and took her uninjured hand in his, smiling happily at her, the weight of being trapped and the grief of losing the TARDIS lifted from his shoulders. With a bounce in his step, they left the TARDIS to tell Rose the good news, approaching the bench where she remained seated.

“There you are,” the Doctor greeted, swinging his and Zoe's hands between them as Mickey wheeled Jack over the smooth path. “Hold the applause, please, but I fixed it with help from Mickey who, despite not being so for a long time, shall no longer be known as Mickey the Idiot, but rather Mickey the Genius and Astute instead.” He glanced over at Mickey, amused. “I might get you a T-shirt with that on.”

Mickey laughed. “Please don't.”

“We've got twenty-four hours before we can be on our way again,” he said, pleased.

Zoe watched Rose's face as the Doctor rattled off his triumph. Rose wasn't listening. She was staring down at her phone, hair blowing in front of her, an expression on her face that spelt trouble. Heaving a great sigh, Zoe released the Doctor's hand and sat down next to her sister, crossing one leg over the other and spreading her arms out over the back of the bench.

“You've got a face on,” she said. “What is it?”

Rose tapped her phone against her knee before offering it to her. “My phone connected. There's this Cybus Network thing, it finds your phone. It gave me Internet access.”

“Rose,” the Doctor grimaced. “He's not your dad.”

“Shit a brick, he's rich,” Zoe exclaimed, scrolling through the universe's equivalent of Pete Tyler's Wikipedia page. “And not just rich but _rich_. Listen to this: Tyler is estimated to be Britain's wealthiest businessman with an estimated net worth of £9.8 _billion_. Holy shit, this universe's Mum must be living it up.”

“Jackie with all that money,” Mickey said, horror dawning across his face. “She'd be unbearable.”

“We don't exist,” Rose said, taking the phone back from Zoe. “Here. In this universe. We were never born. There's Pete an' Jackie Tyler, even Sabrina an' Joel, but no Rose or Zoe Tyler.”

“I figured I didn't exist here,” Zoe said, though it was disorienting to hear it said out loud. “With Pete alive, this Jackie wouldn't have had that one-night stand that got her pregnant with me.”

“They're still married though,” Rose continued with a deep exhale, shoulders rising and falling. “They've got a house an' cars and everythin' they want. But they haven't got me... _us_.” Her eyes settled on the Doctor. His stomach sank, the same sensation she had inspired in his years before when she had asked to see her father alive _just once_ formed inside his chest. “I've got to see him.”

“No,” the Doctor said. “You can't. We've been over this.”

“An' we're goin' over it again,” she argued. “I just want to see him.”

  
“I can't let you.”

“You don't _let_ me do anythin'.” The words clipped out of her, harsh and true. She stood up, startling Zoe whose ankle dropped her knee, foot smacking into the ground. “You said twenty-four hours, right? I'll be there an' back in plenty of time.”

  
“You can't become their daughter,” he told her. “That's not the way it works. Zoe, tell her.”

“What makes you think she's going to listen to me?” Zoe shrugged, unhelpful.

“Nah, hold up, Rose's got a point,” Mickey said, a thought taking root. The Doctor spun to look at him, betrayed, while Jack twisted around, unsure of what was happening. “Twenty-four hours. We might as well have a look around, check in on things. Zo, keep an eye on Jack, would you?”

“Oh, no you don't.” Jack reached out and grabbed hold of Mickey's belt, stopping him before he was left behind. “I'm coming with you, like it or bump it.”

“Lump it,” he corrected automatically. “You sure? You might be better off stayin' where Zoe can see you. I don't even know if what I'm lookin' for is there.”

“Where you go, I go,” Jack said, unlocking his wheels and placing his bare hands on the rubber, pushing himself forward with a quick, semi-apologetic glance in the Doctor's direction. “We'll be back before time's up. Don't fret.”

“ _No!_ ” The Doctor threw himself in between Mickey and Rose, arms extended, one foot braced against Jack's wheelchair. “Absolutely not. This is unacceptable, and I expect better behaviour from every one of you. We are all staying together. Stop it. That's final. My word here is final, so...there.”

“Rose is leaving,” Zoe said, pointing after her. “Doctor, Rose is leaving.”

“Then stop her!”

“What am I supposed to do, rugby tackle her?”

“Stop moving! Rose Marion Tyler, stop it right now!” The Doctor staggered back when Mickey poked him in his chest and lightly tapped him off balance, freeing Jack from his temporary restraints. “Mickey, where are you even going?”

“Just going to check on somethin', that's all,” he shrugged, pushing Jack forwards. “I won't be long.”

“Stay where you are, all of you,” the Doctor ordered, infuriated by the unexpected mutiny. “Rose, come back here! _Mickey_ , come back here right now! Jack!”

“Sorry, Doc, where he goes so goes my nation and all that.”

“ _That_ you know but the Hindenburg's a mystery to you,” Zoe said, amused. “You're an odd man, Jack Harkness.”

His grin flashed at her over his shoulder.

“I just want to see him,” Rose apologised, walking backwards away from them, hand in her hair to keep it from her face. “I've got the address an' everythin'. I'll be back with loads of time to spare. Promise.”

“Sorry,” Mickey called back. “But I've got to do this.”

“Do _what_?” The Doctor demanded, weight shifting between his feet, uncertain who he should chase after. “Mickey!”

Zoe rubbed her jaw, surprised by how quickly the situation had spiralled out of his control. “I think you're screaming into the abyss right now, love.”

“ _Humans_.” He dropped his arms to his side and looked furious. “I don't suppose you're going to go off and do something stupid, are you?” She raised her eyebrows at him, and the anger drained from him. “Sorry, I didn't mean that. These parallel worlds are like sherbet to humans.”

“Sherbet?”

“You know, _sherbet_.” She stared at him in confusion. “When you have a pack of sherbet, one taste isn't enough and you've got to finish the whole thing but then you regret it because you feel sick. It's like that.”

Her mouth twitched. “Do you have a sherbet addiction that I don't know about?”

“That'd be a bit awkward, wouldn't it?”

“Better than cocaine, I suppose.” Their laughter filled the air around them, causing Rose to look back over her shoulder before she disappeared around a corner. “Look, you go after the boys, I'll go with Rose.”

“Zoe –”

“Go, it's fine,” she urged. “I can look after me and Rose. You just stick close with Mickey. Rose has a better understanding of what happens if she messes with things she shouldn't, Mickey doesn't and Jack's a right proper soft touch when it comes to him. They both might end up eating the whole pack of sherbet.”

“Dammit,” he huffed, patting himself down. “I really need to get you your own one of these. ” Finding the psychic paper, he pressed it into her hands. “Be careful. I mean it. You might not think there are any temptations for you here, but you can never know.”

“You're the only temptation I'm susceptible to,” Zoe said. “Particularly when you wear those silk boxers of yours.”

His face lit up. “The ones with the bananas?”

“Those are the ones.”

He grinned. “I knew you liked them.”

Zoe stepped into his space and kissed him, hand on the back of his head, thumb stroking the line between his hair and neck.

“I'll see you soon,” she promised.

“Back here in twenty-four hours,” he said, holding her waist to keep her against him for a moment longer, eyes flickering over her, memorising her _just in case._ “We can't miss our window.”

“Daleks won't be able to keep me away,” Zoe said.

Softening into a smile, he pulled her closer and gave her a firmer kiss that made her toes curl in her trainers. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” she said, stepping back from him. “Now go, before you lose them.”

Reluctantly parting from him, she touched the black material wrapped around her arm and winced at the tender pain that radiated from under it before running along the embankment and up the steps. Looking around the corner that Rose had turned, she feared she had lost her. And then, bobbing like a ball caught on a wave, her blonde head appeared. Weaving in and out of the pedestrians that clogged the side of the street where tourists pausing to take photographs with the green plaques on the wall, Rose made her way down the street.

Rose jumped when she appeared at her side. “What're you doin'?”

“Coming with you,” Zoe said, falling into step. “Didn't think I'd let you go off and see parallel Mum without me, did you? What do you think she's going to be like? Since she's rich, I bet she's going to Mum but like on steroids or something.”

“Go away,” Rose said, voice brittle. “I can do this on my own.”

“But I want to come with you.”

“I don't want you to come with me,” she snapped. “Go back to the Doctor.”

Zoe's expression shuttered, fighting against the anger that filled her chest. “Can we talk about what happened, please?”

“No.”

“Rose, _please_.” She hated the cracked plea that fell from her and despised the way her throat closed up, eyes heating with the telltale sign of tears. She had always hated fighting with Rose and found herself reverting to her teenage self in the face of their problems. “You haven't given me a chance to talk about it, not properly.”

“You an' the Doctor are shaggin',” Rose said, words as sharp as a knife's edge. “What more is there to get?”

“It's not just _that_ ,” she said. “We're not just having sex. If you'd let me talk about this then you'd know that we're in love.”

“Spare me the Disney shit,” Rose snapped. “You hid it from me. That's all that matters.”

“I didn't – it wasn't intentional, not at first,” Zoe said, wondering if it would have been better to be open right from the start but she still felt that the timing was awful – the Doctor's regeneration, fresh back from the Game Station, and so soon after Mondas for everyone but her. She maintained, even now, that it would have been one thing too many. “I wanted to keep it quiet because it was new.”

“No you didn't,” she argued, turning to face Zoe who took a small step back at how swiftly Rose had pivoted on her heels. “You just didn't want to tell me because you know how I feel about him.”

Shame settled over Zoe like a cloak. “Yeah, that too.”

“Look, good for you for shaggin' the Doctor,” Rose spat. “All power to you. Just don't expect me to be singin' about it.”

“Rosie, _please –_ ”

Rose walked away from her. “Just shut up an' leave me alone!”

“No!” Zoe stormed after her. “We're in a universe full of temptations and the last time you were in a situation like this, I ended up not existing.”

“Oh, nice!” Rose spun and faced her, pale skin flushed with anger. “Way to throw _that_ in my face! That was ages ago.”

“It was months ago for you!”

“But over a decade for you, so let it go!”

“My god,” Zoe exclaimed, frustrated. “Can you stop being a brat for five seconds?”

“I'm not bein' a brat!”

“Yes, you are!”

“No, I'm not!”

Rose shoved her, _hard._

Zoe's eyes went wide. Surprise shifted to hurt before turning into anger.

“ _Hey_!” She shoved her sister back and Rose stumbled. “Don't push me!”

Regaining her balance, Rose lashed out but her aim was off. Instead of striking Zoe on the arm, her fist lanced across her left breast and Zoe pressed her hand to it, shocked.

“Did you just punch me in the boob _?”_

“I –” taken aback by her own actions, Rose hesitated before nodding. “Yeah, I did. You lie to me, I punch you in the boob. That's what happens now.”

“You utter _bitch_ ,” Zoe said, heat bleeding into her voice. “God, get over yourself, Rose. I'm fucking the Doctor, so what? We fell in love just like millions of other people every single day. And just because you fancy him doesn't mean that I'm going to sacrifice my happiness to spare your feelings.”

“There's a code,” Rose shot back. “Sisters don't do this to each other.”

“He was never going to be with you like that!”

“You don't know that!”

“Yes I fucking do,” Zoe shouted, startling an elderly couple who passed them. Lowering her voice, she stepped closer. “He loves you, you're his friend, but he never, _ever_ would've crossed that line with you. I still don't know why he did it with me and I kind of don't want to ask, but he wouldn't have with you. And I'm sorry that hurts and makes you feel less special or whatever, but that's the truth.”

Rose's nostrils flared. “Fuck you.”

“Sorry,” she said with a smile like broken glass. “The Doctor's already doing that.”

Rose's eyes narrowed and the urge to hurt Zoe like never before swept through her, gripping her, and playing on all of her worst traits. Even as she heard herself speak, she wanted to drag the words back into her mouth and bury them in the dark.

“It didn't take you long to forget about Reinette, did it?”

She heard the slap before she felt it. Her head snapped to one side. Her cheek bloomed with pain that made her eyes water and her jaw ache. A distant part of her mind that wasn't horrified by what she said reminded her to be grateful that Zoe hadn't punched her, certain her jaw would have broken if she had. Eyes blurred with tears, the gum-speckled ground disappearing in a mess of hazy colours, she touched her fingers to her cheek and felt the heat that burned there.

“Don't you _ever_ question my love for Reinette again.” The ice in Zoe's voice sent fear shooting down her spine. She raised her eyes from the ground to find her sister pale with rage that made her shake, hands clenched into tight fists at her side. Rose was relieved that the boys weren't there to hear her cruelty. “Don't you dare.”

Painfully aware that she had vaulted across a line she shouldn't have been close to, Rose opened her mouth to apologise. “Zoe, I'm –”

The sudden silence that covered the street stole the apology from her mouth, a loud beeping sound serving as an interruption. Around them, everyone froze. Those who had been openly observing their fight with interest went blank as their attention was drawn elsewhere, eyes gazing at nothing.

“What the hell?” Zoe muttered, reaching out and passing a hand in front of the nearest person's face. “This is some weird Stephen King shit right here.”

Cradling her cheek, Rose stepped up to the closest person and peered into their unseeing eyes, not even blinking. “What're they doin'?”

“I have no idea,” Zoe said. “But I don't like it. We should head back to the TARDIS.”

“I –”

The laughter that burst out of the frozen crowd made them jump, Zoe hands clenching into fists before releasing when whatever fugue the people had fallen into lifted, returning to their daily business as though nothing had happened. Those that had crowded around Rose and Zoe as they argued dispersed. Zoe exhaled, white mist forming in front of her mouth, hand reaching for her phone.

“Go back to the TARDIS if you want,” Rose said, delicately rubbing her cheek. “But I'm goin' to go an' see Dad.”

“He's not your dad,” Zoe said, exasperation coating her words. “He's just someone who has the same name and face as him. He doesn't even have a daughter in this universe.”

“I want to see him!”

“I hate everything about what you are choosing to do right now,” she snapped. “You're acting like a little child who wants to get her own way. This is dangerous, Rose. Properly dangerous. We should go back, meet the boys, and –”

“You'd do the same,” Rose argued. “If this was –” she stumbled on Reinette's name, not daring to speak it so soon after having weaponised it. Zoe's eyes turned sharp, _warning_ , and Rose swallowed it back. “Someone you loved. You'd do the same.”

“You don't know that,” she said. “And what do you even want from him? He's not going to be your dad. You can't even tell him we're from a parallel universe because that sounds completely fucking insane. So what do you want from him?”

“I don't want anythin' from him,” Rose said, heatedly. “Look, I can't explain it. I just know I need to see him. An' – an' I'd like my sister to come with me too.”

Zoe held up a hand. “Don't. You don't get to play me like this after what you just said. You don't get to make me feel guilty for not supporting you when you –” the words choked her, and she turned away. “I'm really, _really_ pissed at you right now.”

Rose worked her jaw, lowering her hand from her cheek. “I know. An' I'm sorry, for what I said about Reinette. I'm mad at you too though. Really mad.”

“Yeah,” she said, passing a hand over her face. “I know.”

“So what're we goin' to do?”

Sighing heavily, Zoe swiped open her phone and pulled up the Doctor's name, quickly tapping out a message. Her thumb hovered over the screen, the desire to ask him to leave Mickey and Jack and come find her made her hesitate, before she sent the message and tucked her phone away again.

“We'll go see Dad,” Zoe said, frowning when Rose smiled. “We're only going to see him. We're not going to do anything else. You see him and that's it, okay? I don't want to have to break us out of a psychiatric hospital because you got talkative about parallel universes and dead dads.”

“I promise, I just want to see him,” she said, rolling forward onto the ball of her toes. “That means you're comin' with me?”

“Mum'd kill me if I let you get arrested just because you're being a bitch,” Zoe replied, rubbing her arms. “Now, come on. I'm bloody freezing out here. Where's Dad's place?”

* * *

Pete and Jackie Tyler in the parallel universe lived in what many people might have called a mansion but Zoe referred to as a _big, fucking house. Look at it!_

From their spot in the bushes on the outskirts of the house's property, Rose and Zoe watched as a gleaming black stretch limo crunched over the gravel drive, slowly moving past them. It approached the house and paused in front of the decorated front door, beautiful lights strung up and candles in lanterns dangling from the branches of the trees nearby while flowers bloomed beautifully along the bottom of the house. A large water fountain was set in the middle of the drive, forcing the cars to circle it before leaving through the large, iron-wrought gates that felt both ostentatious and plain in equal measure, the size of them impressive but the bland design left Zoe critical.

The house itself was large. The outside walls painted a pale cream colour that Zoe was sure had a ridiculous name – eggshell white, ivory cream, or something similar – and there was staff waiting to greet the attendees. The physical proof of how differently her mother's life had gone without children tripping about underfoot stunned her into silence.

“It's Mum's birthday,” Rose whispered. “Trust her to still like a party in this universe.”

“Mum wouldn't know what to do with something like this,” Zoe replied, thinking that the party on the estate was much more to Jackie Tyler's taste than _this_. “At least this makes it easier for us to sneak in and get a look at Dad. Have to think of a new plan though, mine was just to knock on the front door and pretend we were lost.”

Rose twisted and looked at her. “ _That_ was your plan?”

“Do you have a better one?” She asked, pointedly. “Didn't think so.”

Rose cast her eyes over the clothes they were wearing: Zoe was still dressed in her exercise clothes with a jumper that looked suspiciously like one of the Doctor's old ones thrown over the top – fine for wandering around London but not necessarily for anything else; and Rose was dressed in jeans and a zip-up top. Hardly the black tie ensembles they saw enter the house.

“We're not dressed for a party,” she said. “Should we go back to the TARDIS an' change?”

“With the state the TARDIS is in, we won't be able to find the wardrobe let alone something to wear.” Zoe removed a familiar black wallet from the pocket of her leggings, refusing to wear anything that didn't come with at least one pocket these days.“The Doctor gave me this to me earlier.”

Rose ignored the stab of jealousy that gave her. “The psychic paper.”

“Psychic paper,” she agreed, rapping it against her knee. “And, as we've discovered, the easiest way into any fancy party is through the back door.”

“No.” Reluctance and disappointment swept through Rose. “Not the serving staff. C'mon, Zo. We could be anyone.”

“And we're going to be the serving staff,” Zoe told her before standing up, stretching her knees out. “Come on if you're coming, we've got canapés to deliver.”

They made their way carefully across the slope of dark lawn, taking care to keep to the shadows where they concealed themselves from the security guards that patrolled the perimeter. Circling around the back of the mansion where Zoe briefly paused to admire the large gardens, they knocked on the back door that was opened by a harried looking woman who barely glanced at the fake credentials the psychic paper produced before they were ushered inside and made to change into a black and white uniform that closely resembled a French maid's outfit.

“Shit,” Zoe muttered, unable to carry two trays due to her broken arm, waving Rose off when she moved to help her. “Go. _Mingle_. Try and get a look at Dad. As soon as you do, we're out of here, okay?”

Rose nodded and Zoe watched her go walk away, trepidation rattling in her chest. There was so much that could go wrong, and the Doctor wasn't there to keep things in order as he normally did. She knew it was a bad idea. Rose had proven once before that she wasn't to be trusted when it came to Pete Tyler, the brief period when Zoe hadn't existed as a consequence of her sister's previous actions was something that she tended to ignore because of how strange it felt to remember. She should have refused to come. Knocked Rose out and carried her back to the TARDIS, especially after the comments about Reinette that made her _burn_ with anger, but she was Zoe's sister at the end of the day and there was nothing she wouldn't do for her family, even if it meant standing to one side and watching a disaster happen.

She could hate Rose _and_ make sure she was safe all at the same time.

Leaving the kitchen, she entered the main room and smiled to herself at the thought of what Reinette would have said if she had seen her serving others. They had discussed jobs over the years but Reinette hadn't been able to understand the service industry and hospitality in general – the idea of McDonald's confused her – and an image of her late wife dressed in a French maid's uniform made Zoe cough to cover her amusement.

Years had passed since she had worked behind the till at McDonald's – or worked any job – and part of her had forgotten how rude people were when faced with serving staff. She pulled a face at the back of one particularly unpleasant individual and a pretty blonde caught sight of her, face lit up with a silent laugh.

Zoe winked. “Don't tell the boss.”

“My lips are sealed,” she promised, eyes dipping over Zoe's body appreciatively. “I'm Lucy.”

“Zoe,” she said, sliding around so that they were standing next to each other, gesturing delicately at their surroundings. “This is a bit fancy, isn't it?”

“One of the fancier ones I've worked at,” Lucy agreed. “I haven't seen you around before. Are you new?”

“New and temporary,” she said, politely ignoring her disappointment. “Just saving up some money to go travelling. Who are all these people?”

Lucy laughed as though she had said something funny. “You're kidding right?”

“Only sometimes,” Zoe said with a half-smile that pressed a small dimple to the corner of her mouth. “But not right now. Do they all work for Pete Tyler or something? That Vitex thing that's advertised everywhere?”

Her tray wobbled as she gave Pete's thumb's up, a small giggle leaving Lucy.

“Some of them, I think, but most of them work for Cybus,” Lucy said. “But, I mean, who doesn't work for Cybus these days? They own everything.” She leaned in close, and Zoe received a gentle hit of cinnamon from Lucy's perfume. “Some say that they even own the president.”

A slow grin spread across her face. “Now that sounds like gossip and I love gossip. I thought Cybus just operated in Britain and Europe. Bit impressive to have the president of America in their pocket.”

Lucy laughed again. “I meant the president of Britain.”

“Right, yeah, of course.” Zoe mimed hitting herself on the head. “Sorry. My brain went a bit blank there. Is – er – is the president here?”

“Somewhere.” Lucy peered through the crowd before subtly pointing. “There he is.”

Zoe took in the sight of an older, handsome black man with greying hair dressed in a well-tailored tuxedo, a small brush of disappointment that it wasn't Harriet's counterpart.

“Decent enough, although no one really likes the curfew he's implemented,” Lucy continued, tucking her hair behind her ear and letting her eyes trail over Zoe, blanketing her with the warmth of attraction. “There's actually a rave tonight if you're interested. You know, a way to stick it to the man –”

“I love a good rebellion,” Zoe said, “but my sister and I have plans. We're meeting some friends after. Thanks for the offer though.”

Giving her a final smile, she slipped away and looked around curiously. The presence of the president didn't necessarily mean that a person was well-connected – the prime minister had attended Jackie's birthday party in their universe after all – but given the wealth on display, Zoe wouldn't be surprised if the other people in the room were the movers and shakers of this universe's Britain. Her eyes narrowed as a thought struck her. It wasn't just a birthday party for Jackie but an opportunity to do business. In France, Louis had hosted parties with double meanings all the time, wining and dining his guests in order to obtain support from them for one cause or another. The desire to start talking to people and to find out more information pressed at her skin.

Annoyed and amused at the Doctor's influence on her, she valiantly ignored it. It wasn't her world and no matter what was going on, she and Rose needed to get back to the TARDIS before morning. The Doctor would never leave without them, but she didn't want to deal with his lecture if they missed their departure window.

Eventually, she and Rose circled back to each other, and her sister started whining. “We could have been _anyone_.”

Zoe sighed. “Not this again. It got us in the building, didn't it?”

“You're in charge of the psychic paper,” she accused. “We could've been guests, celebrities – Dame Zoe and Dame Rose. We end up servin' though. We've done enough of this back home.”

“Dressed in jeans and T-shirts?” Zoe rolled her eyes. “You said it yourself, we weren't dressed for a party and the point is to not draw attention to ourselves. Anyway, have you seen Pete yet? I want to get the hell out of here.”

“I can't get close enough to him,” she said, nodding in the direction of the balding ginger head that was moving through the party, greeting his guests with a loud, booming laugh that set Zoe's teeth on edge with how fake it was. “He's popular.”

“Apparently.” She pointed to the president. “That's the President of Great Britain there.”

“President? Not Prime Minister?”

“One of the few differences between our universes, that and the Zeppelins.” Her eyes caught sight of Pete as he bounded up the flight of stairs. “Ey up, Dad's about to make a speech.”

Standing on the wide staircase, Pete Tyler attempted to command the attention of the room, a smile on his face that was flushed red with the heat of the room and whatever alcohol he had consumed. Zoe stared at him and tried to find the similarities between him and Rose. Having only ever seen pictures of him in the family photo album, Zoe had always thought that Rose more closely resembled Jackie but seeing Pete in the flesh highlighted the features Rose had inherited from him – the pale skin that flushed easily and burnt even easier and the red that tinged Rose's natural hair colour both came from Pete.

It was strange to see her sister reflected back at her from a man who was a stranger to them.

“Thank you, thank you very much!” Pete beamed out at the crowd, the edges of his grin fixed in place and refusing to meet his eyes. Beneath the soft light, his skin glistened with sweat, and Zoe tracked his hands and took note of how they trembled lightly; clearly, not a man accustomed to public speaking. “I'd just like to say thank you to you all for coming on this very special occasion...my wife's thirty-ninth.”

There was a ripple of laughter at the polite lie, and Rose and Zoe exchanged a _look_.

“Trust me on this,” Pete said, lifting his thumb, earning another smattering of polite laughter that made him tug on the bottom of his suit jacket. “And so, without any further ado, here she is. The birthday girl. My lovely wife, Jackie Tyler.”

Zoe's breath caught in her throat as Jackie Tyler emerged from the top floor and made her way down the stairs, manicured hand ghosting over the banister as the light bounced off the jewels that glittered at her throat and in her ears. Smoother, tighter, and more polished, it was like looking at a woman she recognised but having trouble placing her at the same time. All the elements were the same, yet there was something _off_ about the entire picture that forced her to ignore the creeping sense of coldness at how wrong it all was.

This Jackie had never had children. She had never suffered the loss of her husband. Or experienced the indignity heaped upon her as a single mother from a council estate. She was someone who had known wealth and comfort, and it showed in the well-tailored cut of her skintight black dress and the lean muscles of her toned arms. Jackie – the proper Jackie, not the strange alternate version of her – hated showing her arms, despising what she thought were flabby upper arms and freckled skin. She tended to toss a cardigan over the top when people were in the flat, not yet comfortable enough with the boys to let all her bits and bobs hang lose.

This Jackie didn't seem to have that problem.

“Jesus,” Rose muttered. “She looks...”

“Wrong,” Zoe finished, and Rose nodded her agreement.

“Now, I'm not giving a speech,” Jackie said to the gathered partygoers, voice more refined that what Zoe was used to hearing, London sanded off. “That's what my parties are famous for. No work, no politics, just a few good mates and plenty of black market whisky.” The crowd laughed before she noticed the president. “Pardon me, Mr President. So, yeah, get on with it. Enjoy, enjoy.”

“It's like Mum but not,” Zoe mused, glancing at Rose who was staring at their parents together, alive and in the flesh, for the first time in her life, and she sighed again. “Will you stop doing this to yourself? It's getting really annoying. They aren't our parents. Our mum is back home probably wondering when Sabrina's going to leave because she's sick of babysitting Leia. You're not going to get what you want from those people over there.”

Rose tore her eyes away from her parents who were speaking quietly to each other. “I know, I know. It's just...they've got each other, Mum's got no one.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said, turning sombre “I worry about that too.”

“You do?”

“Course I do,” she said. “I don't want Mum to be alone forever but she's _rubbish_ at choosing the right bloke. At least Howard was decent, if a bit boring. Seriously, I get that he liked vegetables but I didn't really care about the shape of them.”

Rose had experienced Howard's long monologues on the virtues of fruit and veg and sympathised, eyes following Pete and Jackie as they stepped down into the crowd. “You think she'll ever find someone like Dad again?”

“I don't know, maybe, yes, I hope so,” Zoe said, uncertainly. “Anything's possible. I thought I'd never find someone after Reinette but I did.”

Rose's face tightened at the reminder and Zoe tensed, bracing herself for another sharp comment. There was no time for them to hurt each other as Jackie paused at the bottom of the stairs and – “Rose!”

Rose and Zoe turned in surprise before delight spread across Zoe's face when a small dog with a pink bow in its hair came running down the stairs and leapt into Jackie's arms who cradled it close, cooing to it..

“There's my little girl! Who's a good girl?”

Zoe sucked her cheeks in, desperately trying to fight the laughter that bubbled inside of her. It took only a small glance from Rose to break the dam. She wasn't in the least bit sorry when Rose stormed away from her.

Seething from her sister's laughter, Rose refreshed her tray of champagne. She supposed she deserved it considering her callous words about Reinette earlier. Her cheek still stung from the slap, though the mark had faded, and shame had made itself at home in the memory of the blank look of pure hurt on Zoe's face before she responded. She needed to apologise for it – properly and without excusing her behaviour – and she intended to do it as soon as she stopped being so angry at her for the lies and the secrecy and the sneaking around.

Pausing by a couple draped in fake jewels, she let them take some champagne from her before she worked her way into a corner. Her thoughts consumed her, worming their way through her body, and she felt her chest constrict at how _awful_ everything was. Between her and Zoe fighting every time they set eyes on each other and Drew texting her on what felt like a constant basis, the mess that her personal life was kept her awake at night. It had been a mistake to have sex with Drew. She knew that as she was doing it. He clearly believed it was something more than it was, and she was at a loss of how to let him down gently, responding to his messages late and with a half-heartedness that had to come across.

Normally Jack would have been her first port of call to help her right things, but he didn't understand why people regretted sex and was no use.

What she really wanted to do was talk to Zoe.

Lifting a glass of champagne from her tray, she swallowed it down with and let it rush through her system, warming her lightly.

“I remember her twenty first.” Rose jumped, nearly dislodging the glasses from the tray that she hurriedly set down, and her heart hammered painfully against her ribcage as Pete Tyler glanced at her. “Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.”

“No, no, that's fine,” she said. “Sorry. What were you sayin'?”

“Just that I remember her twenty-first,” he said, gesturing at Jackie who rested her hand on the president's arm and laughed. “Pint of cider in the George. Hell of a difference to all this nonsense, but she does love a party does my wife.”

In Rose's universe, Pete Tyler was already dead by the time Jackie turned twenty-one. Jackie had celebrated that birthday in hospital with Rose who had an ear infection that sent a fever racing through her. She had stayed awake all night staring at the tiny body of her daughter attached by wires to various machines, only months after her husband's death, believing that she was about to lose the only thing she had left of Pete's that was worth anything.

Rose drank down the rest of her champagne and remember the way he had felt he hugged her before running to his death; how his cheap suit had crinkled on the tarmac of the road, stained with his spreading blood.

“Big night for you,” she said.

“For her,” he corrected. “Still, she's happy.”

“She should be,” she said, palms clammy. “It's a great party.”

“You think?”

Rose attempted to mimic his Vitex sign. “You can trust me.”

He laughed. “You can trust me on _this._ ”

“That's it, sorry.” Now that he was next to her, she didn't know what to say or do. “How long have you two been married?”

“Twenty years,” he said, gazing out to where Jackie was laughing with someone new. “Can't really believe it's been so long. Don't know where the time's gone.”

Rose tugged on her ear. “No kids?”

“We kept putting it off,” Pete said, eyes falling onto his champagne, watching the bubbles rise as his fingers shifted around the flute, regret running along his features. “She said she didn't want to spoil her figure. I don't know. I wouldn't have minded. There was a time, once, when we thought –” he shook his head. “Doesn't matter. It is what it is. What about you? You got any kids?”

“God no,” she said, taken aback. “No. I'm only twenty. I'm not even seein' anyone.”

“Oh, come on, pretty girl like you.” He gave her a small, friendly nudge with his elbow. “You must've loads of bloke coming after you.”

Rose thought of the Doctor. “No one I want.”

“Ah.” Pete tapped his nose. “Got it. Well, nothing much you can do about unrequited love, I'm afraid, except for riding it out. Besides, you're young. It's not too late to find someone who appreciates you.”

A small smile played across her lips. “Thanks. Same to you, y'know? It's not too late for kids if you really want them. She's only forty.”

“Thirty-nine.”

Rose rolled her eyes and smiled. “Of course.”

“It's still too late though,” Pete said, rubbing his thumb over the side of the crystal flute. “I moved out last month but we're keeping it quiet. It's bad for business and all that.” He paused, almost as though he was able to hear the sound of Rose's heart breaking. Even with Pete Tyler himself, Jackie wasn't able to find the love she deserved; he looked at her, confused. “Why am I telling you all this? We haven't met before, have we? I don't know, you just seem sort of...”

She swallowed and met his eyes. “What?”

“I don't know. Just sort of _right._ ” He shook his head and set his glass down, clearly uncomfortable with how much he had revealed to her, and he left her side quickly, calling out to an acquaintance, not looking back. “Stevie! How's things? How's it going at Torchwood?”

Rose turned away and swiped at her eyes.

* * *

“Too many people,” Zoe sang off-key under her breath. “There are too many people here.”

Twisting around a small group of well-dressed attendees admiring an antique vase, Zoe slipped out of the house through the French double doors and enjoyed the fresh air that rolled over her. Fancy parties were fun when she was in the mood for them – and not working – but they tended to get inordinately hot. Not helped by the fact that she was wearing a tight uniform that dug into her with an unpleasantness that recalled to mind the stays Reinette used to force her into, she relished the cold air on her skin, eyes automatically drawn to the night's skin. The light pollution made it difficult to make out the stars, only a handful poking through, and the thought that there were other universes to explore as well as her own made her want to live forever to try and see _everything_.

It was no wonder the Doctor never stopped. With so much to see and do, stopping felt like a waste of time.

Popping a crab puff from the tray into her mouth, she turned to look for a place to sit and stilled in surprise at the sight of Jackie sitting on a lovely iron-wrought bench, a cigarette held between her fingers.

“Sorry,” Zoe apologised. “I didn't mean to disturb you.”

“You're not,” Jackie said, quietly. “I'm just getting some fresh air.”

“Yeah, me too.” She hesitated, not particularly wanting to talk to this Jackie Tyler but her arm was aching and she wanted to rest for a minute. Seating herself next to Jackie, ignoring the flash of surprise at her familiarity that passed over Not-Mum's face, she made herself comfortable by putting two crab puffs into her mouth. “Happy birthday, by the way. I hope it's been a nice one.”

“It's been all right,” Jackie said, rolling her neck and closing her eyes, exhaustion etched onto her features. “Do you ever think you've wasted your life?”

“No,” Zoe said without hesitation, unbothered by strange question. “I've got a great life. I travel to places people can't even imagine with the best people in the universe. I've got a great mum, a cracking sister when she's not being an absolute cow to me, two best friends that I love like brothers, and a really weird boyfriend.”

Jackie opened an eye. “Weird boyfriend?”

“Seriously, if you met him, you'd get it.”

She removed her phone from her bra and swiped it open, searching for the most recent picture she had of the Doctor, which happened to be one where he was eating a banana split that size of a penguin. He was smiling at her with cream and chocolate smeared across his mouth, hair wild as it was the middle of the night and the two of them had stopped off for something sweet while the others slept.

“This is him,” she said. “He's got this really strange obsession with bananas that I don't really like to encourage because there's only so many bananas I can eat before I want to smack him with one, but, honestly, bananas are just the tip of the iceberg with him.”

Jackie examined at the picture, a small smile tugging at her mouth as smoke from the end of her cigarette curled up. “He's a bit of all right, isn't he?”

“I think so.”

Zoe flicked to the next picture of him, slightly more risqué simply because he was sat up in bed without a shirt, glasses on his nose as he read. It was one of her favourite pictures of him, and the only reason she didn't use it as her screensaver was down to the fact she didn't want the others catching sight of it.

“Skinny though,” Jackie said. “Like a lamppost.”

“He's actually bigger than he looks. He's kind of all lean muscle,” Zoe said, putting the phone away. “What about you, by the way? Do you think you've wasted your life?”

Jackie lifted the cigarette to her mouth and sucked on the end, smoke filling her lungs before pluming out in front of her.

“Definitely the last twenty years.” She turned her ring over on her finger and Zoe realised with a shiver that she must have inherited that particular quirk from her mother. “You know, I used to want to be a nurse.”

In her world, Jackie had also wanted that but then she fell pregnant with Rose and then again with Zoe and the dream slipped from her grasp.

Eating another crab puff, she cleaned her fingers on her uniform. “What stopped you?”

“Life, I suppose,” Jackie said. “ _Marriage_.” She released her ring. “You happy with that boyfriend of yours?”

She nodded, mouth full. “Very much so.”

“How long have you been together?”

“We've been friends for years,” Zoe said, quickly doing the maths in her head. “But together for about seven months now.”

“Enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts,” Jackie advised. “Before you know it you'll be strangers to each other and wondering where your life's gone and what would have happened if you'd chosen differently.” Unexpectedly, she reached out and grabbed hold of Zoe's hand, startling her, a crab puff dropping from her fingers and bouncing beneath the bench. “Don't let him consume you, love.”

Zoe blinked. “What?”

“Your boyfriend,” she urged. “Don't let him become everything about you. Live your own life because that's all you've got. Don't be like me. Don't wake up one morning and realise that you've poured everything of yourself into a man to help him achieve his dreams and left nothing for yourself. You won't be happy for it. Don't let him be the most interesting thing about you.”

Unsure what to say in response to Jackie's impassioned speech, the sound of metal feet echoing against the ground was a welcome distraction. Looking away from Jackie, she squinted out into the darkness and was able to make out a mass of large, hulking shapes that moved towards them. Her first thought was that it was a bear – ridiculous since they were in London but Zoe knew the foibles of the rich well and if a king had once thought a bear was a good idea for entertainment for his court, a billionaire might also think the same – but the heavy metal thuds grew louder and louder.

Jackie's hand tightened around hers. “What the hell's that? If Pete's bloody gone and ruined my lawn for some bloody surprise, I'm going to –”

“I don't think it's a birthday surprise,” Zoe interrupted, rising to her feet and letting the tray clatter to the ground. “Inside, quickly.”

Jackie squawked at the manhandling as Zoe pushed and prodded and _shoved_ her back into the house, locking the French doors behind her, though she doubted they would do anyone any good as a defensive barrier. Releasing Jackie, she pressed herself against the window and shielded her eyes from the glare, breath fogging the glass in front of her. Suspicion started to grow as the dark forms became clearer, coalescing into humanoid shapes with handles in the place of ears, and the word _Cybus_ floated to the front of her mind. Jumping at a hand that rested on her back, she knocked her forehead into the window before turning to find Rose at her side, a worried look on her face.

“What is it?”

“Trouble,” Zoe said, memories of Mondas washing over her as the forms moved into the light. “It's the Cybermen.”


	38. Chapter 38

Bracing himself against the wind, Mickey wished he had thought to put a proper coat on before following the fleeting, tantalising idea that had passed through his mind and refused to leave. Not that he was sure he would be able to find his coat in the TARDIS. The mess that falling from one universe to another had created of the interior startled him. He wasn't sure how they were going to put everything back together, and the effort required to sort through the chaos to find a coat sent a feeling of exhaustion washing through him. To his mind, as long as Jack was warm then that was all that mattered. The drugs he was taken to manage his pain and speed along the healing process of his knees left him susceptible to the cold, and Mickey worried. However, he currently seemed perfectly content with a thick throw over his lap and a jumper that was soft to the touch on his upper body, watching the Zeppelins drift high above them, not pressing Mickey on their destination or what it was he needed to do.

Mickey appreciated that.

The _slap-slap_ of the Doctor's converses against the ground broke made him tense. The Doctor was less likely to go with the flow, his magpie-like mind needing the answers to everything and anything even if it wasn't his business. Waiting until the Doctor drew level with him, a small smile lingering on his mouth – and Mickey didn't want to know what Zoe had done to him to put that there – before he spoke.

“I'm not goin' back to the TARDIS,” he said, ready for an argument. “So you can spare me the lecture.”

“No lecture, just company,” the Doctor replied, hands dropping into his pockets, an easy lope to his body that served only to make Mickey suspicious. “My company, to be exact. Since you've decided to revert back to Mickey the Idiot –”

“ _Doctor_ ,” Jack warned, tearing his eyes from the Zeppelins. “Don't.”

“Then I've decided to come with you,” he said with a shrug. “Keep you from falling into a vat of sherbet.”

Mickey frowned. “Is that supposed to make sense?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “Maybe not to you though. There was a whole analogy just now with Zoe and – you know what? Never mind. It's not important. Where are we going then? Somewhere exciting I hope to make up for this absolutely horrible decision you've decided to make.”

“Where's Zoe?”

Looking over his shoulder hopefully, Mickey searched for Zoe in the hope that she was coming along too and would be able to keep the Doctor under control. To his disappointment, she was nowhere to be seen.

“Gone off with Rose,” the Doctor said, hopping over a crack in the concrete and smiling widely at a father pushing his child along in a pushchair. “I'm keeping you out of trouble, she's keeping her out of trouble. We're doing a lot of legwork today. I'm not sure I like it. Because do you know what I could be doing instead?”

“Zoe?” Jack asked.

The Doctor freed a hand from his pocket and lightly clipped his unrepentant friend around the back of the head.

“I could be on a date with my girlfriend in a parallel universe,” he said, and Mickey's insides clenched at hearing the Doctor refer to Zoe as _my girlfriend._ “You could be on a date with your boyfriend for that matter, or whatever the hell it is you're calling yourselves.”

“We haven't actually talked about it, so thanks for bringing that up,” Jack said.

“Oops.” The Doctor grimaced. “Sorry. But, my point is, you're not thinking outside the box here, Mickey. Why go off and stir up the hornet's nest of temptations when you can go measure soil nutrients and check out birds and have a good snog beneath a Zeppelin? _Ooo_.” His eyes lit up, and Mickey resigned himself to another one of his rambling monologues. “There's an idea. We could go on a Zeppelin ride. Zoe would love that. You know the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones throws the Nazi out the window of the Zeppelin and says _no ticket_? She loves that bit. I'd have totally let her throw me out the window to make her happy. See? We could be doing that instead of whatever the hell we are doing.”

“You talk _so much_ ,” Mickey complained. “You didn't used to talk this much. You used to be all gruff an' Northern. Can we go back to that?”

“No _p_ e,” the Doctor said, Jack running a hand across his face in amusement. “So...where are we going?”

Mickey sighed, breath warming the air in front of him and sending a cloud of white over Jack's head. It was nothing, really. He doubted there was anything to worry about. The likelihood of him not even existing was a high one. Or maybe he did exist but he lived somewhere else, was another person entirely, someone who hadn't been shaped by Britain and London but instead by the heat of Jamaica. It might be nothing. Then again, there might be something, and that small possibility kept him putting one foot in front of them other, unable to leave without checking to make sure that the carpet on the stairs was nailed down. If he didn't, he would be haunted by it.

If Rita Smith did exist in this universe and had followed the same path she had done in Mickey's universe, then the chance that she lived in the house that he had grown up in after his mother's death was large. The thought of seeing her again, of hearing her voice and getting the opportunity to tell her how sorry he was for not being good enough, for not taking the time, made him feel like a child again.

Fingers flexing around the handles of the wheelchair, he hesitated, the story caught in his throat, choking him. Although the Doctor had been much better about not making fun of him since his regeneration and wasn't the sort – even before – to mock people's grief, months of being called Mickey the idiot and watching Rose run into the TARDIS had seared a scar on his soul that made him cautious.

“I want to check on my gran,” Mickey said at last, the words dragged from him and landing heavily in the space between them. “Make sure she's all right.”

“She's not your –”

“I know.” The sharpness of his words caught the Doctor's mouth mid movement; he froze, taken aback by the interruption. A small brush of guilt swept through Mickey, and he took care to soften his tone. “I know she's not my gran but I still want to check on her.”

Jack reached up and tugged on his ear, uncomfortable with not being able to reach around and give the support he wanted to give. He frowned when the Doctor pushed his hand away, rapping him on the head with gentle knuckles.

“Stop playing with it,” the Doctor chastised, glancing at Mickey with a thoughtfulness that made his friend squirm. “How come I've never met your gran? It seems like I've met everyone else. Doesn't she live on the estate? Are you embarrassed of me?”

“Yes,” Mickey said, and Jack bit down on his knuckles to muffle his laughter while the Doctor's face dropped, offended. “But she's dead, that's why you haven't met her. 'bout five years ago now. She –” he cleared his throat of the emotion that lodged itself there. “She'd asked me to nail down this carpet on her stairs. It kept comin' up at the corner an' I kept tellin' her I'd do it. Every time, I said I'd do it, I'd do it. I was gettin' annoyed that she was askin' me all the time because I had things to do, y'know? Then I didn't hear from her in a day or so, an' normally she was on at me all the time, makin' sure I was eatin' an' all that. I went 'round to check on her...found her at the bottom of the stairs, neck broken.”

“Rassilon,” the Doctor breathed, stopping in his tracks as Jack's hands came down on the wheels to freeze him in place, Mickey already regretting the decision to talk about it. The Doctor's hand, cool but firm, rested on his shoulder. “You know you're not to blame, right? Her death wasn't your fault.”

“Whose else's was it?” He asked, anger tightening in his chest. “I told her I'd fix that damn carpet an' then I didn't. She tripped because I couldn't take ten minutes out of my day to help her out.”

“Mickey, it's not your fault.” Jack reached back and took his hand, gently linking their fingers together. Drawing it to his mouth, he kissed his knuckles, sending a shudder through Mickey at the alms that was offered as the Doctor watched them. “You've never mentioned her.”

“It's hard to talk about,” he admitted, clearing his throat again. “Rose always told me I shouldn't blame myself, but there was no one else to blame, an' I just want to see her again if she's here. Make sure she's okay an' there's nothin' she needs help with. Once I do that...I don't know, maybe I'll feel better, maybe I won't. I just...how often am I goin' to have a chance like this?”

“Hopefully never,” the Doctor said, and Jack closed his eyes, drawing on a well of patience that was slowly running dry. “I don't mean – all I mean is that once we leave, I'll fill in the cracks of the universe with – I don't know – moulding or something, and we won't be falling through into parallel worlds again.”

“Shame,” Jack said, his deliberate lightness sharpened to a fine edge. “Might've found a universe where you know what tact is.”

Mickey laughed, squeezing Jack's hand before letting it go and nudging the wheelchair forward as the Doctor loped along beside him, a slightly embarrassed air to him.

“What was she like, your gran?” The Doctor asked.

“Brilliant,” he said. “Tough. _Real_ tough. She was part of the Windrush generation an' needed to be. People didn't like rentin' to black people back then but she didn't let that stop her. Got a job as a seamstress. Ended up on Saville Row workin' for some posh tailor before her eyesight got so bad she had to pack it in. She was one of the few who actually owned her own home around here. She left it to me in her will but I couldn't – livin' there after everythin' was hard so I rented it out an' moved onto the estate. Used to think me an' Rose would end up there with kids before – well, you know.”

_Before me_ , the Doctor thought, an odd stirring of guilt giving him pause for thought. He was aware of the somewhat explosive effect he had on people's lives when he appeared in them, but he had never stuck around to experience the consequences of it before. It was _troubling_.

“She raised me after my mum died,” he continued, the story falling from him now that the vault had been cracked open. “My dad wasn't around much even when she was alive but he didn't stick around long after her death. He'd always had one foot out the door. I think he's in Spain now with a new family. I don't know. Never really bothered findin' out.”

The Doctor looked down at his feet. “How did she die?”

“Mum?” Mickey asked as though surprised by the question. “She killed herself when I was six. Came home from school an' found her in the bathroom. An overdose, apparently.”

“Jesus, Micks,” Jack said, cold with surprise. “You never said a word.”

He shrugged. “Don't think about it all that much to be honest. An' I kind of figured the girls would've told you.”

“Zoe's told me nothing,” the Doctor said. “And I'm sorry about your family. You deserved better.”

“It is what it is,” Mickey said. “Not like there isn't one of us who has it all sorted out family wise.”

“We are something of a bag of family issues, aren't we?” Jack mused. “Me and my brother, Rose and her dad, the Doctor and his family, Zoe and her wife, you and your everything. We've all lost people important to us.”

“Like is drawn to like, I suppose,” the Doctor said. “I'm just sorry I never met your gran, Micks. She sounds like I would've liked her.”

“You would have,” Mickey said, amused at the idea. “She was just your sort of person: mad and a little bit strict. Kind of what I imagine Zoe will be like when she's old.”

“There's a terrifying thought,” Jack said. “She'll be whacking us with her cane and complaining about not being able to read books because her eyesight's going.”

The talk of Zoe ageing caused fear to shroud the Doctor and he was relieved when their conversation lapsed into friendly, easy silence as they headed towards the nearest tube station. As their Oyster cards didn't work in this parallel universe, they had to buy new ones, which meant the Doctor standing casually at an ATM as he used the sonic screwdriver to withdraw £100 to see them through the day. Stepping onto the tube, the Doctor grabbed hold of a dangling hand hold and wondered how Zoe and Rose were getting on, hoping that some time spent together would ease the distance between them. It was hard not to feel responsible for the cold shoulder Zoe was receiving, and he wished that Rose would direct her annoyance and anger onto him rather than her sister.

Lost in his thoughts, he was taken aback by the cold air when they emerged from the tube station in the Docklands, helping Mickey with Jack's wheelchair as the station was unhelpfully inaccessible for wheelchair users. Cursing humans lack of ability to think empathically in every universe, he missed the sudden cessation of activity, only looking up when his voice took on a strange echo, mouth dropping open in surprise at the sight of huge swathes of people frozen in place.

“What the hell?” Jack muttered, leaning heavily on Mickey who had an arm looped around his waist to keep the pressure off his knees. “Are they frozen?”

“Sit down,” the Doctor instructed, giving the wheelchair a yank and rolling it towards him. “When we're done here and back home, I'm taking you to a resort whether you like it or not. Your knees need to heal and I've been stupid not to do it before now.”

“Right, yeah, sounds great, but are you seeing what we're seeing?” Jack asked, gesturing at the crowd as Mickey helped him into his seat. “Because I might be hallucinating again.”

“You're not hallucinating,” he said, passing his hand in front of a set of unseeing eyes, frowning when the movement wasn't tracked. Circling the still human, his attention was drawn to the bulky earpieces that flashed blue, and he slipped his sonic screwdriver out and scanned it. “That's interesting. It's the earpieces. Everyone's got one. It looks like they're all connected.”

Mickey poked the shoulder of a young man with a sprinkling of acne over his forehead. “To what?”

He shrugged, baffled. “No idea.”

Jack grunted and reached into his pocket, removing his phone that was vibrating in his pocket, and he swiped the screen open.

“Something's downloading on my phone: news, international news, sports, weather.” The Doctor and Mickey crowded around him, their shadows making it difficult to see the screen. He lifted his head and looked around at the crowd – seventy or eighty people were gathered in the street outside the tube station – and fascination consumed him. “Do you think they're all getting this direct?”

“What, downloadin' it straight into their heads?” Mickey asked. “Wait a sec, Rose told me somethin' about this once. Didn't you travel with a guy who downloaded somethin' into his brain? She said you kicked him off the TARDIS for it.”

“You kicked someone off the TARDIS?” Jack twisted to look up at the Doctor, regretting the move as the muscles in his back screamed in protest. “Really? When?”

“Brain door,” the Doctor said, snapping his fingers in memory. “I'd almost forgotten about him. And you're right, I did kick him off, bloody idiot that he was. Rose and I were being threatened and nearly killed and that prat was off getting all of human history downloaded into his mind. He's lucky I let him keep his brain.”

“Is this that then?” Mickey asked.

“Don't know,” he said, slipping on his glasses and taking Jack's phone. “Direct downloads aren't exactly recommended, not without some augmentation like Jack has here. But maybe they have them. Maybe _that's_ a divergence between this universe and ours. The question is though, who's doing the download? The government?”

Mickey examined the screen on his own phone. “Cybus Industries. Look, they've got a little logo in the corner.”

While they were watching, the next download was put into the system, a daily joke – _Velcro, what a rip-off!_ \- that sent laughter rippling through the crowd before the lights stopped flashing and life flooded back into them. A brief moment of stillness carried over as the system retreated from their minds, eyes blinking and heads shaking, before everyone started moving again. They simply resumed their path, carrying on about their business as though they hadn't been stopped in their tracks. The Doctor watched them return to their lives, confused.

“That was weird,” he said, tapping into the information on Jack's phone to access the network, eyes scanning the screen. “My, my, my, Cybus Industries have been busy, haven't they? It looks like they own most of the companies in Britain. A fair number in Europe as well.” He paused, a cold feeling of dread washing over him. “They own Vitex too.”

Mickey stood at his shoulder. “Pete Tyler's company?”

“The one and only,” he said. “Sold to Cybus about two years ago. Made his fortune that way by the looks of it.”

Jack rubbed his finger over his mouth. “You want to go after the girls, don't you?”

“Go,” Mickey said. “We'll catch up with you later.”

The Doctor's mouth turned dry but he shook his head, handing the phone back to Jack.

“Zoe can take care of herself,” he decided. “And Rose if necessary. This doesn't matter. We're not going to be here long enough for it to matter. This universe is none of our business. We're just going to go deal with Mickey's curiosity and then meet back at the TARDIS for something to eat and a wander around the library for Zo.”

“Why does it feel like you're trying to reassure yourself that's what's going to happen?” Jack asked.

“Probably because that's exactly what I'm trying to do,” he said, his own phone beeping with an incoming message, and he nearly dropped his glasses in his eagerness to answer. “It's Zoe.”

Mickey shoved his hands into his pockets. “What she say?”

**Saw the download thing. Totally weird. Rose and I are still heading to see Pete against my best judgement.**

**Wish me luck.**

**xxx**

“She's going to need it,” Jack considered.

Hearing from Zoe eased the tension in his chest and the Doctor smiled at his friends. “Right then. Let's go see Mickey's gran and try not to think about this weird, _weird_ thing.”

“Are you actually capable of doin' that?” Mickey asked, taking hold of Jack's wheelchair again and resuming their journey. “I thought your brain was wired for weird stuff.”

“Only on Mondays.”

The temperature was beginning to drop as the sky started to turn grey with the threat of night approaching. February in London appeared to be cold across the universes and the Doctor put his fingers in the pockets of his coat, missing Zoe's hand tucked into his, her human body running at a slightly higher temperature that helped keep him warm in cold climates.

Out of deference for Rose's feelings and an awareness that their relationship out in the open changed the dynamics of the TARDIS, they had avoided their usual displays of affection – hand holding, the occasional hug, normal things that he did with all of them but more carefully with Zoe until now. It was also, if he was being honest, partly a way to avoid the knowing grins that Jack was aching to give them, having held himself in check marvellously well over the last few days but it was obvious that he was dying to say something and the Doctor knew that the dam would soon break.

When they got back to their own universe, the Doctor was going to hold Zoe hand again, Rose's feelings be damned. He felt they had been more than patient with her, and he certainly didn't want to hurt her, but he also didn't want to be forbidden from holding Zoe's hand whenever she was around. And he wanted to be able to kiss her goodbye when they went off in other directions now that everyone knew instead of squeezing her shoulder and hoping she understood that he loved her. And in the evenings when they were all gathered together and chatting, he wanted to play with her hair without anyone making anything of it.

He was tired of keeping his hands and his affections to himself, his love for Zoe something he wanted to incorporate into his daily life if not shout from the rooftops.

“That looks like trouble,” Jack noted, eyes scanning the army roadblock that immediately put the Doctor's back up, guns visible every way he turned. “Best behaviour everyone, and I mean you _,_ Doctor.”

“I'm not a child,” he said, irritated.

“No, you're a Time Lord, and sometimes I think that's worse,” Jack replied, slipping on a charming, polite smile as they reached the military cordon. “Evening.”

The soldier yawned, the back of his throat on display, before he scratched his thigh. “What d'you want?”

“Are we all right to get past?” Mickey asked before the Doctor or Jack did something that drew unwanted attention to them. “We're just headin' to my gran's.”

“Yeah, no bother,” the soldier said, boredom painted across his face. “Curfew doesn't start till ten.”

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up and, unable to stop himself, asked – “there's a curfew?”

“Course there is,” the soldier scoffed, eyes narrowing. “Where've you been living, mate? Up there with the toffs?”

Mickey shot the Doctor a _look_. “Nah, he just doesn't get out much. Bit of a hermit. We're his care in the community helpers.”

The soldier grinned. “Best of luck to you. Don't forget to be indoors by ten though. Posh twat like him'll have a rough time of it down at the blocks.”

“Thanks, I think,” the Doctor said with a frown, ducking under the bar that was half lifted for them to pass through. He glanced back over his shoulder as they moved through the military cordon. “He was rude. _Posh twat_ indeed.”

“Didn't you have an estate or somethin' on Gallifrey?” Mickey asked. “Or your dad did. I remember you tellin' me about it at Zoe's graduation. Red fields an' all that.”

“Well, yeah, my parents had the estate, I didn't,” he replied. “I lived in a perfectly normal house with my wife and kids. You humans and your fascination with money is one of the things that confuses me the most about you lot. Sorting people into class structures as though an excess of wealth makes you a better sort of person. It's no wonder you have as many problems as you do.”

“If you're going to lecture us about human foibles, could you record it and send it to me so I can listen to it when I've got a whiskey to hand?” Jack asked. “They're easier to sit through drunk.”

“There's an idea,” the Doctor mused. “I could do a lecture series.”

“Please don't,” Mickey requested, pained at the thought of being made to sit through them. “An' will you both focus, please? Why d'you think there's a curfew?”

“Could be any number of reasons,” the Doctor said, his lecture series idea fading into the back of his mind as he unwrapped a packet of Starburst that Zoe had put in his pockets. He dropped a pink one into Jack's outstretched hand and let Mickey choose his from the square pack. “Although, I did once visit a parallel world where Britain was a fascist state in the 70s that came complete with an evil Brigadier. I hope it's not the same one.”

“Do fascists even like Black people?” Mickey asked.

“No idea,” he said. “Don't think they like much of anyone really though.”

As the Doctor and Jack continued to both theorise about the curfew and eat their way through the Starburst, their voices forming a familiar cadence that lulled Mickey as he trod a path he hadn't walked since his gran's funeral. The residential street was close enough to the one back home that it didn't cause him too many moments of disorientation, although there was a Chinese down at the end instead of an Indian. Drawing Jack's wheelchair to a stop, he stared across the road at Number One. The front door was recently painted and the lace curtains that he had hated growing up hung in the window. Cold air filled his lungs when he breathed in deeply, startling when Jack touched his hand.

“You okay?”

“I don't know,” Mickey admitted. “It's strange bein' here an' knowin' that she might be there. It's exactly the same. The house. It's just like I remember.”

“Do you want us to come with you?” The Doctor asked. “Or just Jack? I can stay back here and keep myself entertained. I'm pretty sure I've got a book on me somewhere.”

“Zoe just uses you as a walking storage unit, doesn't she?” Jack said, amused. “You're all soft and pliable in love. It's kind of entertaining.”

The Doctor snorted. “Says you. Mickey's made a bloody house cat out of you. Isn't that right, - where's he gone? I wish people would stop wandering off when my back's turned. It makes a person twitchy.”

“We really need to stop getting distracted in the middle of things,” Jack sighed, eyes tracking Mickey as he crossed the street, shoulders tense and spine rigid with determination. “Stop being a good conversationalist.”

“Stop distracting me with good conversation,” the Doctor replied. “Another Starburst?”

“Don't mind if I do, thanks.”

Gathering his courage to him, Mickey lifted his hand and rattled the knocker against the door, mind running a mile a minute in an attempt to figure out what to say if it was his grandmother behind the door. Panic trickled through him. If she had a grandson who was identical to him, then he wasn't going to pass the muster and she _would_ clip him around the ear, thinking he was some imposter. Realising, for the first time, how right the Doctor was – this was truly a terrible idea – he stepped back from the front of the house, palms clammy and throat closing up, when the door opened and Mickey's breath caught in his throat.

_Gran._

“Who's that there?” Rita demanded, the accented timbre of her voice making Mickey's throat thicken as it clogged with emotion, stealing his ability to speak. “Who is it? I know you're there. Shame on you, tricking an old lady. I've got nothing worth stealing, and don't think I'm going to disappear!” She raised her white cane, brandishing it like a sword, nearly taking Mickey's eye out. “You're not going to take me.”

Fighting through his grief, he found his voice. “Hi.”

Rita paused, hope slipping into the deep lines of her face, a whisper breaking free. “Is that you?”

“It's me,” Mickey said, voice like sandpaper. “I'm home.”

“Ricky?” Her hand reached out, trembling. “Ricky, is that you, my boy?”

He flinched, the sting of the Doctor's indifference having left a wound. “It's Mickey.”

“I know my own grandson's name,” she said firmly, stepping forward with uneasy steps that made him automatically reached for her. “It's Ricky. Now, come here.”

Mickey took a step towards her and _fell_ into her embrace. Soft and warm with the gentle fragrance of her floral perfume that was _exactly the same_ , tears pressed hotly against his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. His entire body trembled as he held her, her hand kind and loving against the back of his head, her own breath a little shaky as though she was finding it as hard to believe as he was. Slowly and with great reluctance, he pulled back, wiping at his face, and he risked a glance behind him to where the Doctor and Jack watched them. As on, their thumbs came up, identical pleased grins on their faces, silently congratulating him on his good fortune, and he smile. Happiness suffused him and –

“ _Ow_!”

“Oh no,” the Doctor winced, feeling the slap that Rita Smith delivered to the back of Mickey's head. “That looked like it hurt. Rassilon, she's got a bit of an arm on her, hasn't she?”

Across the street, they watched as Rita leaned into the violence and slapped every inch of Mickey she could reach.

“Do you think we should help him?” Jack asked, worried,

The Doctor shook his head. “You want to get in the middle of that? I don't want to be slapped today, thank you very much. My face is still sore from Jackie having a go at it the other day.”

“Well...” Jack paused, relaxing when Rita ran out of steam and started poking Mickey with her cane. “You were shagging her daughter in a closet.”

The Doctor sighed and flicked Jack's good ear.

“It's been days and days,” Rita exclaimed, voice warbling on her emotions. The assault seemingly at an end, Mickey slowly lowered his arms, body aching from her loving attention, and stared at her, absorbing her worry and fury. “I keep hearing all these stories. People disappearing off the streets. There's nothing official on the download but there're all these rumours, and _whispers_. I thought you'd been disappeared!”

“Gran, I don't know what –” he trailed off, blood turning to ice in his veins. Over her shoulder on the stairs, a piece of carpet was loose and pulled up from the corner. The same carpet. The same stair. The same simple task he hadn't completed in either universe. Bile surged up his throat, and he forced it back down. “That carpet on the stairs...I told you to get it fixed. You're goin' to fall an' break your neck.”

Rita straightened up. “Well, you get it fixed for me.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, grief spearing through his heart, tears pooling in his eyes as he struggled with the weight of the guilt that pressed onto his chest. “I should have done way back. I guess I'm just kind of useless.”

“Now,” she said, softening instantly. “I never said that.”

“I am, though,” Mickey said, throat closing. “An' I'm sorry, Gran. I'm so sorry. I should've – I should've been better for you. You raised me better than that, an' I'm sorry.”

Worry played across Rita's handsome face. “Don't talk like that. Do you know what you need? A nice cup of tea and a sit down. You got time?”

Mickey almost laughed, dragging a hand across his face. “For you, I've got all the time in the world.”

“Oh, you say that but it's all talk,” she scoffed, eyes rolling behind her dark glasses. “It's those new friends of yours. I don't trust them.”

He sniffed and wished he carried a handkerchief like Jack did. “What friends are they?”

“Don't pretend you don't know,” Rita warned. “You've been seeing them, Mrs Chan told me. Driving about all helter skelter in –”

Tires screeched against the tarmac. Rita clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, wincing as her hearing aid caused the noise to spike directly in her ear, pulling back and trying to shield herself in the door. Automatically, Mickey put himself in front of his grandmother, one arm stretched out across the front of her body, and he turned to watch a large black van jerked to a halt in front of him. Blocked from sight, Mickey heard the Doctor's irritated _'hey, watch how you're driving!'_ as dark plumes of exhaust spat out into the air, making Rita cough as it coated the back of her throat.

The doors swung open and a young Caucasian man jumped out and grabbed hold of him. Mickey twisted out of the grip and brought his hand up in a move Jack had taught him, blood bursting from the man's nose as he toppled back.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mickey demanded. “Gran, quick, get inside.”

“Ricky –”

“Inside, _please._ ”

Hearing the urgency in his voice, Rita's trembling hand squeezed his shoulder before fumbling her way back inside, locking the door behind her, just as the Doctor burst around the side of the van.

“You okay?” The Doctor demanded. “Who's he?”

“No idea,” Mickey shrugged. “Where's –?”

“Stuck on the pavement,” he answered. “London's a really unfriendly city for wheelchair users. We need to talk to Harriet about that when we get back. It's honestly shocking. You sure you're all –”

An arm emerged from the passenger's seat window and pressed a taser to the soft spot beneath his arm that was visible due to the Doctor's penchant for wild gestures. Mickey watched his friend seize and drop to the ground, pain lancing through him as his muscles seized and electricity coursed through his body that twitched and convulsed. Anger took Mickey into its embrace, and he opened his mouth and –

“Jack, trouble!”

“What the fuck's wrong with you?” The bloodied man complained, staggering to his feet and cuffing him around the back of the head, Mickey's ears ringing with the blow. “I've been looking for you bloody everywhere and you punch me in the damned nose?”

“Get him in the van,” the woman who had tasered the Doctor said from the front seat, lilting Welsh accent at odds with the violence of the moment. “Jake, for God's sake, hurry up!”

“ _Mickey_ ,” Jack yelled from the other side of the van. “Mickey, Doctor!”

“We don't have time for this,” Jake exclaimed, irritation leading him to reach into the van and grab a damp rag. “Sorry for this but you're acting real strange right now.”

Mickey dodged the first attempt at grabbing him only to trip over the Doctor's twitching ankles and tumble against the side of the van, catching himself on the door. Jake lunged at him and pressed the cloth over his mouth and nose. The sharp, slightly sweet smell of chloroform invaded his senses and filled his lungs, eyes rolling into the back of his head as he slumped. Jake used the momentum of his falling body to shove him into the back of the van. As soon as their feet left the ground, the driver slammed her foot against the accelerator and whipped past Jack so fast that he was knocked from his wheelchair that tipped onto its side, one wheel spinning.

“Ricky, _Ricky_!” Rita stumbled from the house, cane tapping urgently against the ground to check her path, and she waved her fist after the van. “Bring him back! Bring my boy back, you monsters!”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack swore, struggling to right himself. “Doctor, stop twitching!”

The Doctor groaned low and long from between clenched teeth, jaw aching from the pressure, and wrestled his body back under controlled. Relieved that he had retain command over his bladder, he sat up only for a lingering spark of electricity to render him on his back again. He _hated_ being tased. It was rude and unnecessary. A simple punch was much politer and didn't force him to run the risk of his bodily functions exploding on him. To his side, Jack scrambled for his wheelchair and on the other, Rita had descended into harsh, dry, panicked sobs.

_Come on_ , he thought, fingers curled into clenched fists. _Come on, you can do it._

With another groan, he snapped back to himself and relaxed his jaw. Pain pressed through the lower half of his face, a dull headache setting in, and he ignored both as he staggered to his feet and made his way to Jack. Jerking the wheelchair upright, he took Jack beneath the arms and dropped him into it before he turned and held his hand out to Rita, beseeching her to stop crying.

“Be quiet,” he snapped. “I can't think with you crying like that.”

“Don't tell me to be quiet, boy.” The Doctor tripped backwards, landing heavily on his hip that sent a bloom of pain out from the point of impact, in an effort to avoid Rita's cane. “Them bastards have taken my grandson.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, the pain sending nausea through him and the Starburst gurgled uncomfortably in his stomach. “We need a car. Think you can steal us one?”

“I'm not a thief!”

“I'm not talking to you,” the Doctor said, rolling his eyes towards Jack who abandoned the wheelchair and lurched his way to the nearest car, muscles in his arms straining as he kept as much weight as possible off his knees. “Jack, wheelchair!”

“In a fucking second,” Jack shot back, yanking the door open and flopping inside. Within seconds, the engine roared to life. “Done, but I can't drive the damn thing.”

Getting back to his feet, the Doctor took the wheelchair by the handles and lifted only for his body to seize, muscles caught in the grip of leftover electricity that shocked through him. His right knee buckled and, as he journeyed towards the ground once more, he smacked his forehead against one of the handles, a welt appearing above his brow.

“Neither can you,” Jack said, squirming out of the car and slumping to the ground, knees screaming in agony: from the small amount of physical therapy Zoe had helped him with to falling through the universes and now _this_ , he had done too much for his healing knees to cope with. “Fucking shit.”

A clack of a cane against the ground drew his attention.

“I'll drive,” Rita said.

“You're blind.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Then you're my eyes,” she told him, tapping her way to the car. “Those crooks have taken my Ricky and I'm not having it.”

The Doctor spat a mouthful of bloodied saliva on the ground, cheek sore from where his teeth had sliced into the soft flesh, and groaned.

“We're all going to die.”

* * *

Rita, it turned out, had one speed.

_Fast._

Jack was barely able to give her directions read from his phone that was synced with Mickey's, tracking him through London, before she was jerking the wheel and screeching around corners. The fact that she was as blind as a bat – her words, not his – wasn't enough to inject a touch of caution into her driving, and Jack made sure the seatbelt was stretched across him the moment they were on a long stretch of road. In the backseat, the Doctor alternated between panicked yelps when Rita zoomed past a lorry, hand pressed to the horn and fingers flying in a recognisably rude gesture, and long groans of annoyance and pain as his body refused to do what he needed it to do.

“Left in five – four – three –” he reached up to grab the handhold above his head, the Doctor doing the same in the back. “– two – one. _Now_.”

Rita twisted the wheel and the car canted to one side. Having come close to death only recently, Jack was eager not to do so again and was relieved when the vehicle straightened out and they barrelled down an access road that was wide enough for two lorries to squeeze by each other if they were careful. His phone beeped. The tracking app Zoe had designed and created with input from the Doctor after Jack's abduction and torture was proving to be exceptionally useful. As none of them were comfortable with the Doctor injecting them with a tracker – his preferred idea – they had compromised on downloading the tracking software onto their phones. Unimaginatively named _o_ _ù_ _-es tu?_ – the French, apparently, made it sound more sophisticated – it pinpointed Mickey's location perfectly.

Jack told Rita to cut the engine and ghost to a stop outside an abandoned building. Silence descended on them as they took in their location.

“Fire stations, especially abandoned ones are a little terrifying.” the Doctor said, tongue clucking against the roof of his mouth. “Can you see any external security?”

“Some cameras,” Jack said, squinting out of the window. “You got the sonic? I can probably get them from here.”

The Doctor passed the sonic screwdriver to him and watched as Jack scrambled the cameras with a satisfaction that he understood. If someone had driven up and snatched Zoe, he would also want to participate in a bout of destruction. Rita, sat quietly in the driver's seat, suddenly spoke.

“Who are you people?”

“We're friends of your grandson,” the Doctor said. “The good kind. He's been helping us out with some things. We'll get him back, Mrs Smith, don't you worry.”

She snorted, and the resemblance to Mickey startled him.. “Don't worry. Don't worry, he says. All I do about that boy is worry. These new friends of his – the Preachers – they're a dangerous lot. They're going to get him into trouble or _worse_. You best not be with them, or I'll take my cane to you, boy. Don't think I will.”

“I believe you,” he said, not enjoying being called _boy._ “Now, thank you very much for the driving that's definitely going to feature in my nightmares, we need to go and get a closer look. Stay here, pop the heating on, and we'll be back with Mickey before you know it.”

“Ricky, his name is Ricky.”

The Doctor swallowed back the sudden burst of laughter that rose up through his chest. “Right, yeah, sorry. We'll be back with _Ricky_ before you know it. Cross my hearts.”

“I'm not leaving my grandson's fate in the hands of you two,” she argued, opening the door and clambering out. “You both spent the ride screaming.”

“You drive like a mad woman,” he called out after her before slumping against the chairs and looking at Jack. “That date with Zoe is sounding really good right about now. Next time one of you gets an idea like this into your heads, just knock me out. It'll be far easier to deal with.”

“Stop whining and help me out,” Jack said. “My knees are in agony.”

Climbing out of the car and casting an eye towards Rita who had yet to orient herself properly, tapping around on the ground for a path towards the building. There was time but, knowing what the Doctor knew about humans, it was only a matter of minutes before she gave up searching and starting yelling for her grandson. He removed Jack's wheelchair and set it on the ground and then his friend in it, before catching hold of Rita – lightly, by the elbow, he didn't want to risk her cane again – and put her hands on the handles, instructing Jack to whisper guidance to her as he crept on ahead to get a visual on Mickey.

Grateful for the fall of night that covered the area in darkness, the Doctor slid around the building and dropped to a crouch. Inching along the ground, the press of gravel cutting through his converses, he hooked his fingers around the crumbling stone window edge and peeked over the top.

The room was brightly lit and was a hodgepodge of equipment, dirty dishes, and books that tumbled everywhere. On a chair with his back to the window, Mickey was tied up and seemingly naked. Circling him was a man that the Doctor assumed was Ricky Smith, Rita's grandson, while Mickey's two kidnappers watched on in confusion. He was pleased to see the young man that had first jumped Mickey was sitting down, head tilted back, wads of tissue bundled up against his nose in an attempt to stem the bleeding. Were he inclined towards Zoe's slightly violent tendencies – her ability to go from soft and sweet to murderous if someone hurt the people she loved was, admittedly, a turn on – he might think that the bloodied nose was well deserved. Since he wasn't, he merely harrumphed under his breath and let a small smile twitch across his mouth.

“What do you see?”

The Doctor jumped, head smacking into the stone ledge, and he dropped to the ground as Ricky snapped around and frowned out of the window. Jack grimaced and gestured Rita back who edged back and dragged the wheelchair with her, the crunch of wheels over gravel less discreet than the Doctor would like.

“Sorry,” Jack whispered, eyes sparkling with reflected light. “Thought you heard us.”

“At this rate, I'm going to get a concussion,” he complained quietly, rubbing the new bruise on his forehead. “And there are two Mickeys in there. Ours and Rita's. He also appears to be naked.”

“Ricky?” Rita asked, startled.

“No, Mickey.”

“I've told you –”

“Rassilon,” the Doctor said, tightly. “Yes, sorry, _Ricky_.” He looked to Jack. “They have guns but they don't look that well organised. I don't see anyone else in there. Think I'm just going to walk in and have a little chat with them.”

“Guns?” Rita demanded. “My Ricky's using a gun? What trouble has that boy got himself into? I'm going to whoop him until he remembers he's a good boy. Where's the front door?”

“Mrs Smith, I don't think –” Jack began only for his recently healed ear to become trapped between her thumb and forefinger, the Doctor's eyes flaring wide with panic as she twisted it. “Ow, ow, _ow_!”

“Let go of that ear, it's a new one!”

“Where's the front door?”

Although the Doctor was certain Jack's ear was bonded firmly in place, there was a small nagging worry it might fall off if he wasn't careful, so he hissed at Rita that _fine, I'll show you the bloody door_ , and got a ringing slap to the back of the head for his language. Gesturing at Jack to stay where he was – though not hoping he would actually do so as he was already in the process of levering the wheelchair around – he took Rita's dry, papery hand in his and did what he did best –

Waltz in through the front door.

It was far too easy to break into the empty fire station. They didn't even need to use the sonic screwdriver as the door was left on the hatch and there were no security feeds observing the entrance itself, clearly confident that their external cameras were enough to catch anyone getting close enough before they reached the door.

Despite appearances of vigilantes or a higher-than-average criminal gang, they were amateurs, which the Doctor considered was a good thing. Amateurs were more likely to collapse at the first sight of danger and, between him, Jack, and an angry grandmother, he was sure that they could look suitably dangerous long enough to get Mickey back, with or without clothes. The gentle creek of Jack's wheelchair filled the corridor behind them, and he glanced back, refusing to give his friend the satisfaction of an exasperated look. Pressing a finger to his mouth, he encouraged silence, squeezing Rita's hand in warning, as they stopped and listened to the conversation within.

“But that's my dad,” Ricky said, his voice, if not his tone, nearly identical to Mickey's. “So, we're brothers?”

“Be fair,” another voice chimed in, words muffled by a bruised nose. “What else could it be?”

“I don't know,” Ricky said, Rita tensing beside the Doctor. “But he doesn't just look like me, he is _exactly_ the same. There's something else going on here, Jake.”

Rita wrenched her hand from the Doctor's and flung the door open into the room. The resulting _crash_ it made against the wall caused those inside to jump – someone screamed – and guns were drawn.

“Ricky Smith, what on God's green earth do you think you're doing?”

Ricky gaped at her. “Gran?”

“Sorry to barge in,” the Doctor said, unapologetically, strolling in after Rita who seemed to have the situation well in hand considering how she was slapping her grandson across every part of his body. “But we've come to get our friend back. Mickey, how you doing, mate?”

“I'm bloody freezin',” Mickey complained. “They stripped me down an' didn't bother turnin' the heatin' on. It's cruel an' unusual is what it is. You all right? You hit the deck pretty hard earlier.”

“I'm fine, though I'd like to know who to thank for the tasering,” the Doctor said as Jack entered the room and wheeled his way over to Mickey, removing a knife from his person to cut at the rope. The Doctor had long since given up on trying to understand where Jack kept the various weaponry when he didn't seem to wear pockets. “It was deeply unpleasant.”

A middle aged woman with platinum blonde hair raised her hand. “That'd be me. Sorry about that but you were in my way. Name's Mrs Moore.”

“The Doctor,” he said, sniffing as he shook her hand. “You've already met Mickey, and the handsome chap in the wheelchair is Jack.”

“Stop talking to them.” Eyes beginning to bruise from Mickey's fist, Jake stood next to Mrs Moore and scowled. “Who even are they? We don't know who they are or what they want or why they've got a clone of Ricky right here. I bet they work for Cybus. They're probably _spies._ ”

“Unlikeliest bunch of spies I've ever seen,” Mrs Moore said, her Welsh accent lilting pleasantly as Ricky finally got his arms around his grandmother, drawing her into a tight hug, her dry sobs a welcome change from the angry violence and pained yelps. “Ricky's clone, a man in a wheelchair, and a pinstriped lamppost? Nah. Whoever they are, they're not spies.”

“Pinstriped lamppost?” The Doctor repeated, offended. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are a bit skinny this time round,” Jack said, freeing Mickey from the rope and easing back to give him space to stand and stretch his sore limbs. “It's a wonder Zoe doesn't get a paper cut when you're together.”

Mrs Moore flicked her eyes between them. “Who's Zoe?”

“His girlfriend,” Mickey grumbled, pulling on his trousers. “Why d'you take my socks off? What was the point in that? What the hell was I goin' to be hidin' in my socks?”

“Any number of things,” she said. “You'd be surprised how dangerous socks can be.”

The Doctor grinned before remembering himself. “Hey, no, stop it. Don't be funny. You're not allowed to be funny. You tased me and kidnapped my friend.”

“Would a cup of tea help smooth things over?” She offered. “I popped the kettle on when we got in so the water's boiled. And we've got some biscuits as well.”

“You know, a cup of tea and a biscuit sounds perfect right about now, thank you,” he said, looking towards the Smiths. “Mrs Smith, how are you doing over there?”

She dried her eyes beneath her glasses with the edge of Ricky's shirt. “Happy to have my boy safe and sound.”

“I can't believe you got my gran involved in this,” Ricky said, annoyed, one arm looped around her shoulders. “Are you mad?”

“We needed a driver,” Jack shrugged.

“She's blind!”

“My knees are healing and the Doctor was busy twitching because your mate tased him,” he argued. “We were kind of out of options considering you kidnapped Mickey.”

“Ricky, his name is Ricky,” Rita said.

The Doctor pressed his fists to his forehead and laughed. “My head hurts. I don't know if it's the two knocks I've taken to it or the fact that everyone in this room is a bloody idiot – you excluded, of course, Mrs Smith – but my head _hurts_.”

“Here, this might help,” Mrs Moore said, setting a cup of tea in his hand from a tray she had balanced four cups and a plate of biscuits on. “No sugar, I'm afraid. Jake here forgot to pick some up when he was at the shops. After a good tasering, I'm always in need of a nice cup of tea.”

“Get tased often, do you?” He asked, sipping the tea and breathing out a sigh of relief as the tannins slipped through him.

“I tase myself,” she said. “Only way to check if the alterations I make to the taser are any good. I'd do it on one of the boys but they're not so eager to volunteer after I knocked Jake unconscious for three days. I really got the maths wrong there.”

“Don't remind me,” Jake frowned. “I think my teeth are still vibrating.”

“Dammit,” the Doctor said, dunking a custard cream in his tea. “I think I'm beginning to like you. How dare you?”

Mrs Moore laughed. “I'd say sorry but I'm not all that much.”

“I bet you're not,” he said, reluctantly delighted by her. “Since we're all on our way to becoming fast friends, who are you lot anyway? What's with the set up?”

Ricky guided Rita to a seat and made her comfortable, directing a portable heater at her legs and switching it on while she drank her tea. Only when he was certain she was taken care of did he straighten up and answer the Doctor's question.

“We're the Preachers, as in the gospel truth.” The Doctor stared at him blankly. Ricky sighed and pointed at his ear. “You see? No ear plugs. While the rest of the world downloads from Cybus Industries, we've got freedom. You're talking to London's Most Wanted –”

Rita gasped and slapped his thigh. “You're what?”

“Ow, _ow,_ sorry, gran, but it's the truth,” Ricky said, exchanging a small, amused look with Jake who rolled his eyes and mouthed something that the Doctor thought, bewilderingly was _parking tickets_. “It's why I haven't been coming around like I should have. There are things that need doing and no one's doing them except us. We're trying to blow it wide open so the public knows that Cybus is up to something. People are going missing, huge trucks of people being taken to Battersea Power Station and then not coming out. We know it's to do with Cybus and our number one target is Lumic. We're going to bring him down and to justice.”

Warmed up, fully dressed, and sat next to Jack on the sofa, their feet resting on the seat of his wheelchair, Mickey raised an eyebrow. “From your kitchen?”

Ricky's shoulders stiffened and he squared up, angry eyes slicing in his direction. “You got a problem with that?”

“No, no.” He shook his head, hiding his smile behind his mug. “It's a nice kitchen. Very nice.”

“I like what you've done with the sink,” Jack complimented. “It's very sink-like.”

Saving everyone from having to hear an argument, something beeped. Setting down her cup of tea, Mrs Moore turned to check on a flashing device in the corner, hunching over it and opening her laptop that was covered with stickers.

“It's an upload from Gemini,” she said.

“Who's Gemini?” The Doctor asked, curiosity getting the better of him. “Wait, no, I don't want to know. We're not here for any of that. We're just here for...sightseeing. That's right. Love those Zeppelins, you know?”

“The vans are back, they're moving out of Battersea,” Mrs Moore said, ignoring him, which he thought was probably a good idea. A pleased smile crossed her face. “Looks like Gemini was right, Lumic's finally making his move.”

“And we are right behind him,” Ricky said, body bristling with energy as he began to issue instructions. “Pack up, we're leaving. Find out where they're heading first, Mrs Moore. Jake, get everything we need in the truck.”

The Doctor set his tea down and gestured at Jack and Mickey to do the same. “Well, this sounds like you've got a busy night ahead of you. Good luck and all that. We'll just leave you to it though, yeah? Don't want to get in the way or anything. Since we're off, we'll take Mrs Smith back with us, make sure she gets home safe. Sound fair?”

“You think I'm letting you head off with my gran when you know all about us?” Ricky asked with a dry laugh. “Not a chance. You three know too much.”

“That's something I've definitely been accused of before,” he agreed. “But in this case, we're really just going to head home. This isn't of any interest to us, so don't worry. Your secret's safe with me.”

He mimed zipping his lips.

“I've traced the delivery address,” Mrs Moore said, appearing at Ricky's side. “It's heading towards a mansion on the outskirts of the city. Belongs to the Vitex guy, Pete Tyler.”

The Doctor's stomach sank, and Jack released a small, pained groan as he knuckled his eyes while Mickey dropped his head back against the sofa. Turning his eyes, he looked up at the Doctor and saw the dread settled on his features, hand finding Jack's and rubbing his thumb over his knuckles anxiously, knowing what they had to do.

* * *

The Preachers' van was a cosy fit at the best of times but with five fully grown adults in the back, along with Jack's wheelchair that was fixed to the side – Rita wisely choosing to ride up front with Mrs Moore even though she didn't fully understand what was happening – it was a cramped space. The Doctor kept tumbling into Mickey every time Mrs Moore took a violent, screeching turn of a corner, hindering his efforts to get in touch with either Rose or Zoe by phone.

Acutely aware that Rose might choose to screen his calls, he had Mickey and Jack do the same but worry rolled through him like an avalanche since Zoe always had her phone on her and had yet to ignore a message or call from him, so he hoped that they were okay. While he had full and unwavering faith in their abilities to look after themselves, he didn't like the situation at hand. Not one bit. All he wanted right then was Rose and Zoe back with them so that they could head back to the TARDIS and ignore the problems of the world around them as they played Scrabble or Monopoly or finally start that 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle he had unearthed from a forgotten room some weeks ago.

“What's this thing with Lumic?” Jack asked, distracting himself from his worry over the girls as his calls and messages went unanswered. “Is he dangerous?”

“How do you not know about Lumic?” Ricky asked, ramrod straight in his seat, holding onto a cloth handhold as he swayed from side to side. “Everyone knows him. You've been living under a rock or something?”

“Or something,” he said. “He's a criminal?”

“Biggest of them all, just better at getting away with it than most,” Mrs Moore said over her shoulder, baring her teeth as she spun onto the motorway, one arm stretched out across Rita to keep her in place. “He's been using the customers of his technological products as experiments. The three of us, we're all that's left of what used to be a huge network of Preachers all over Britain. One by one Lumic and his goons have picked us off because we know the truth.”

The Doctor looked up from his phone, volume at maximum in case Zoe called. “And what truth is that?”

“Jake,” she said, eyes on the road.

Reaching into a black bag at his feet, Jake removed a video camera and tapped at the screen, accessing the recording he had made earlier that day. He shifted around, using Ricky's knee to support himself as he showed it to them. The Doctor, Jack, and Mickey watched as homeless men and women got into the back of a large transport lorry, the promise of a hot meal and an honest day's work the lure used to get them to walk willingly inside. The camera started to shake, the image growing distorted, when the screams started, and the Doctor took it from Jake's hands and rewound it to watch it again, a frown on his face.

“Lumic's been promising people work and then killing them,” Jake told them. “A lot of these trucks go back to the factories at Battersea, from London anyway. Lumic also owns the NEC in Birmingham, and all the old mines as well. Down in Cornwall, we lost touch with our group down there after they went down a mine. The last images we saw was of this – I don't know what to call it – but it was like they'd changed everything, put in lots of tech. It looked like chamber out of science fiction films, to be honest.”

“We had someone on the inside,” Ricky said. “Nomi. We joined the Preachers together way back when, and she was already working for Cybus so she was in the best position to get us information. Someone found out there and killed her for it. But Lumic's doing something to them in those chamber things. He's taking people apart and then putting them back together but in metal.”

A cold trickle of fear ran down the Doctor's back.

_Metal men._

“He's building an army,” Ricky continued, leaning forward as the van sped up the private road towards Pete Tyler's mansion. “We don't know why or how but he's killing a whole bunch of people to do it. Course everyone thinks we're crazy. Mrs Moore spent four months in a psychiatric ward. Only thing that saved her was the fact she creates _excellent_ fake documents. If they'd know it was her, she'd have been killed too.”

“If people are being scooped up off the street like this,” Jack said. “And buildings and mines are being turned into metal whatever, how come no one but you lot is doing anything to stop this? What about the government? The police?”

“Lumic's the most powerful man in Britain and most of Europe,” Jake said. “His reach is everywhere. There isn't a politician around who wasn't elected without his financial backing. Everything you see today, it's got his fingerprint on it.”

“And the police aren't much cope either,” Ricky scoffed. “Mrs Moore went to the police with what she knew and she's been on the run ever since. How long is it now, Mrs M?”

“Three years now,” Mrs Moore replied, fingers tightening around the steering wheel. “Moving from safe house to safe house, hoping that I'm one step ahead of Lumic's men.”

“I know what Lumic's doing,” the Doctor said, drawing the attention to him. “It's what every genius does at a certain point. A repeating causality. The same story again and again throughout history. Doesn't matter the planet or the civilisation. The same mistake is made time and time again.”

“What?” Jack asked. “What's he doing?”

“You never met them, not the advanced version, you've only met the original,” he said, shaking his head slowly, mouth slick with fear because Rose and Zoe were in the middle of the chaos and he wasn't there to help them. “The ones on Mondas were the original version. You never saw them when they were more machine than man.”

Mickey sat up, a sharp edge of fear in his eyes. “You don't mean –”

“Cybermen,” the Doctor said, darkly. “Lumic's created the Cybermen.”

“What?” Ricky asked, face twisting into a scowl. “What are Cybermen?”

“Wait, no, those Cybermen were in our universe,” Mickey argued. “ _An'_ on a planet you said was destroyed. How can they be here?”

“Your universe?” Jake asked, confused. “Planet? What the hell are you talking about?”

“They're not like the Daleks. Cybermen can originate anywhere and everywhere that there's sufficient technological development,” the Doctor explained at a rapid clip, fingers typing out a warning to Zoe. **Get out of there. Go home. Stay safe. I love you.** “Because there's always some idiot with too much money and too large a fear of death who wants to try and extend their life and the next thing you know there are Cybermen in the universe. Like the proverbial bad, murderous penny.”

“So the girls are in trouble then,” Jack said, fingers itching for a weapon.

“Aren't they always?”

Mrs Moore, having kept one ear on the strange conversation taking place behind her, called out a warning in the moments before she used the van as a battering ram to slam through the gates of the Tyler mansion. Rita screamed, hands braced against the dashboard, her inability to see what was happening amplifying her fear until all she was able to hear was her heart hammering in her chest, blood rushing through her ears.

The van tilted as it swerved to avoid the party guests that fled from the echoing crash of cyber weapons that filled the air. In the back, the motley crew of men shifted and grabbed hold of anything that might keep them in place as Mrs Moore changed gear and hurtled across the lawn, performing a sharp turn and throwing the handbrake on. Dizzy from the ride, the Doctor didn't wait for the van to stop completely before he threw open the door and leapt out into the night. The bitterly cold air slapped him in the face and made his throat ache as he opened his mouth and yelled for Rose and Zoe, eyes scanning the terrified cried, desperately trying to catch sight of the girls.

Blue light lit up the broken windows of the mansion, and the Doctor yelled at Jack to stay in the van and for Mickey to keep an eye out before he was sprinting across the lawn, fighting against the tide of people when, suddenly, out of the chaos, Rose appeared. Dressed in a French maid's uniform, the oddity refusing to register, she clambered out of the window and dragged trapped party guests out after her.

“Rose!”

Her head whipped around. “Doctor!”

An explosion forced her to duck, arms going over her head to protect herself, and then he was there, dragging her into his arms and away from the room that was _on fire_.

“Where's Zoe?” The Doctor demanded. “Rose, where's Zoe?”

“They took her,” she gasped against his neck, trembling violently. “Lumic's men, they took her.”

The Doctor swore, anxiety ratcheting up. Taking Rose's hand in his, he pulled her across the lawn, trusting her to keep up with him. He wasn't surprised Zoe had been taken. She had the unerring ability to find herself in the worst situation possible when what he wanted was for her to stay safe. If he thought she would let him, he was tempted to lock her up in the library so that no harm ever befell her. Unfortunately for him, he had fallen in love with someone just as mad as he was.

“Get behind me,” Ricky ordered when he emerged from the late night fog that rolled across the lawn like silver dust suspended in the air, raising his automatic weapon. “ _Hurry_!”

The Doctor tightened his grip on Rose's hand and launched her in front of him, her toes skimming the ground, and Mickey was there, catching her, curving his body over hers as the bullets started flying. Slipping on the sodden, churned up lawn, the Doctor hit the ground and skidded the rest of the way, hands over his ears as the smell of wet mud invaded his senses.

Bullets ricocheted off the Cybermen's metal armour. The cacophony loud and unbearable, though it drowned out the screams of those lucky enough to escape the party as they fled into the woods that surrounded the mansion. It went on and on and on until Ricky and Jake ran out of ammo and were forced to cease their fire, the Cybermen halting six feet from them. The sudden silence made the Doctor's ears ring. Lowering his hands, he got to his feet and made his way forward, Rose's wide, fearful eyes following him, the absence of Zoe a gaping wound that he tried to ignore.

“Why aren't they attacking?” The Doctor asked. “They should be coming for us.”

“Don't complain, you idiot,” Ricky snapped, catching fresh ammo that Jack tossed from the back of the van. “Everybody in the van. _Now_.”

Rose froze at the sight of Ricky. “What the hell? Who the hell is that?”

“Alternate me, long story,” Mickey said. “But look, my gran's here.”

“Oh, hello, Mrs Smith, nice to see you again,” she said, dazed.

“What's happening?” Rita cried. “Ricky, why do you have guns? Who are these people?”

Rose blinked. “Ricky?”

“Don't start,” Mickey said, holding her close. “Go on, get in with Jack. Hurry now.”

“Hey!” Jake spun, gun pointed into the darkness. “Don't move!”

“Don't shoot, don't shoot!” Stepping into the light, Pete Tyler appeared, blood trickling down his neck from a wound on the back of his head, tuxedo dirty and torn. “I'm Pete Tyler. Don't shoot!”

“Get in the van,” the Doctor ordered, and Pete trembled with relief, hurrying to safety. “We're surrounded. They've got us covered from every direction, so nobody do anything stupid. Let's just –”

He clapped his hands over his ears as Ricky and Jake started shooting again. Lunging forwards, the bottom of his shoe slipped in the mud track that Mrs Moore had created with her driving and forced the barrels of the gun towards the ground, furious.

“What did I just say?” He snapped, reaching into his pocket and palming the small power cell that was happily recharging, oblivious to the danger around them. “Everyone, hands up, quickly. That's all of you. Hands. Up.” Slowly and reluctantly, the Preachers obeyed while Jack dangled himself out of the back of the van, hands in the air with the added flourish of a white handkerchief on the end of his finger. “We surrender! There's no need to damage us. We're good stock. We volunteer for the upgrade program. Take us to be processed.”

The Cyberman turned its square, bulky body towards him. “You are rogue elements.”

“Been called that once or twice,” the Doctor said, catching his breath. “But we surrender nonetheless.”

“You are incompatible,” it said.

He frowned. “But this is a surrender.”

“You will be deleted.”

“But we're surrendering,” he exclaimed, frustrated. “Listen to me, we surrender!”

“You are inferior,” the Cyberman said with its usual insulting indifference. “Man will be reborn as Cyberman but you will perish under maximum deletion.”

Metal arms rose and pointed at them, a chorus of synthetic voices crying out at once, “delete – delete – _delete_!”

Twisting the power cell in his palm, the Doctor flung his hand out and pointed it at them. The energy of the TARDIS combined with the strength of his regenerative energy slammed out. A shock waved ripped out from his hand, a bright green light swallowing the Cybermen whole, vaporising into nothingness. Shielding his eyes with his free arm, he considered the draining of the power cell a small price to pay for letting them survive the next five minutes. Cool to the touch instead of warm, once the light faded he spared it a quick glance to reassure himself there was still a spark of energy left inside, enough to start the cycle again. He turned his head, shielding his eyes, as the Cybermen around them were vaporised before their eyes.

“Doctor, get in,” Jack called out to him. “Mrs Moore, _drive_!”

Leaping into the back of the van, the Doctor fell across Rose who immediately sank her fingers into his coat and held out as his legs dangled out of the van, scrambling to get them in. As soon as his body parts were inside the van, Mickey slammed the door shut.

“Never seen a slower getaway in my life,” Mrs Moore complained, foot pressed against the accelerator, sending them smashing through the side gate and out onto the darkened road. “Honestly.”

Breathing heavily, the Doctor rose to his knees and found himself face to face with Rose. Her mascara was smudged around the edges and her hair dishevelled, though she appeared otherwise unharmed. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was well when she threw herself at him, arms around his shoulder, winding herself around his body like an octopus, the warm press of Jack and Mickey against his sides letting him know that she had dragged them into the hug as well. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a moment to enjoy having his friends with him, secure in the knowledge that they were safe. It helped keep his worry for Zoe at a distance for a second longer before Rose pulled back, tears clinging to her lashes like small diamonds.

“They took her,” she said, agony running through her words. “That Lumic guy was on the phone an' – an' she was doin' what she normally does an' he didn't know why she knew about the Cybermen so he ordered them to take her. They dragged her out of the house with the president. She told me to run.” Her face collapsed. “I should've helped her but I didn't know what to do.”

“It's okay,” the Doctor said, using the end of his sleeve to clean her face, wiping the smear mascara away and drawing her head down so as to press a kiss to her forehead. Even though anger built itself a palace inside of him, laying it down brick by brick, everything had become extremely simple. Lumic had Zoe. Nothing else mattered. “We'll get her back. I promise, we'll get her back.”

“That's if she doesn't save herself first,” Jack said, a small wince running across his face as he sat back. “If she's been taken to see Lumic though, would that be the factories or does he have another base? Mrs Moore, are you listening?”

“Hard not to with the racket going on back there,” she said. “He has an office at Battersea but he's also got his Zeppelin. Rich fools like him don't like to slum it down here with us locals.”

“Wait,” Ricky said, leaning forward. “You want to get your girl back, I get it, but you can't just go strolling into the factories or onto the Zeppelin. Lumic's not stupid. He has around the clock security that he brings in from Israel. They're the best of the best. You get within a mile of that place, he's going to know about it.”

“Good, I want him to know I'm coming,” the Doctor said, the threat making the air shiver. “He's taken someone very important to me and I want him to have that fear before I deal with him.”

“Then you're an idiot,” Pete said, speaking for the first time, a fine tremble running through his hands. “Lumic's not your run-of-the-mill businessman. He's built Cybus up over the years, methodically and carefully. The only thing he's afraid of is death. Nothing else matters to him. If you want to get your girl back, going in through the front door is the worst idea. He'll kill her before you make it ten steps inside.”

“Don't listen to him,” Ricky said with a sharp bite of viciousness. “He works for Lumic. He's one of them. He'll lead you into a trap just like he did everyone else.”

Pete sat up, offended. “I am not!”

“You just had a party with all the movers and shakers and hoity-toity assholes in Britain,” Jake accused. “Now most of them are dead. Nice little trap you laid that's wiped out the government and left your boss Lumic in charge.”

“If I was part of all that,” Pete argued, skin flushing with exasperation. “Do you really think I'd leave my wife inside?”

Ricky shrugged, hand coming to rest on his handgun. “Maybe your plan went wrong. Still gives us the right to execute you though.”

Mickey and Jack turned on him in unison. “Whoa!”

“What the fuck?” Mickey demanded.

“Put that gun away before I take it from you,” Jack threatened. “No one is executing anyone, not while we're here. This isn't the Dark Ages.”

“Ricky Smith, stop threatening to kill people,” Rita snapped from the front, colour spreading through Ricky's cheeks at the public chastisement. “I know I raised you better than that, boy.”

Pete looked towards the front, an expression of incredulity settling on his face. “You brought your mum with you? What's wrong with you?”

“She's my grandmother, asshole,” Rick shot back. “And we've got evidence that says Pete Tyler's been working for Lumic since 2005. He sold his company to Cybus Industries and made himself a very wealthy man. One of the wealthiest in Britain after your mate Lumic, right? Money makes people do stupid things, makes them turn a blind eye to what's really going on.” He turned a disgusted expression onto Pete. “Bet you don't really care about all them homeless and degenerates being chopped up into parts at the factories, do you? As long as it doesn't affect you and yours.”

Pete bared his teeth, furious. “You've got no idea what you're talking about.”

“Tell them, Mrs M,” Jake said, his hand also resting on his gun in a manner that made Rose shift closer to Jack, his arm going around her shoulders.

“We've got a government mole who feeds us information from Lumic's private files,” Mrs Moore said as she deftly navigated the chaos of the roads. “His South American operations, the shipping coming out of Taiwan every two weeks, the mining operations in the DRC, the lot. Secret broadcasts twice a week that have shown us that Pete Tyler has been working with Lumic at the very top.”

“Jesus _Christ._ ” Pete exhaled sharply and closed his eyes, realisation setting in. “Broadcasts from Gemini?”

Ricky frowned. “How do you know that?”

“I'm Gemini,” he said, exhausted. “That's me.”

“Yeah, well you would say that.”

“Use your brain, for cryin' out loud,” Rose snapped, her worry for Zoe making her sharp and irritable. “How would he know about Gemini if he wasn't Gemini?”

“Encrypted wavelength six-five-seven using binary nine,” Pete rattled off. “That's the only reason I was working for Lumic. I wanted to get information and feed it to the security services because, despite what you assholes think, I don't actually want people to be ripped to pieces. Even if it wasn't absolutely awful, who'd I sell my products to if the entire consumer base is gone?” He leaned back and banged his head against the wall of the van. “I thought I was broadcasting to the MI5 or MI6 but instead I'm sending out biweekly messages to Scooby Doo and his bloody gang. Look, you've even got the stupid van.”

He rapped his knuckles against the side of it, Ricky and Jake bristling with offence.

“Enough,” the Doctor said sharply, silence falling on the back of the van. “I don't care about any of this. All I care about is finding a way to rescue my girlfriend from someone who, by all accounts, is a crazy megalomaniac. I'm extremely unhappy that she's been taken and an unhappy Doctor is not a pleasant Doctor, so let's stow this bickering and come together to think of a plan to save her.”

“They took my wife too,” Pete said, shoulders slumping, head dropping into his hands. “The last thing we said to each other...we were arguing. That can't be the last time we ever speak, it just can't be.”

Rose shifted, uncomfortable at the parallels, refusing to believe that those horrible words about Reinette would be the last thing of import she said to her sister. Roused from her worry, she reached out and touched Pete's arm.

“She might still be alive,” she said.

“That's even worse,” he replied, pained. “Because that's what Lumic does. He takes the living and he turns them into those machines.” He shook his head, throat thick with emotion. “Do you think there's anyway to save the people who have been... _changed_?”

Sympathy softened the Doctor's face as he looked over at him. “I'm sorry, but no. Once someone's been converted, there's no coming back from that. There are some who tried in our universe but they always failed. The people, they couldn't recover from what was done to them.”

Pete stared at him, and Mrs Moore's eyes looked into the rearview mirror, curiosity evident on her face. “Your universe?”

“Ah, yes.” The Doctor paused, deciding that it didn't matter whether they knew the truth or not – or believed them or not –, and leaned into it. “We're from another universe. Bit of a long story, best not get into it right now. What you should do, Pete Tyler, is take those ear pods off. Lumic could be listening.” Pete quickly removed them, and the Doctor zapped them with the screwdriver, rendering them useless. “One good thing about all of this is that Lumic's made a fatal mistake, one everyone like him makes.”

“What's that then?” Ricky asked.

“He didn't count on me."


	39. Chapter 39

The wind came unexpectedly and sent goosebumps racing across Zoe's bare skin, a shiver forcing her to clench her jaw, an attempt to repress it that failed to work. Edging out of the back of the lorry she had been unceremoniously escorted into by Cybermen who kept a tight, bruising grip on her upper arms, and Battersea Power Station rose up in front of her. Lit up by bright, powerful lights, a Zeppelin tethered to the roof that blocked the moon from casting its light on them, a sense of unease settled in her. It was impossible for her to ignore what had happened the last time she crossed paths with the Cybermen. Her head gave a warning throb, an echo of the pain that Mondas had caused her, and she reached out and took the president's hand.

It wasn't the Doctor's but it would do.

“It's okay,” the president said, squeezing her hand even as fear cloaked him. “This is all a misunderstanding. Once I speak with Mr Lumic, you'll be free to go.”

“I appreciate your confidence,” Zoe said, shifting closer to him in order to soak up some of his body heat. “But I've dealt with these creatures before and a good old catch-up with their boss isn't going to solve this. He ordered you murdered not too long ago. Don't forget that when we go in there.”

The president's face flickered with uncertainty, and Zoe shivered again. There was no question in her mind that the Doctor was coming for her. Even if Rose hadn't got out of the mansion – and, of that, Zoe was certain – then he would have been on his way the second the Cybermen made their appearance. All she needed to do was to keep herself, and the president, alive long enough for him to make some grand dramatic entrance that he could lord over her as she, occasionally, did with her rescue of him and Jack from the Game Station. Then again, she considered as the Cybermen marched them forward into the bitter shadow of the building, she might just rescue herself if only to see the look of disappointment mixed with pride on his face when she turned him.

He did so love riding to her rescue and complained that she didn't let him do it often enough.

“You say you've met these creatures before,” the president said, quietly, eyes looking over their surroundings. “When? Where?”

“A few years ago now,” Zoe answered. “On a planet long since destroyed.”

“A planet?” His head turned to hers, his dark skin almost pure black in the shadowed corridors they were passing through. “You're an alien?”

“Oh, good, you know about aliens then,” she said, pleased at how much easier that made things. “And no, not alien. I'm human, I'm just from a different universe. Don't think about it too much, it'll do your head in, and we really don't have time to go into it right now. All that matters is they're called the Cybermen. Humans that have had all their emotions stripped away so they can become the most perfect, logical forms of themselves.”

“Humans?” Nausea passed over him. “They're not... _aliens_? They're us?”

“Yes.” Zoe squeezed his hand, shivering again. “Like I say, don't think about it too much. What this Lumic guy is doing is awful, but you can't let that be the only thing in your mind when we go in there. I've got friends, they'll be coming for me. All we need to do is survive, okay? We just need to make it through the night and we'll be okay. So don't think about it.”

The president opened his mouth to say something, changing his mind at the last minute. As they were escorted into a wide lift, Cybermen flanking them, he shrugged out of his jacket and placed it around his shoulders. The warmth sent a sigh of relief fluttering from her.

“Thank you,” she said, grateful.

He nodded. “It's rather strange, isn't it? That a young woman from another universe ends up working as a server at a party?”

It was clear from his tone that he didn't believe her, not that she blamed him. A woman dressed in a French maid's uniform talking about parallel universes was hard to believe at the best of times.

“A little, I suppose,” Zoe said, threading her arms through the sleeves and tugging it tightly around her. “But that's my sister's fault more than anything. We were –” she sighed and shook her head. “It doesn't matter what we were doing. I'm Zoe, by the way.”

She held out her hand and his lips twitched.

“Thomas Baksh,” he said, shaking her hand. “You don't know me in your universe?”

“We have a Prime Minister not a president,” Zoe told him with a small smile that let him know she was aware of what he was doing. “Her name's Harriet Jones.”

“Harriet Jones.” He rolled the name over in his mouth, the conversation helping to settle the fear that clawed at his nerves. “The Opposition has a backbencher by that name. I can't remember where from. Keeps going on about cottage hospitals.”

Zoe's laugh warmed the air. “Yep, that's her. She's in charge back home.”

“Fascinating,” Thomas mused. “Once this is over, I'd be fascinated to pick your brain about the other differences.”

_And maybe check me into a mental hospital,_ she thought, amused.

“Tell you what,” she grinned. “We make it through this night, we'll do just that.”

The doors softly pinged as they slid aside and Zoe steeled herself for what was to come. While the Cybermen hadn't technically been responsible for her looking into the Untempered Schism, she associated everything about that day and the long period of recovery that came after it with them. Fragility long since hardened bloomed at being surrounded by them once more, even if they were newer, shinier versions, and her heart hammered painfully in her chest.

They were led into a large, sterile room with computer equipment lining the wall and the gentle _hiss-hiss_ of a respirator forming the background noise. A solitary Cybermen blocked their exit, and Zoe's trainers made soft sounds against the ground as she walked inside, gathering her courage to her and trusting that the Doctor would come. Letting her fingers trail over the edges of a console, she lifted them up to show Thomas the dark smudges of dust against her fingertips. Scanning the room for anything that might help her, she waited and waited until her impatience got the better of her.

“I know you're there,” Zoe said, the words repeating back to her on a soft echo. “It would be a bit pointless to bring us to an empty room, so save the dramatics and come out and talk to us face-to-face. You brought us here for a reason after all.”

The _hiss-hiss_ sounded again, a voice emerging from the dark back room with the trembling strength of a man fighting against his inevitable death.

“Who are you?”

“I refuse to have this conversation with you hidden away like a coward,” she said. “If you won't respect me enough to speak face-to-face, respect your president enough to show yourself.” A beat of silence and she opened her mouth, taunting with a song. “Come out, come out, wherever you are and meet the young lady who fell from a star.”

Thomas frowned. “Is that the Wizard of Oz?”

“Great film, isn't it?” She said from the side of her mouth, attention returning to the hidden Lumic. “Come on! I've travelled universes to be here just to meet you. Well, no, that's a lie. I travelled universes entirely by accident but, since I'm here, let me get a look at the man stupid enough to create the Cybermen. When I tell this story back home, I want to have a face to go with the name.”

The angry, sharp edges of her voice echoed around the room, bouncing from one wall to the other. Jack had warned her on New Earth that her negative emotions were closer to the surface than usual, and she was trying to control them better yet the presence of the Cybermen sent that control scattering in the wind. Fingers clenching inside the long sleeves of Thomas's jacket, she waited, breath caught in her chest, and her brief flirtation with patience was rewarded when cold steam spread out like dry ice across the ground, chilling her knees and upper thighs as Lumic was detached from the missions that helped keep him alive.

Emerging from the gloom in a wheelchair designed for life-support purposes, breathing apparatus flowing out from it and into him, John Lumic looked less impressive than his reputation suggested. Papery skin hung from him in wrinkled folds, hair an ashy grey that was swept back to cover the patches of mottled skin that peeked through, eyes rheumy and leaking. Despite appearances, Zoe wasn't sure of his actual age as it seemed as though whatever illness was ravaging his body had aged him long before his time, bitterness clinging to him like a perfume. Even when he spoke, it was with the rasping tremble of someone suffering greatly, and pity stirred itself in her chest.

“The wizard behind the curtain, as I live and breathe,” Zoe said.

His wet eyes flickered over her, small twitches running through him, a wire filled with yellow urine running from his bladder to bag beneath the wheelchair.

“Who are you?”

“Zoe,” she said, simply. “My name's Zoe.”

“And where do you come from?” Lumic asked.

“A long, long way away.”

“You spoke of universes,” he said, shoulders hunched over, dry tongue touching his bottom lip that was cracked and peeling. “Another universe. Tell me of it. _Now_.”

“Why?” Zoe asked. “It's not like you can travel there. I shouldn't have been able to come here. A small crack in the universe was what I slipped through, entirely by accident as it was. My universe is of no consequence to you. But, I wanted you to know where I'm from because I want you to understand that I've seen the Cybermen before. I know what happens next. And I can't let that happen. I can't let you kill all these people.”

“This isn't your universe,” he told her. “It's of no consequence to you.”

She huffed. “All right, yeah, I walked into that one, didn't I?”

“John.” Thomas stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with Zoe. “What are you doing? You're one of our finest businessmen, one of our greatest minds. I don't understand why you're doing this. This isn't you.”

Lumic blinked, hand rising with a handkerchief balled up within his palm to wipe the wetness away. “Mr President. How nice of you to come all this way. Of course, if things had gone to plan, you would already be dead. Shame.”

Thomas recoiled, face hardening, eyes flicking to the Cyberman at the entrance. “Is it true that these Cybermen were once people like you and I. That you took them and turned them into... _robots_. Who were they before you desecrated them?”

“People like you and I.” Lumic's laugh was wet and rasping, phlegm echoing in his chest, and Zoe wanted to press her hand over her ears to block out the sound. “They were homeless. Useless, _wretched_ creatures. A drain on society. I gave them a new purpose. I've refashioned them into the first of the Cybermen. Isn't that what your government says we should do to save the planet, Mr President? Reuse that which is no longer fit for purpose?”

“You know this isn't what I meant,” he said, jaw tight.

“The inhumanity starts right at the top,” Zoe noted. “I did wonder.”

“It's not inhumane,” Lumic replied. “It's the future of humanity. I am rebuilding this useless, wasteful species into something _more_. You should be thanking me, Mr President. In this new world, Great Britain will be at the top of the chain. The centre for Cyber production all over the world.”

“How altruistic of you,” Zoe said, dryly. “And your ambition has nothing to do with the fact that you're dying now, does it? How long have you got left? Months? Actually, judging by the look of you, I'll say weeks.”

Anger flashed across his loose face. “Days, according to my doctor. At most.”

_Good_ , she thought, viciously.

“I'm sorry,” she lied, channeling the Doctor, mimicking his ability to empathise with all walks of people, including those who many would turn their back on. “I am. Facing your own mortality...it's something that not many people are able to do.”

“What would you know of mortality?” Lumic demanded. “You can't be more than twenty-two. You're a child.”

“I'm thirty, but thank you,” she said. “And I know a little something of death. Came to close to it myself once on the day I met the Cybermen. But it was actually watching my wife grow sicker and sicker until there was nothing left of the woman I loved – nothing except a dry, empty shell – that brought me understand. She was a remarkable woman: strong and brave. She faced her death with courage but even for the bravest people, death is a frightening thing and she was terrified at the end. So I have some idea of what you're feeling right now, and for that I'm sorry.” She paused to ensure her voice didn't waver as it always did when the emotions surrounding Reinette's death were dredged up. “That being said: None of the fear you're feeling gives you the right to slaughter millions.”

“I have every right,” he rasped. “I've built my business with this end in mind: I'm saving the human race, not slaughtering them.”

“Did you ask if they wanted to be saved, or did you just fool yourself into thinking it was the right thing to do?” Zoe demanded. “Was this the only way you could fall asleep at night? Because I bet there's some form of conscience left inside you. Something that's telling you that this is the wrong thing to do. Listen to it. Stop it now before more people get hurt.”

The line of his throat moved as he swallowed. “No.”

“John, don't be a fool!” Thomas felt a surge of anger rise up through him, fingers tingling with it. “You'll be dead in a few days, you said it yourself. Why take the rest of us with you? Die proudly, my friend, as you have lived!”

Lumic's rasping, wet laugh shot through Zoe. “I'll miss our conversations on Nietzsche, Mr President. They were comforting when the pain was ever presenting. However, you won't need books or philosophers in the future. All of that want will be stripped from you, and you'll be focused like never before. Focused on building a better tomorrow as you've always promised.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every citizen will be upgraded,” he said. “I was going to kill you. More for security's sake than anything. Nothing personal, you understand, but having you alive and giving orders to the government until your conversion would've been inconvenient, I'm sure you understand. You've reminded me of our friendship though, the good times we've had. You'll receive your upgrade too, Mr President.”

Thomas glanced to Zoe who shook her head, eyes flashing a warning.

_No_ , she mouthed.

“And if I refuse?” He asked.

“Thomas, _don't_ ,” Zoe warned, quietly. “Remember what I said? Through the night is all we need.”

“No, I want to know,” Thomas said. “Because the people of this country won't accept their subjugation and murder without fighting back, so I want to know what happens if I refuse this upgrade.”

“Then you are not compatible,” Lumic replied.

“And what does that mean?”

Lumic sighed. “So be it. Goodbye, Mr President. Thank you for our many pleasant conversations. Mr Crane.”

Out of the darkness, a presence concealed until that moment, a man appeared dressed in a well-tailored suit and a long coat. Zoe cried out a warning only to flinch, staggering back, when Thomas's head snapped back, the echo of a gunshot making her ears ring, and blood and brain matter sprayed across her face and chest, the heat of it burning her. She watched, terrified, as Thomas's body crumpled to the floor, blood pouring from the wound on the back of his head like milk chugging itself way out of a jug.

She stared down at him in horror, mouth agape.

She had seen death before – Reinette's, of course, and the solitary execution she had attended in France where a guillotine fell with speed and accuracy, severing a man's head from his body – but the simple violence of a gunshot ripped away the careless bravado that she had donned and left her feeling afraid.

“Why did you do that?” Zoe demanded, voice warbling and limbs trembling. “You didn't have to kill him! Why the hell did you do that?”

“He wasn't compatible,” Lumic said.

“You're a monster,” she hissed at him. “And to think I felt sorry for you. You deserve your illness. You deserve all the fear that death brings. There's nothing in the least bit human about you, Lumic.”

Lumic's eyes shone bright, the vividness betraying the enjoyment he felt at Thomas's murder, and Zoe realised that she was in the room with a mad man. Not the first time such a thing had happened and undoubtedly not the last. His hand clamoured for his oxygen mask, unhooking it from the side of the wheelchair and dragging it over his mouth, shoulders relaxing an inch as he breathed in deeply, eyes fixed on her, tracing over the blood splatter that she didn't dare wipe from her skin, afraid of letting him know it bothered her. Behind him, gun stowed back in its holster, Mr Crane faded into the shadows once more, his absence only serving to ensure that Zoe was now acutely aware that he was there, waiting.

“Your anger is a beautiful thing,” Lumic said once he had breath in his lungs again. “Think of what you could do with it.”

She imagined wrapping her hands around his throat. “I am.”

His chest rumbled with a laugh. “But your anger is misdirected. Our dear, late, lamented president didn't understand it but perhaps you will now that you've seen the cost of refusal. What I am offering if for humanity to have a greater chance at life. For everyone, not just the rich and the privileged few, immortality is now within their grasp.”

Between them, resting on the arm of his wheelchair, his crooked hand that was riddled with arthritis flexed in a grasping motion.

“ _Offering_ ,” Zoe scorned, the wet heat of Thomas's blood seeping into her trainers. Her stomach swooped at the feel of it. Remaining in place, she poured her focus onto Lumic, ignoring the distressing distractions around her. “You and I have very different definitions of that word. If you're forcing them to convert when the only alternate is death, that's not an offer.”

“I disagree.”

“Of course you do,” she said, disdain dripping from her. “You know, you're not the first person to create the Cybermen. Not just in my universe but probably in this one too. It's called a repeating causality. The same story told again and again in more or less the same form but stemming from different origins. Things like Cinderella or Arabian Tales. You find them all over Earth but in different formats and at different times. The same is true of the Cybermen throughout the universe. Same story, different starting point.”

“What does that matter when I'm the author of this story?” Lumic asked. “The Cybermen here are mine.”

“Only for a few more days,” she reminded him. “Tell me, what's your plan here? You build the Cybermen, I assume, as a way to avoid dying. Fair play to you and all that, like I said, I understand the fear. However, it hasn't escaped my notice that you've not upgraded yourself yet.” She threw quotation marks around the word _upgraded_ to allow her sarcasm to fully land. “What's the matter? Getting cold feet?”

“I must oversee the initial stages,” he said, mouth moving to suck on a straw that dangled by his head. The sight of it created a longing inside Zoe for a tall glass of iced water. “And then I'll complete my upgrade and be freed from this decaying body.”

She clucked her tongue. “What about the inhibitor?”

“What?”

“The emotional inhibitor that strips all those poor men and women of their emotions, their feelings, their personalities,” she said. “Is that something you're signing up for, or is it one rule for the huddled masses and another for the monster that's killing them?”

“What need do I have for the inhibitor?” Lumic questioned. “I'm in charge. My mind will be my own.”

“I'm not sure that's going to work,” Zoe said, amusement curling around her like smoke. “Cybermen are all about the upgrades. You sure they're not going to take one look at you once you've got your shiny metal suit and realise your emotions are still intact and think that you're defective? Be a bit awkward when your own creations drag you off to have that inhibitor put in after all, won't it? Still, it'll be a nice piece of karma.”

He opened his mouth, teeth loose and fever yellow. “I –”

“And what happens after that?” She continued, blood seeping between her toes, soaking her socks, and she wanted to vomit. “Once the whole of the human race has been converted into the Cybermen, what happens next?”

“The world,” he said.

Zoe rolled her eyes, irritated at the lack of ambition. “ _Boring._ The world. Honestly, no one has creativity any more. World domination's been done to death. Out of everything you could've chosen, you chose that? If I didn't think you were an idiot before, I do now.”

“Interesting though you are,” Lumic said, anger making his eyes weep. “I'm tired of listening to you talk.”

“That's probably your approaching death more than conversation with me,” she said. “Dying's an exhausting business unless done quickly.”

“Then allow me to spare you that exhaustion,” he croaked, body slumped over and sweat catching on the light in the room, glistening. “Mr Crane, kill her.”

* * *

It was decided, rather abruptly, to abandon their van on the side of the road. The engine chugged and growled, the petrol tank containing dribs and drabs, and fingers were pointed every which way at who had forgotten to get petrol that morning but there was nothing for it: the van was an albatross around their necks.

They jumped out on the side of a main road with Cybermen approaching them from a distance. It was to their advantage that the Cybermen didn't run, their steady marching enough to eventually get what they needed, yet the Doctor wasn't eager to linger and find out how long it would take to be captured. Rose's hand tucked firmly in his and hissing at Jack to _stay in that wheelchair, for Rassilon's sake,_ the uncomfortably large group escaped the sights of the Cybermen and plunged into the outskirts of London, ducking down a narrow alley and hurrying between two residential buildings.

The Doctor hated having too many people involved in an escape attempt as it was always complicated keeping an eye on everyone. His biggest concerns lay with Jack and Rita Smith. If he thought he had any chance of Jack doing what he was told, he would have ordered his friend to use the Vortex Manipulator to get back to the TARDIS and wait for them. Experience had taught him Jack was less likely to do that than he was suddenly to take up a life of celibacy. As for Rita, he was deeply regretting her involvement in affairs. Blind and with a streak of recklessness that ran through the people he met, he worried that something awful was waiting for her in the hours to come.

Not that there was anything he could do about it now.

Up ahead, Ricky held up his fist for them to stop, pushing his grandmother back against the wall and sending complicated hand gestures at Jake who appeared to understand what they meant.

The loud, metallic crashing of Cyber boots against the concrete reverberated through the Doctor, his hearts beating so loudly it was a wonder Rose didn't hear them. He pulled her against his chest, arm around her, a shiver rolling through her that came from the cold more than the Cybermen – the bare skin on her arms icy to the touch – and her fingers curled around his wrist, thumb pressing into his dorsal tubercle as they waited. The crashes grew louder and louder until it felt as though the platoon was bearing down on them, before it passed and faded into the distance.

Only when the platoon was out of sight did Ricky allow them to move again.

The Cybermen were everywhere. Their boots a terrifying soundtrack to the night. Doors of homes were ripped open and families clinging to each other were forced outside, huddling together with their neighbours, eyes wide and fearful, not understanding. Only the lucky ones who had still had their ear pods in were unaware of what was happening, moving silently and obediently along with the Cybermen.

The Doctor watched them, not knowing what was worse even after all his years of life: to be aware of the danger and unable to do anything to save yourself or to walk blissful and ignorant to your death.

“Ricky,” he hissed, and the man with Mickey's face looked back at him, frowning. “We need to get off the streets, quickly. Do you have another safe house?”

He shook his head. “Nothing close by.”

“I know a place,” Jake whispered. “Kind of. We won't be able to stay long but we can catch our breath there.” The Doctor nodded, eyes catching on the sight of Jake clasping Ricky's shoulder and the look of quiet gratitude that washed over Ricky's face, fingers reaching up to touch the hand, missing it by an inch when Jake moved. “Come on, quickly. Wheels, don't fall behind.”

“Don't call me wheels,” Jack shot back, taking care to keep his voice low, fingers shifting restlessly in his lap, the vulnerability of being in a wheelchair during an emergency was weighing on him. “It's really offensive.”

The Doctor took Rose's hand again and followed silently as Jake led them down a series of winding streets and through a few gardens, the grass damp from the cold night's air leaving dew to form on the blades. The tips licked at his ankles, chilling him, but he was distracted by the sight of an apple tree, the branches hanging low; hungry, he reached out and plucked one free, shoving it into his pocket for later.

By the time they reached an abandoned house, having been forced to spend five minutes uncomfortably crouched behind a foul-smelling rubbish bin as a platoon of Cybermen passed, everyone was cold, miserable, and afraid. The temperature inside the house seemed to be colder than outside, shards of broken glass littered the floor by the windows, and there was a sour, musty smell that came from not having been lived in for a long time. The Doctor released Rose and immediately shed his coat, draping it over her shoulders that slumped in relief, her wind-red fingers clutching the sides together as she shivered, teeth clattering.

“Why are you wearing a French maid's outfit?”

“The only way into the party was through the back door,” she explained, leaning into him, his hands rubbing up and down the side of her arms. “It's Mum's birthday here. She was havin' this huge blowout an' there was security everywhere.”

“And the only way in was as a maid?” He asked, confused.

“I don't know,” she complained. “It was the uniform the servers were wearin'. The female servers at least.”

An image of Zoe dressed in a similar outfit created conflicting emotions in him: arousal since he enjoyed it when they dressed up, and anger that someone had sexualised her without her consent.

“Well,” he said with a tight cheeriness. “You look smashing.”

Her eyes rolled. “Shut up.”

“Jack, Mickey, you two doing okay?” The Doctor looked around and found Mickey bent over Jack. For a second, he thought they were kissing, which was rather strange as the two tended not to veer towards the overly affectionate in public, before he realised that Jack was white with pain, teeth clenched. “Shit.”

“Oh my god, _Jack_ ,” Rose breathed, rushing forwards. “What happened?”

“It's his knees,” Mickey said, hands gently cupping Jack's left kneecap that had popped out of place and, the Doctor noted, would need another surgery to repair it. “Goddammit, this is my fault. I shouldn't have gone to see gran. I'm sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Jack groaned, hands tight on the arms of his wheelchair. “It's fine.”

“What's wrong with him?” Pete asked from the side, arms folded across his chest, thumbnail in his mouth as he chewed. “Is he all right?”

“An injury that's playing up,” the Doctor said, tapping Mickey's hip. “Let me have a look, Micks.” Mickey shifted to one side and he crouched down, wincing. “Yep. This has popped right out of place. Must have jostled something earlier and then it just went –” he stuck his finger in his cheek and _popped_ _._ “Give him something to bite down on because this is going to hurt.”

Mickey pulled his jacket off and folded the sleeve in over on itself, placing it between Jack's teeth, hand smoothing back his hair as he did so. Mrs Moore hovered over the Doctor's shoulder, watching with curiosity tinged with disgust – Jack's knee looked like a fleshy sock with a golf ball jutting out of it –, and everyone recoiled when the Doctor slowly and carefully slid the kneecap back into place. Jack lasted longer than most before screaming around a mouthful of Mickey's sleeve, hand clenching down around Rose's, her knees buckling from the pain even as she encouraged him.

“Done!”

Jack released Rose's hand and panted, sweat dripping down his face, spitting the sleeve from his mouth. “ _Fuck!_ _”_

“Sorry,” the Doctor grimaced, rooting through the pockets of his coat as Rose breathed through the pain, tentatively flexing her fingers and relieved to find nothing broken. “Hold on. I need to wrap it. You're going to need another surgery.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Figured that.” He reached down to Rose, fingers brushing over her face, searching for her awkwardly. “Rosie, I'm sorry. Are you okay?”

“Just fine,” Rose lied. “Don't think about it.”

“That was disgusting,” Jake said, blinking slowly. “Your knee was on the other side of your leg. And it _moved_.”

“Yeah, I know, I felt it,” he replied, leaning into Mickey's side, eyes fluttering as he breathed in and out slowly, lowering his heart rate, the Doctor's hands working delicately to wrap his thigh with the flexible splint he had in his pocket medical kit. “You got any pain stuff in there too? I wouldn't say no to a quick jab. Local rather than general, please.”

“Consider it done.”

“He's going to slow us down,” Ricky said. Mickey whipped around with a fierce scowl on his face, and his doppelgänger took a step back, bumping into Rita. “Whoa, I don't mean anything by it but it's true. He's going to slow us down.”

“Then I'll fucking carry him,” Mickey snapped. “But he's not going to slow us down, asshole. You got that?”

“Mickey –” Jack reached out and caught his hand, squeezing the anger out with a loose grip around his fingers. “He's only stating the obvious. Right now, I'm a liability. Don't jump down his throat because he's the one saying it.”

“No one's goin' to slow anyone down,” Rose said, using Jack's wheelchair to help her as she got to her feet, hand already bruising. “We're goin' to be like wolves.”

There was a beat of confused silence before –

“Wolves?” Rita asked. “Did she say wolves?”

“Yeah, she definitely said wolves,” Pete said. “What the hell d'you mean by that?”

“ _Wolves_ ,” she repeated, staring at them as though expecting them to understand. “Oh, c'mon, I can't be the only person who knows about this. Don't any of you read the National Geographic? When wolves move in packs, they move at the speed of the slowest member. The whole pack comes together to keep the weakest ones safe.”

Jack stared at her, torn between amusement at the analogy and despair at being considered the weakest member of the pack.

The Doctor snorted. “She's not wrong. We'll be just like wolves. Keeps everyone safe that way.”

“ _Ow_ ,” Jack hissed, pulling away from the sharp jab of pain that came a beat before the sweet release of anaesthetic. “Oh, that's nice. That's feeling better.”

“Don't put weight on it unless you absolutely have to,” the Doctor warned. “I can rebuild your entire leg if necessary but it'll take a lot of time and the recovery's significantly longer.” Jack blinked, dazed from the sudden lack of pain, and the Doctor nodded, standing up. “Right then, we've wasted enough time dilly dallying. We're clearly safe for now but we can't stay here forever. The Cybermen'll find us eventually.”

“We should get out of the city,” Pete said. “Find somewhere safe where we can call for backup.”

“What backup?” Mrs Moore asked. “The police and military are probably already in the factories being changed into those metal men. I hate to say it, but I think we're it.”

“Jesus,” he muttered, striding away to the window, shoulders lined with distress.

Rose's eyes lingered on him, a pull in her stomach urging her to go to him and comfort him. Ignoring it, she looked to the Doctor.

“I don't understand what was happenin' outside,” she said. “Why were those people just walkin' along an' not fightin' like the others?”

The Doctor tapped his ear. “Ear pods. That's how Lumic's taken control, I reckon. Everyone has them, and we saw earlier how easily their brains were hijacked. He must've loved it. People were buying his products and making it easier and easier for him to do this.”

“Yank them out,” Rita said, miming around her ears, light from the street reflecting off her dark glasses that showed his reflection in it. He smoothed down his hair that was sticking up. “Stop that man taking control.”

“I like the spirit but no can do,” the Doctor said. “You can't remove a person from technology embedded in their brain too quickly or you'd cause a brainstorm. For all we know, it might kill them.” Irritation at the situation tipped over him and he sighed, heavily. “ _Humans_. For such an intelligent bunch, you lot aren't half stupid when it comes to putting things in your brain. Give you a shiny toy and _wham_ in it goes, no thinking about whether or not it might be good for you or not. I mean, look at Brain Door.”

“Adam. Blimey, I haven't thought of him in ages.” Rose snapped her fingers before frowning at the Doctor. “An' we're not all bad.”

“You're not,” he admitted. “Everyone in this room isn't, but I swear, sometimes I think you humans like submitting. Anything for an easy life.”

Mickey rubbed his eyes. “You're being rude, Doctor.”

“Am I? _Good_.” A scowl rippled across his face. “Zoe's missing and in a lot of danger. I get to be rude right now. You were a bloody nightmare when Jack were gone, so it's my turn now.”

“That's true,” he acknowledged with a good-natured bob of his head. “I was awful, mainly to Zoe. He gets to be a bit rude right now.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor said.

“You're welcome, mate.”

“My god.” Pete twisted around from the window, anger and fear etched across his face. “What is wrong with you people? My wife and your girlfriend are missing, Lumic's taken control of the country, and here you are blathering on like a fucking idiot.”

“ _Hey_!” Rose turned on him with a suddenness that surprised everyone in the room, though no one more than herself. “Back off. He's the one who's goin' to fix this bloody mess so just back the fuck off, all right?”

“Him? He's going to fix it?” Pete gestured violently at the Doctor. “Look at him! He looks like a bloody madman. Who wears a suit like that?”

“I do,” he said, offended.

“He might be mad, but he's also the smartest person you're ever goin' to meet,” Rose snapped. “An' if you want any hope of seein' your wife again, you'll shut up an' listen to him. You don't like that, then you're welcome to try your luck out there. See how long you'll last without him, yeah?”

Pete glared at her, and the desperate, childish hope that had spread through her and held on since first seeing his advert along the South Bank died, finally understanding what the Doctor and Zoe had been telling her all along.

He wasn't her dad.

Her dad was dead and forcing a meeting had been an exercise in painful futility that might have cost her Zoe.

“What do we do?” Rose said, swivelling back to face the Doctor with a sharp pivot. “You got a plan?”

“No,” the Doctor admitted, touched by her defence of him. “But when do I ever?”

Jake whistled lowly, cutting through the tension that had gathered from the small confrontation, and jerked his head towards the window. Crowding around him, they watched as a platoon of Cybermen marched passed with quiet, subdued humans grouped within them.

“What will they do with the children?” Mrs Moore asked, worrying the strap over her torso. “Do they have Cyber children or something?”

“Children aren't compatible with the conversion process,” the Doctor replied. “They'll be killed unless we can stop them.”

Mickey twitched a dusty curtain back. “Where are they going?”

“The factories in Battersea,” Ricky said. “It's huge, and if Cybus was able to convert the mines in Cornwall into those conversion chamber things then Battersea's definitely undergone the same thing. They're big enough to hold the chambers _and_ anyone waiting for the conversion.”

“Ricky's right,” the Doctor said. “Battersea's the most logical place.”

Pete sniffed, sore from having Rose snap at him but willing to help. “It's where he was building his prototypes. The security there's top notch as well. He's pumped a lot of money into it. Can't imagine that's just for a holding depot.”

“Why's he doing it though?” Rose asked, looping her fingers through the Doctor's. “I mean, what's the point of all this?”

“He's dying,” Pete said. “This all started out as a way of prolonging life, of keeping the brain alive at any cost.”

“Never mind that,” Ricky said, eyes tracking the movements of two Cybermen who were moving house to house, checking for anyone left behind. “We need to move. They'll be on us in a second. Getting out of the city is our best bet. You lot know the hills that overlook the power station? We should meet there.”

“We're not splitting up,” Jake argued. “That's a bad idea.”

“Yeah, I'm with Jake on this,” Jack said. “Splitting up never ends well.”

“Look how many of us there are,” Ricky said. “We've got my gran with us thanks to you lot pulling her into this, and you're in a wheelchair. How fast do you think you can move when the Cybermen are moving at full whack towards us? No offence, but you'll get us killed.”

“He won't get us killed,” Mickey frowned, eyes brushing over Rita. “But you might be onto somethin'. If two of us draw the attention of the Cybermen, it'll give everyone else a chance to get out of the city.”

“Don't even think about it,” the Doctor warned.

“Too late,” he said, looking down at Jack. “I'll catch up with you.”

Jack swallowed. “You'd better. I'm going to be really angry if you get yourself killed.”

“Jake, look after my gran, would you?” Ricky requested, meeting his friend's eyes and Jake opened his mouth to protest, pained, before he nodded. “Gran, go with Jake, okay? I'll be right behind you.”

“Ricky –” her voice wavered. “Don't be a hero now.”

“I won't, I promise.” He leaned in and kissed her dry cheek. “Second we get out of here, make a break for it. We'll create a big of a distraction as we can but run and don't look back.”

“Mickey,” the Doctor said, worried. He reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders, dragging him into a rough embrace. “Make sure you meet us on the hill. Don't you dare let anything happen to you.”

“I'll be there,” Mickey said, emotion clogging his throat, smiling at Rose over the Doctor's shoulder. “Right, see you lot in a bit. Keep Jack out of trouble for me.”

“Look who's talking,” Jack replied, and the Doctor and Rose looked away as Mickey bent down and kissed him, the two lingering for a moment before separating. “Stay safe.”

Bursting out of the house, yelling, Mickey and Ricky attracted the attention of the Cybermen and immediately dodged a burst of energy that was flung towards them. Falling into step with each other, they raced down the street and, a quick glance over his shoulder, Mickey caught sight of their friends sneaking out of the house and making their way into the darkness.

London was London no matter which universe he was in and he knew the streets as well as he did at home, forced to slow his speed a little to let Ricky keep up with him, his life in the TARDIS having made him a faster runner. The more the ran, the more Cybermen that followed them, allowing a few people to slip their net. It wasn't enough – it was nowhere near enough – but it was something, and Mickey held onto that.

His reason for providing a distraction wasn't difficult to decipher.

Jack.

Plain and simple.

Him being limited to a wheelchair until he was healed put him in an unusually vulnerable position, and Mickey was terrified that something was going to happen to him. However, it also gave him the opportunity to examine how his life might have gone had Rose not left her fingerprints all over him. Ricky was hard where Mickey wasn't, sharp edges that cut into the space around him. He was a man who had never met Rose Tyler and fallen in love with her only to have to watch as Jimmy Stone bruised her skin and sent her crying to Shareen's; a man who had never had a Rose of his own to soften the edges from his mother's suicide, his gran's death, and his father's abandonment.

It was like staring into a mirror that distorted his reflection, showing himself by not.

They clattered into an empty stretch of industrial units and paused, Ricky bending double to catch his breath, rubbing the stitch from his side.

“Think we lost them?” He asked.

“Not a chance,” Mickey said, pointing at the Cybermen that came around the corner. “You go left, I go right. Meet up at the hill?”

“See you there,” Ricky agreed.

Mickey took off running, hoping that Ricky was as competent as he looked, pleased that a group of Cybermen split off to follow him. As soon as they got back to their own universe, he was going to lock Jack in their room until his knees were healed. Living with his heart in his throat was not how he wanted to spend his days. The Doctor and the girls could do anything else, he didn't care; he just wanted Jack to rest and heal for as long as he needed without having to worry about the Doctor's desire to constantly be moving and exploring.

Grabbing a chain-link fence, he scrambled over the top and landed awkwardly on the other side, ankle turning beneath him.

Grunting in pain, he breathed out, alone, having lost his Cyber tail, and he staggered upright just as Ricky pelted around the corner, nearly falling, shouting for him. Directly behind him were two Cybermen that were rapidly approaching. Mickey hissed between his teeth, panicked. _He wasn't going to make it._ The fence shook as Ricky scrambled up against it.

“Stop,” Mickey ordered. “You won't make it. Surrender! Surrender to them now! Volunteer for an upgrade, quickly. Dammit, do it quickly!”

Conflict played out across Ricky's face before he dropped back onto the ground and held his arms up into the air.

“I surrender,” he cried. “I volunteer for an upgrade. I surrender! You hear me? I surrender!”

The Cybermen paused, blank faces looking down on Ricky, and there was a long, shivering moment where Mickey was terrified that they would chose to execute him before they lowered their hands – Zoe's scream played over and over in his memory from Mondas, her feet dangling above the hole in the ground, a Cyber hand coming down onto the top of her head.

“You are compatible,” one said. “You will be upgraded.”

“Run,” Ricky urged over his shoulder as one of them yanked him to his feet and the other grabbed hold of the fence, ripping it open so that it could pass through it. “Run and keep gran safe!”

Mickey swore, the Cyberman closing in on him and he staggered back, no other option in front of him. The pained, panicked look on Ricky's face faded, muscles slackening, as the Cyberman placed an ear pod in his ear, hijacking his system. With an angry cry, Mickey turned on his heels and sprinted in the other direction.

* * *

Framed against the black sky and lit with bright halogen lights, the Battersea Power Station stood like a fortress that loomed over the surrounding areas. Huge lorries filled with oblivious people rumbled down the streets towards the loading bays where the light glinted off the Cybermen's armour. Standing on top of the hill that overlooked the station, the Doctor gazed down upon the scene and thought of Zoe trapped inside there.

The app on her phone indicated that she was in the centre of what Pete said was the administration wing of the building, a small light that failed to encompass how important she was to him, and he swallowed back the fear that washed over him. Time and time again, Zoe ended up in danger and she generally managed to extract herself from it with only a few bumps and bruises – the exceptions standing out in his mind only because of how awful they were. Tolandra and Mondas, two situations he hadn't been able to predict, had pulled Zoe apart and left him and her friends to help glue the pieces back together, trying to form a close approximation of the person she had been before hurt and pain heaped themselves upon her.

The Doctor wanted Jack's certainty that she was going to be fine. His calm acceptance that Zoe was capable of anything caused envy to rear its head within his chest. Jack had no reason to believe that Zoe wasn't capable of miracles. She had, against overwhelming odds, saved both of them from certain death only months ago. As far as Jack was concerned, Zoe's abilities to squeeze out of trouble and pull off the improbable matched the Doctor's. Even though that made the Doctor smile on a good day, Jack wasn't the one who slept next to her and listened to her toss and turn, whimpering as nightmares seized her, sending her bolt upright with sweat on her skin and fear in her throat as she turned into him, clutching hold of him as she sobbed.

Zoe was less put together than she wanted people to believe. He would never share her secrets, the things she gave him in the privacy of their bedroom, but he wanted to shake the stardust from Jack's eyes and remind him that Zoe was breakable and fragile and so impossibly human that the smallest of things might bring about her death.

And the thought of her dying was agony to him.

Her life was a singularly precious thing, as delicate as butterfly wings, and the recklessness with which she treated it drove him mad.

There were nights when he was unable to sleep even when exhaustion coated him like cobwebs. He would turn to lie on his side and watch Zoe through the darkness that was broken by the canopy of stars their bedroom ceiling contained. Tracing the quiet features of her face and measuring the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed and _lived_ was a quiet, private comfort to him. He doubted she knew how often he watched her. And yet, sometimes, he was gripped with a fear that choked and blinded him at the knowledge that she had walked the surface of Skaro and got the red dust of that hell on her shoes and in her lungs.

The fear of what might have happened to her made his world shiver.

Zoe failed to understand how much danger she had been in that day, unable to comprehend exactly what the Daleks would have done to her. The gun she had planned to use to kill herself if she was captured meant nothing. The Daleks had been capable of repairing injuries, particularly in a system as relatively simplistic as the human brain, and they would have fixed her scattered brain and pulled every single memory out of her while she screamed and begged for it to end. He wanted to tell her, he wanted to scare her with that knowledge, so she would never do anything as stupidly reckless and brave again but he doubted it would make a difference.

She hadn't done it for fun. She had done it for him, for Jack, and, to her, that meant the risk was worth it.

At times, he hated her.

Though, mainly, he hated himself for loving a creature so breakable when the universe was so hard.

“Hey,” Rose said, forcing him to tear his eyes away from the power station. He didn't know what was showing on his face but whatever it was made her hesitate, eyes flicking over him uncertainly, Jack too distracted by his own worry to notice. Her mouth opened only for her to change her mind about what she was going to say, shutting it again with a frown. “Mrs Moore's seein' what she can do with the computer system. Somethin' about hackin' in. She thinks that now they're distracted by everythin', she might be able to get inside without too much trouble.”

“Good, that's good.” A quiet silence stretched between them, verging on uncomfortable for the first time since that horrible moment after the Earth burned and he found her standing at the window watching flames lick her planet. He cleared his throat, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Since when do you read the National Geographic?”

“Huh?”

“Wolves,” he reminded her.

“Oh.” A small grin pulled at her cheeks. “Zoe used to leave them lyin' around everywhere. Because they were expensive, she felt guilty about throwin' them out since Mum had to scrimp a bit to buy them, so there was always one somewhere, includin' the bathroom.”

The Doctor snorted. “You read it on the toilet?”

“Yep,” she said, unashamed. “Got to have readin' material, y'know?”

The laughter she pulled from him helped to ease the tension and fear in his chest. He felt generous as he glanced down at Jack who was staring with a small frown out towards the power station, index finger rubbing over his top lip.

“I hate this bit,” the Doctor said, resting his hand on Jack's shoulder even as he spoke to both of them. “The waiting. Somehow it always feels worse than everything else.”

“If pain must come, may it come quickly,” Jack murmured.

“Paulo Coelho,” the Doctor recognised. “Your reading's branched out a bit.”

“Sarah Jane recommended some books,” he said with a small shrug, shoulders slipping down in his chair as the worry pressed in on him. “No one ever told me loving someone hurt. I'd have thought one of you might've mentioned.”

“What do I know about love?” Rose scoffed. “I've made bad decision after bad decision when it comes to men. First Jimmy Stone an' he treated me like crap. Then Mickey an' I treated him like crap.”

Jack rubbed at his forehead with his knuckles. “Waiting, _worrying,_ I didn't realise how bad it was. Love is great when you're together – there's nothing like it – but when you're separated like this and you don't know if they're all right or not? I can't stand it.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed, mind filled with Zoe. “It's not easy.”

“They'll be okay,” Rose said, tugging the front of the Doctor's coat around her to keep the bitter wind off her body. “Both of them. Mickey'll be back soon, an' Zoe...she'll be good too. Course she will. She's not a kid anymore. She knows how to keep herself safe.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” the Doctor said, both his friends looking at him in surprise, his mouth dry. He turned to Rose. “Do you remember Thanatos? After the earthquake hit?”

“Course I do,” she said, thrown by the sudden change in topic. “Why?”

“She didn't even think, she just jumped into the damned river without a second's thought,” he said, lost in the memory of that moment. “Seventeen years old and a bloody idiot ready to risk her life to save a boy's. I was so angry with her that day. She had no idea what she was doing but she did it anyway. And when we spoke about it later, she shouted at _me_.”

She had been so slight then, her body awkward and gangly, chubby with the youth that clung to her. So different but so similar to the woman she was now, and a great swell of nostalgia moved through him for that younger Zoe who spoke with London hanging onto her words and whose greatest worry was ticking places off her ever-growing list.

It was easier then.

Easier to keep her safe, easier to not to get hurt.

“Said I was wrong and that I was a hypocrite,” the Doctor continued. “I've never been able to get her to understand that she's breakable. Every time I turn my back, it's like she's juggling chainsaws and it kills me that she's so reckless but what can I do about it? I can't ask her to stop. She wouldn't know how, and I don't want her too, not really. I just...I wish she'd be more careful.”

Jack and Rose were taken aback by his speech. Despite being the most talkative out of all of them, able to ramble on about anything that took his fancy until hours turned into days, he was also the most private. He kept his emotions – the deep, painful truths that made up his character – close to his chest, letting people see them bit by bit and never all at once. Hearing him speak about Zoe felt as though they were witnessing an intimate moment, something that wasn't for their eyes or ears' Jack reached out a hand, unsure of what to say, and curled his palm around the Doctor's fingers like a child holding onto a parent.

“You really love her, don't you?” Rose found it impossible not to look at him, this man she who had swept into her life and changed everything, and wonder if he had always seemed so complete. It felt as though she was seeing him for the first time without the filter of her expectations and hope layered over the top of him. It was unsettling to realise he was simply a man. “It's not just – you're not just havin' sex. It's proper love.”

The Doctor's eyes reflected the light that rose from the factory, stars dancing across his irises.

“I do,” he said, placing the final nail in the coffin of Rose's feelings with a gentle and kind statement of fact. “I didn't expect it. I certainly didn't look for it. But I do. I love her very much.”

Rose's throat moved as she swallowed, the tip of her tongue touching her dry lips, and she looked away from him, back out over to Battersea Power Station. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him – _Why Zoe? Why didn't you tell me? Is this going to change our family?_ – yet the question she asked was the one that seemed the safest, unsure she wanted the others answered.

“When did you know you loved her?”

“Oh, I'd like to know this,” Jack said, his calm, friendly voice rubbing away some of the tension that had built up between Rose and the Doctor. “Mickey thinks it was that year you two travelled together after Reinette died. I've placed my money earlier, so do me a solid and let me know.”

The Doctor huffed. “Do me a solid? Just because you sound American doesn't mean you need to speak like one.”

“Don't change the subject,” he said. “When was it? I want to win.”

“That doesn't give me much of an incentive to tell you know, does it?” The Doctor mused. “Can't be setting a precedent where my friends are betting money on me.”

“Oh, it's not money,” Jack said, a look of pure innocence on his face that made the Doctor dread what was coming next. “It's sexual favours.”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Rose groaned, knuckling her eye. “I don't need to hear that shit.”

“Me too,” the Doctor said, nose wrinkled. “Could've lived without knowing that.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Tell. Us.”

“If you must know,” he began, tracing the threads of him and Zoe from their inauspicious beginnings – _Listen to me, you KGB wannabe_ , echoed in his mind, chest aching with the memory of her finger jabbing into him, _I don't know what you've done to my sister but when I find out, I'm goin' to find the nearest car I can an' I am going to run – you – down –_ to now. “It was at that literary festival I took her to before France happened. She wandered away as she's wont to do when there are books around and I lost track of her, which scared me senseless because it was still so soon after Tolandra and I kept thinking about all these worst case scenarios. I eventually found her in this tiny second-hand bookshop that was filled with dust and was really poorly lit it's a miracle I didn't trip over her. She was sitting on the floor with a pile of books next to her, the back of her neck a little sunburnt, and it just hit me.”

He blinked slowly, the smell of that bookshop filling his nose, the weight of his old leather jacket weighing on him, luxuriating in the memory of fresh love.

“Took me longer to admit it to myself, of course,” he carried on, snapping himself out of his daze. “You know what I'm like but that was it, that was the moment. I don't think I've even told Zoe that yet. I probably should. Do you think I should?”

Rose pushed her hair from her eyes, chest aching with the loss of what was never hers, and ignored his question. “Romantic git.”

The Doctor grinned. “Can't help it. She brings out the poet in me.”

Breathing out, calm and acceptance seeping into her, Rose closed her eyes and let everything go. The anger, the jealousy, the feelings of betrayal, none of it was hers to keep. She let it leave her body on a cloud of white air that disappeared into the darkness.

“Don't break her heart,” she said, the Doctor's eyes snapping to hers. “Reinette broke her heart by dyin'. Don't you break it too.”

“I won't,” he promised. “All I want is for her to be happy, whether that's with me or someone else.”

She nodded, relieved that it was over, the release of letting go leaving her sober and different than she was only a week ago. It felt _good_. For the first time since meeting Jimmy Stone and falling for his lies and toxic charm, she felt as though she was herself again, not defining herself by the relationships with the men in her life.

“All right then, I guess that's that.”

“Really?” He asked, surprised. “You don't want to – I don't know – smack me about a bit?”

She frowned. “Not really, no.”

“Oh.”

“D'you want me to?”

“I – maybe?” His head tilted to one side, confusion playing out across his face. “I was expecting a bit of a battering, to be honest. Your mum certainly got a good punch in.”

Jack pressed his fingers over his mouth, eyes crinkling. “Go on, give him a smack. It might actually help.”

“I'm not goin' to smack him,” she said.

The Doctor eyed her warily. “You're really not angry? You've been ignoring us since the party.”

“No, I'm plenty angry,” Rose said. “More at Zoe than you, I s'pose. She had plenty of time to tell me but she didn't. An' I didn't love walkin' in on the two of you shaggin'. That was somethin' I could've lived my life without seein'. But things between me an' Zo...they've been off for a while. We haven't been – since France, things have been different, an' I miss her. I miss how close we were.”

“She misses you too,” the Doctor said, gently, making her wonder if Zoe had spoken to him about it or if he was just saying what she wanted to hear. “She worries that you find her boring now.”

“Boring?” The idea that someone might find Zoe boring after everything was ridiculous. “Where the hell did she get that idea from?”

He shrugged. “Don't ask me. She tends to spiral a bit with anxiety on occasion. Her medication helps but –”

Rose started. “She's takin' medication for anxiety?”

“Ah.” The Doctor blinked rapidly, stomach sinking. _Shit._ “I thought you already knew that. She's been on it for years. Yatta put her on a prescription while she was at MIT, and I should really stop talking now since –”

“Someone's coming,” Jake called from the side where he had been keeping a lookout, a dark shadow moving rapidly up the hill. The Doctor muttered his thanks to whatever god had saved him from sticking his foot more firmly in his mouth and turned, grabbing Jack's wheelchair, pulling him back onto the flat as Jake shone a torch down the hill. “There's only one of them though. Ricky? Ricky, is that you? It is, isn't it? Ricky?”

The man stumbled into view, sweat glistening on his forehead, and Jack exhaled shakily.

“Mickey,” he said, reaching for him.

Mickey staggered before sinking to his knees next to Jack, breathing heavily, forehead resting against the side of the wheelchair as Jack bent over him, hands holding him as close as possible.

“Where the hell's Ricky?” Jake demanded. “What happened to him?”

“Something's happened to Ricky?” Rita asked, swallowed whole by Jake's jacket that was wrapped around her, making her look smaller than she was. “Where's my grandson? What's happened to him?”

“They took him,” Mickey said, breathing heavily, fingers flexing within Jack's as he raised his head. “We got cornered. I told him to surrender an' it worked. They took him for an upgrade but I don't reckon he's got long. He's not himself. Those ear pod things, the Cyberman put one on him an' he was just gone.”

Jake turned away and swore violently, kicking at the bench that shook violently beneath the assault, as Rita's hands shook.

“Not my boy,” she breathed. “Not my grandson.”

“We'll get him back, Mrs Smith,” the Doctor assured her. “Right everyone, we've got to get to work. No more time to waste. Mrs Moore, what's the situation right now?”

“The whole of London's been sealed off and the entire population has either been taken inside the factories _or_ they've been killed,” Mrs Moore said. “It's not just Battersea they've got up and running. They've turned the Millennium Stadium into a massive conversion chamber too. Those that aren't being brought here are being taken there.”

“Fuck me,” Pete groaned. “Lumic bought the stadium up three years ago and it's been undergoing construction work since then. I didn't even bloody think of it.”

“It doesn't matter now,” the Doctor said. “What matters is that we've got four things to do: One, rescue Zoe, Ricky, and Jackie. Two, shut down all of the factories before they convert any more people. Three, deal with the leftover Cybermen. And D, have a little chat with Lumic. Not necessarily in that order. I'm open to flexing that.”

“Just like that?” Pete asked, sceptically.

“Yep.”

His eyes narrowed. “You're making this up.”

“That I am, Pete, that I am.”

Mrs Moore, never one to let others solve a problem when she was able to think and work for herself, had made herself comfortable at the picnic bench while waiting for Ricky and Mickey to return and cracked open her stolen Cybus Industries laptop. It wasn't as though she had intended to steal the laptop, she simply hadn't returned it when the hired men from Cybus came to kill her: she considered it part of her severance pay at the end of the day.

By the time the strangers from the parallel universe were deep in what seemed to be a long-overdue conversation, she was elbow deep in the government's website pulling up old floor plans of the power station and overlaying them with the layout that she pulled from Cybus's internal network by walking through the backdoor Nomi had built into the system before her death.

“If you've all finished with the chit-chat?” Her lilting accent caught their attention again. “I've never met a group of people more inclined to gossip than you lot.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, amused, and swung himself around to sit next to him, long and surprisingly lean. “You got something for us, Mrs Moore?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, “I've found us a way in.” She angled her laptop so everyone was able to see it. “This here's a schematic of the old factory from before Cybus took over. Here's the new plan.” She overlaid them on her screen. “Look at this here. Cooling tunnels underneath the plant that they haven't closed off. Definitely big enough to walk through.”

Jack leaned in and hummed thoughtfully, tracing the line with his finger. “So we can go in there and come up into the control centre, bypassing the security?”

“Bypassing the obvious security, yes,” she said.

“How do you know the control centre's there?” He asked. “If I were him, I wouldn't keep the centre of my operations on the ground where anyone could get in, I'd keep it up high in one of those shiny Zeppelins. Keeping my feet off the ground would keep me safer.”

“That's because you're not a genius megalomaniac,” the Doctor said, and Jack wondered if that was a compliment. “Men like Lumic like to be there in person when their grand plan is unveiled. There'll be a control centre there, and he'll be there as well.”

“There's another way in,” Pete said. “Through the front door. If they've taken Jackie for upgrading, that's how she'll get in. That's where that Ricky kid'll be too.”

Jake scowled. “He's not a kid, asshole.”

“Pete...” the Doctor hesitated. “Jackie was taken over an hour ago. The likelihood of her still being alive is small. Going in through the front door might be a one-way ticket to death.”

“Your girlfriend's probably dead too,” he said, bluntly. The Doctor flinched. “You're still going in.” Unable to say anything in response to that, the Doctor remained uncharacteristically silent, and Pete nodded. “I'm going in through the front door. I've got to do it.”

“I'm going with him then,” Jake said, the apologetic glance he sent to Mrs Moore was accepted with an understanding nod. “Ricky's saved my ass more than once occasion, I owe him.”

“I've got some dead ear pods you can use,” Mrs Moore said. “That'll give you a bit of cover, not much though.”

“We'll figure it out,” he said. “Haven't come this far to let the bastards kill me now, have I?”

Mrs Moore smiled as Mickey opened his mouth, ready to volunteer, but the Doctor held up a finger.

“Ah, no. You can't go,” he said. “I need you to do something else. Since Pete and Jake are heading into the single most dangerous place in London tonight, we can give them a helping hand that will hopefully tick something off our to-do list. If we take out all the ear pods at the same time and give people their minds back, the chaos that creates will help overthrow the Cybermen. Instead of walking into the conversion chambers like sheep, they'll be able to fight back and decide what they want to do.”

“That's a good idea,” Pete said. “Give them a chance.”

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “Micks, you're better at computers than Jack –”

“I'm not bad at computers,” Jack sighed. “I'm just better at other things.”

“That you are, captain, but I need computer know-how today,” the Doctor told him. “Lumic's transmitting the control signal and I'm pretty sure it's from that lovely Zeppelin that is blinking a circle of red lights on its bow...or stern. I can never tell which end is which.”

“The stern,” Mrs Moore said.

He nodded at her. “It's a great big transmitter, helpfully hard to miss. I do love it when people like showing off, it makes everything that much easier. Think you and Jack can take it out?”

“I think that sounds doable,” Mickey said, glancing at Jack who nodded. “Shouldn't be too hard to get into the system an' turn it off. The wheelchair might be a bit of a pain in the ass though.”

“I've got excellent upper body strength as you well know,” Jack said, the Doctor and Rose wrinkled their noses at the image he placed in their minds. “Besides, if it's too much trouble, we can just blow the Zeppelin up.”

“That's the spirit,” the Doctor said, “but be careful of the hydrogen. We do _not_ want another Hindenburg.”

“What's a Hindenburg?” Pete asked.

“Good, confirmation there wasn't a Hindenburg, Zoe will be pleased.” He turned to Mrs Moore. “No time to explain though. Mrs Moore, would you care to accompany Rose and I into the cooling tunnels?”

Mrs Moore looked pleased. “How could I refuse an offer of cooling tunnels?”

“Excellent,” he nodded. “Then we attack on three sides. Above, between, below. We get to the control centre, we stop the conversion machines, we rescue Zoe, Jackie, and Ricky, and have a chat with Lumic along the way.”

“She's going to hate that you're calling it a rescue,” Jack pointed out.

“Shouldn't have got herself captured then, should she?” The Doctor replied, aware that Jack had a point. He looked forward to arguing about it with her when they were back together. “Everyone clear?”

“What about gran?” Mickey asked, catching sight of his not-grandmother standing by the picnic bench, looking lost and afraid, fingers worrying her Protestant cross between her thumb and forefinger. “We can't just leave her here.”

“She can come with us,” Jack said, not sure how that was going to work, aware that between him and Rita, Mickey would be slowed down considerably. “It'll be the safest thing for her. Besides, Mrs Smith here can handle herself, isn't that right, ma'am?”

Rita dropped her cross and nodded. “I like this young man.”

Jack grinned, pleased.

“All right then, everyone's got their jobs,” the Doctor said, levelling a stern glare at Mickey and Jack. “When this is over, meet us back at the TARDIS, no excuses, you hear me? I want all of us back in one piece so I can yell at you all as a group.”

Rose turned, frowning. “What did we do?”

“Wandered off into a parallel universe when I specifically told you not to,” he said.

“What did I do?” Jack asked.

“Got out of your damned wheelchair and hurt your knees again.”

Perfectly conscious of his wrongdoings, Mickey raised his eyebrows. “Then what did Zoe do?”

“Got herself captured,” the Doctor said, aware they were trying to make him laugh and almost succeeding. “Any other questions?”

“Nope, think we're good,” Jack said with a grin. “Stay safe you two. Mrs Moore, keep an eye on them for us, would you? We're kind of fond of them.”

“I'll do my best,” she promised.

“Good luck everyone,” the Doctor said. “We're going to need it.”


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: The first section contains mentions of miscarriages and abortion.

When Jackie Tyler was a little girl, she dreamt of the stars.

Two years before Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon, she was born at Chelmsford and Essex hospital on February 1st – a Wednesday – weighing in at 8lbs 3oz. Coming into the world at the tail end of the space race, her childhood was spent expecting a future where living in domes on the moon and travelling in between the planets of the solar system was normal. Hover cars, food replicators, holograms, and more filled her mind, making her dream of a life lived off Earth.

She was dreamer in a family filled with people whose thoughts tended to lean towards local events and whether the Tories were going to ever come back to power. Raised in a solidly middle-class household, the Prentices were conservative voters and continued to be until the day they died. Jackie, in a small act of rebellion brought about by living and working with people struggling to make ends meet, supported the Labour party from her first election until the day _she_ died, even if she never discussed politics with anyone, least of all her husband who voted in line with his pocket rather than his conscience.

As a child though, politics was a distant and abstract thing that boring men with greying hair and large stomachs tended to bother themselves with. For her, space was the first and last thing on her mind, and becoming an astronaut was – for a long time – her only dream. Her thinking was that since everyone was going to live in space in the future, then being an astronaut wasn't something exceptional. After all, even janitors who worked in space would, technically _,_ be astronauts. And so when people asked her what she was going to do when she grew up, she said _astronaut,_ never understanding why they would chuckle and laugh and meet her parents eyes with a knowing look, aware that she would most likely never travel further than France let alone to the upper atmosphere.

None of that mattered to her.

She was a child and children had obsessions with all manner of things, hers merely happened to be space. It was a small thing her parents didn't mind encouraging, and Jackie spent days trawling through video shops with her dad to build up a full and complete collection of Star Trek. The VHS's turned worn and fuzzy over the years from watching them again and again, the video player flicking on and off from overuse, the show fuelling her belief that space was where she was going to live and work. Never particularly set on what she would do in space – aware that there were jobs she couldn't even imagine but liking the idea of emulating Uhura enough to practice saying _hailing frequencies open, captain_ until she was saying it in her sleep – she was always flexible about her future job until one day, without any warning, she stopped dreaming of space.

Overnight she went from humming Star Trek's theme tune under her breath and peering out of her window up at the night's sky to packing away the VHS tapes, the plastic telescope her Uncle Tony had picked up for her sixth birthday from Toys R Us, and peeling the posters of constellations down from her bedroom wall, blue tack speckled across the lilac paint.

Her dreams became smaller, more Earth-bound and since she never had any children in this universe, there was no curly-haired daughter to pass her love of Star Trek on to. There was strange prickling of shame that washed over her when she remembered how starry-eyed her dreams had been, refusing to admit she enjoyed science fiction even when she smuggled copies of Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le. Guin, and Octavia Butler home from the library between dog-eared beauty magazines that were acceptable for her to read.

Even her idea of training to be a nurse – imagined after her science teacher said that she had an aptitude for biology and _have you considered nursing?_ – proved to be too big for her life.

“No daughter of mine will wipe up other people's shit,” her father ranted when she raised the idea over a dinner of steak and kidney pie. “And you haven't got the brains to be a doctor. Maybe if you put more effort into your looks, you might just find yourself a decent man to take care of you.”

Jackie loved her father, aware that he was a product of his time and that he loved her deeply, but his words cut a scar into her that raised feelings of shame when she touched it.

Discouraged from going to college but unwilling to meet the men her parents paraded in front of her – sons of doctors or accountants, men with _prospects_ according to her sister who was recently engaged to the most boring man in all of England and seemingly regretting it – she packed a single bag and moved into London. She said it was a better place to find someone; after all, in a city filled with bankers and doctors and foreign businessmen, there would have to be someone who was willing to take her on. In reality, she moved into a flat share with five other women, got a job at the local pub – though she was too young to even drink the alcohol sold let alone serve it – and signed herself onto a hairdressing course, using her tip money to pay for it.

Having grown up with the unspoken expectation that she would move out from her father's home and into her husband's without anything in between, hairdressing was a breath of fresh air. She earned her own money by doing something she was good at.

And she _was_ good at her job.

People came from all over Peckham to get their hair done by her, and the pride she took in her work was clear. For the first time in her life, she had something to call her own and she relished it, soon earning enough money to move into a flat by herself that she decorated with care, putting more and more money aside to set up her own salon one day while carefully ignoring the pangs that hit her in the middle of the night when the quiet whisper in the back of her mind told her _you can do more_.

Occasionally, she went to the library to flick through university prospectuses, lingering over the English Literature courses, before setting it firmly to one side and walking out with a Thomas Hardy tucked under her arm or a John Steinbeck in her bag.

Meeting Pete forced her to pause and take stock of her life.

Only eighteen years old when he burst into her life in the middle of a rainstorm, she was happier than she had been since she was a child who still looked up at the stars. Melancholic, sometimes, for things that she had once wanted but generally happy and content. She was in the middle of a perm when the door opened and Pete tripped inside, splatting cold rainwater onto the floor, his pale cheeks flushed red and his headful of ginger hair windswept. Apologies fell from his mouth, a box of paper cranes that he had been trying to sell at the market sodden and wasted in his hands, and she took pity on him, letting him shelter inside with a hot cup of tea in his hands.

His invitation to dinner was flatly refused.

His offer of a drink was also denied.

His hopeful suggestion of a coffee was reluctantly accepted.

By then, Caroline had given birth to her son Joel and was glowing with the happiness of motherhood, confiding in her sister that even though her marriage wasn't what she hoped, Joel made everything worthwhile. As Jackie held her small nephew and let his chubby hand curl around her finger, she knew that she wanted to be a mother as much as she wanted everything else in her life.

It was the eighties and women were beginning to believe that they could have it all, and Jackie, ever the optimist, fell for the lie hook, line, and sinker, forgetting that to have it all, she needed a partner who was willing to work with her.

A woman's glass ceiling, she learned too late, is the person they marry.

Coffee turned into lunch which turned into dinner which turned into her inviting him back to her flat and feeling the warmth of his skin against her, half in love with him before he knelt over her and told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Pete's love was something she never doubted and she started to fall in love with him with each passing day until she was too far in to remove herself even if she had wanted to. Against Caroline's advice – her sister telling her over the phone not to do it as she had worked too hard for her independence to give it up for a man – Jackie moved Pete into her flat and had his clothes mixed with her in the laundry and his beer next to her wine in the fridge.

It was only a matter of time before they married but she was still only eighteen when she sat on the toilet, knickers around her knees, a positive pregnancy test clasped in her fist. Pete was delighted, his obvious excitement chasing away the fear that it was too soon, letting her give herself over to the fact that she was going to have a baby. He proposed and she said yes, _no_ never crossing her mind. It happened faster than she wanted but she loved him with everything in her, even if his eyes drifting to other women made her want to scream, and she loved the baby growing inside her even more. Not even him getting her name wrong at the registry office – Caroline sniffing disapprovingly – wasn't enough to dim her happiness.

Waking in the middle of the night three weeks later to her baby bleeding out of her was.

Pete held her as she cried in the bright white open ward of the hospital where the nurse that she had once wanted to be treated her with gentle hands, soft voice telling her that it hurt now but she would be okay. His tears wet the top of her head, chest tight with the pain of it all, but he loved her through the hurt and promised that he would make her happy.

She kept working, kept putting money away for her salon, and tried not to think about how far along she would have been or how old her baby would be if it had lived. Pete worked hard, deciding to throw everything they had into Vitex, draining Jackie's savings behind her back and excusing himself because _what's mine is yours and yours is mine._ She got halfway to Caroline's house, rage making her look up the number of a divorce lawyer in the phonebook, certain that it was over, only to get off the train halfway there and weep in the shadows of the train station.

Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she had carried on and knocked on Caroline's door in the late evening, whether her sister would have turned her away or brought her inside and helped her rescue herself.

As it was, she got on a train heading back to London and went back to Pete, silent in her rage, letting him tiptoe around her, and even when Vitex was a success, she never forgot the lie and the betrayal his fortune was built on.

Only twenty-one then, though she felt as though she was ancient, she put on her favourite dress and unscrewed her best lipstick, and met someone who helped distract her for one night while Pete was in Edinburgh at a conference. Curling her hand around the back of this stranger's head – his name lost to the murk of time – she let him hitch her skirt up her thighs and peel her underwear away, the brief interlude serving only to heighten her feeling of being lost. The stranger kissed her, smearing her lipstick from her mouth, and whispered for her to run away with him, half teasing, half serious, and she was tempted, but she tugged her skirt down, thanked him for his company, and left him behind.

Six weeks later, Jackie booked a termination for what he had left behind, certain Pete would leave her should she give birth to a black baby, uncertain if she actually cared.

The years slipped by and as Pete became more successful, Vitex above and beyond anything they had expected, she became less so. Desperate to make up for that first, great betrayal, he showered her with gifts and told her to stop working, unable or unwilling to understand why she would want to work as a hairdresser when he was on his way to making his first million by the time he was thirty.. And so she did, quietly ignoring the letter Caroline sent telling her what a fool she was and wasn't she capable of learning from her mistakes. Instead of working, she volunteered at homeless shelters, at the library, every now and then taking in a client for the sheer joy of crinkling money in her hand that was her own.

Pete was in Canada meeting with investors when she learnt she was pregnant for the third time, and he was flying back across the Atlantic when she lost the baby in the middle of Debenhams, an old woman helping her mop up the blood in the bathroom. She never told him about it, worried that it was punishment for aborting her second pregnancy; a higher power telling her that she wasn't allowed what she wanted when she had done that. What she did tell him was that she wanted a baby and, eager to make her happy and to have a child of his own, he happily followed her lead and made time in his schedule when she was ovulating, not noticing that she preferred him not to touch her outside of those times, the £4570 he stole from her a heavy weight on her mind.

With each pregnancy, her hopes lifted and the future looked brighter and everything that had led to that point was worth it. And then as she lost each baby in turn, the world darkened around her and she was scrambling in the darkness for something to hold onto and to bring her joy.

By the time her sixth baby slicked the inside of her thighs with blood, she was thirty-three and living on the outskirts of London in a mansion that felt as ostentatious and fake as the people who came for parties there. Unable to bear the grief of losing more babies, she told Pete she wanted to stop and although he didn't want to, he agreed – _anything you want, as long as you're happy, that's all that matters_. She wanted to laugh at that, laugh until her throat bled, because she wasn't happy even though she was trying. She wanted to pick up the phone and call Caroline – whom she hadn't spoken to in years even though Joel and Sabrina came to visit monthly, dropped off by her brother-in-law who was always trying to curry favour with Pete – and ask her older sister to come and save her from a mess of her own making.

After giving up hopes of having children, Jackie threw herself into the life Pete had created for them.

Never having spent much of the money unless it was for food or clothes for various special events, she made use of the card that Pete had given her with hope that it made up for what he had done. The parties at the Tyler mansion quickly became _the_ parties to attend. No one seemed to mind that she always managed to wrestle money from the rich, using it to support the causes that were important to her – educational programmes in the poorest areas of Britain, domestic violence shelters for men and women up and down the country, drug rehabilitation programmes and centres, free accommodation for the homeless – enjoying the music and food and company she ensured they had access to.

And as her fortieth birthday approached, she began to emerge from the fog of unhappiness and realise that she was capable of more. Since her money had been used to set up Vitex, she knew that she was entitled to the profits of the sale of it, and she decided to leave. The thought came to her one morning over breakfast when she was sat on the terrace, a cup of tea in hand, watching the sun rise over London. In that moment, everything was perfectly clear to her and the realisation that she could simply leave made her laugh for so long that Pete stumbled from the house, thinning hair dishevelled, a frown on his face as he watched her.

“It's about time,” Caroline said when Jackie arrived at her home three hours later to have their first conversation in nearly twenty years. “Come on in, you daft cow.”

It wasn't that she didn't love Pete. She did. He was her first, great love and even though he had hurt her and never fully understood her, he had loved her better than anyone else in her life, which was why she agreed to marriage counselling. If she could forgive him for the theft of her dreams when he took that money from her – such a small amount now that they spoke in billions but the one great obstacle to their happiness – and he could forgive her for the one-night stand that she told him about in their therapist's comfortable yet bland office, then maybe they had a chance.

The sight of him weeping when she admitted to the affair brought tears to her own eyes but those tears soon turned to rage when he refused to apologise for taking the money, not understanding why it was such a big deal when it had worked out so well for them.

In the end, with the help of their therapist, they negotiated a trial separation where he would move out of the house and give them both time to think and breathe without living on top of each other. As far as the papers and his investors were concerned, they were still a united front and Jackie was willing to do that, Vitex hers as much as Pete's. On the day he moved out, she watched him hesitate in the doorway and look back at her to where she stood on the stairs, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, more like herself than she had been in years, and she wondered what he was going to say when he opened his mouth only to shut it again.

The weeks apart had been healing for her.

She took Caroline on holiday with her to the Seychelles, renting out the entire island so they could have privacy, and she realised that, for all that she loved Pete, she couldn't do it any more. Twenty years she had spent loving that man, trying to make it work, only for him not to meet her halfway with a sincere apology that, while not fixing anything, would have made all the difference in the world.

She told Caroline her plans and her sister looked at her in the dying light of the sun that reflect its beams off the glittering ocean, hair greying and eyes creased at the corners.

“Good,” Caroline said. “It's never too late to start again.”

And when Pete turned up at the house for her fortieth birthday, a bouquet of flowers in his hands as he edged around the door of what was once their bedroom, a cautious, optimistic look on his face, she gave him the divorce papers.

The argument that followed was the worst of their marriage, and it seemed fitting that it should be so. He left her weeping in the bedroom, mascara running down her face, her dog yipping at her feet, as he went into the garden to sob where no one could see him. Yet the show had to go on and she stopped her tears, fixed her make up, and promised herself that it would be the last time she had to do something like this. The future stretched out before her like an undiscovered country and if she could stop other women making the same mistakes as her then she would.

It was, perhaps, appropriate that the last piece of advice she got to give was to the daughter she had aborted in this universe but kept in another.

When the Cybermen attacked, she hid in the dark cellar. Her last thought before the jewelled ear pod flashed, a long, thin needle piercing her brainstem to hijack her body, was of her dog, desperately praying she hadn't been hurt in the chaos.

Pulled from the room and loaded into a lorry, Jackie was unaware of what was happening around her, ignorant of the fact that Pete was racing across the lawn, heart pounding in his chest, trying to get to her, only to have his path blocked by Cybermen that marched towards him. Oblivious to the journey and the fear that was sweeping London as Lumic deployed his Cybermen across the city, she stared straight ahead, registering nothing when the truck rumbled to a stop and the doors opened, Battersea Power Station their destination.

She felt nothing – not fear nor the bitter wind that swept in from the sea, carried up the Thames on a current – and walked in line into the station, quiet and obedient. Had Pete been there, he would have joked that there was a first time for everything, nudging her side with his perpetually bony elbow, eyes crinkling in the corner as he laughed, but she was never going to hear him joke again.

She was never going to hear or do anything again.

The future she had carved out for herself by breaking Pete's heart and stepping into the unknown disappeared as she was lifted onto a metal table by the cold hands of the Cybermen. Her black dress damp as it soaked up the blood that hadn't run off it, her expensive jewellery lying against her skin, eyes staring blankly up at the whirring blades that had pieces of flesh and bone caught in them.

High above the machinery that came down on her body with a finality that was dull and cruel, the night sky poked through a hole in the ceiling and Jackie Tyler died with stars in her eyes.

* * *

A square shaft of light cut through the darkness and lit up the damp metal ladder that was their way into the cooling tunnel. Hand curled around Mrs Moore's elbow as he supported her until her foot found the first rung of the ladder, the Doctor listened carefully for the telltale sounds of Cyber boots against the ground, releasing his new friend only when he was certain that she wasn't going to fall, not entirely sure of how far the ladder descended.

At his side, Rose looked around, wind whipping her hair into her face, before he poked her upper arm and gestured for her to go first, her remonstrations about wearing a skirt on the Grifari ship at the forefront of his mind. Flashing him a grin that was tempered by the cold, she clambered down into the darkness, the top of her blonde head disappearing, and he peered over the edge, thinking of the last dark hole he had gone into: At least Krakov had been warm and boasted a population of zero Cybermen, which he considered was a significant point in its favour.

Flexing his cold fingers, he counted to three to make sure that Rose was out of the way – not wanting to tread on her fingers – before turning himself around and climbing down the ladder. The rungs sent the cold straight into the soles of his feet, the feeling in his little toes disappearing, and he began to regret not listening to Jackie about the need to wear socks.

In a burst of friendliness – or maternal instinct, he wasn't sure which though he hoped it was the former – she had gone out and bought him a very nice collection of socks that she dumped in his lap in a fit of exasperation that was accompanied by her reeling off a list of health problems – starting with foot fungus and ending with sores – that came from not wearing socks without shoes. Judging from the volume of playfully decorated socks specifically chosen to make him more inclined to wear them, Jackie had raided all the sock shops she had come across in Massachusetts for him. While he appreciated the sentiment, they were currently collecting dust somewhere in his bedroom. He wasn't sure where Zoe had put them but he might have her dig them out when they get back and keep a pair in his pocket for situations where emergency socks were required.

Stepping off the ladder, he breathed out and watched the white mist float up out of the tunnel.

“This is bloody freezin',” Rose complained, wrapping his coat even tighter around her, peering at him, eyes barely visible over the lifted collar of the coat. “You want this back?”

“And have a frozen Rose for my troubles? No, thank you.” She grinned at him, her tongue curling against her teeth. He felt thrilled at the sight of it, confidence growing that things were truly going to be okay between them. “One of these days, I'd quite like to go looking for trouble in a nice open field where the sun can shine on us. It always seems like we're crawling through dark places.”

“Evil loves an atmosphere,” Mrs Moore said, rubbing her arms briskly. “But it's no wonder they call them _cooling tunnels_. It's like a bloody freezer unit down here.”

The Doctor thought of a nice hot bath filled with bubbles and Zoe, attempting to trick his mind into keeping his body warm, succeeding in only making the situation worse and causing his worry for Zoe to skyrocket.

“Heat'd only attract unwanted attention,” the Doctor explained. “Thermal scans would pick this place up like no one's business. If this is where Lumic's been keeping his Cybermen, they'd show up easy peasy.”

“They give off a heat signature then?” She asked. “Even through the metal?”

“They're still organic beneath the armour,” he said, Rose cautiously touching the walls as she looked for a light switch, shivering when the slick damp rubbed against her. “Still human. It's a lower temperature admittedly but it's noticeable to the discerning gaze. Given that you lot've been keeping an eye on Lumic, it was probably a good idea for him to keep things cool down here.”

Rose wiped her fingers on the Doctor's coat. “There's no light switch. Whoever uses this tunnel must bring their own stuff.”

“I've got some torches,” Mrs Moore said, swinging her bag off her back and rummaging through it. She removed two sets of head torches from her bag and held them up, the light from the moon falling over them. “Only from Argos but they've got a decent whack to them. Just the two of them though.”

“That's fine,” Rose said, reaching out. “I'll do it. The Doctor hates messin' up his hair.”

“It takes a long time to get it looking artfully dishevelled, thank you.”

She snorted and pulled the torch on over her head, wincing as she pulled some hair from her scalp when adjusting the straps.

“I like your bag,” the Doctor said to Mrs Moore. “It's got a little bit of everything in there. My pockets are much the same.”

Mrs Moore laughed and pulled her head torch on. “A device for every occasion, that's my motto.”

“I do appreciate a woman who comes prepared to a revolution,” he said, gaze suddenly turning hopeful as his stomach gave a small rumble. “Don't suppose got a hot dog in there, have you? I'm starving.”

“Me too,” Rose confessed, acutely aware of her own hunger now that the Doctor had mentioned his. “I didn't have breakfast this mornin'.”

“You know that's the most important meal of the day,” he told her. “And there's an apple in one of the pockets, help yourself. Me? I'm waiting for a hot dog.”

“Of all the things to wish for – a hot dog.” Mrs Moore shook her head, jumping when Rose bit into the apple with a loud _crunch,_ the sound loud and reverberating. Her eyes went wide and, juice dripping from the corner of her mouth, she dropped the apple back into his pocket, chewing her mouthful slowly to mitigate the noise. Mrs Moore turned her attention back to the Doctor. “They're mechanically recovered meat, you know. Nothing of any value in them whatsoever. You'd be best off with a sausage sandwich.”

“Ooo, I wouldn't mind one of those too,” he said thinking of soft white bread, pork sausages, and brown sauce mixing with the melting butter. His stomach gave another, _louder_ rumble that made Rose grin. “But I'm in the mood for a hotdog right now. Fried onions, lots of mustard, and those chunky chips to dip in the leftover sauce. Sounds perfect to me right now.”

“Please stop talkin' about food,” Rose said. “You're really not helpin'.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Guess I'm hungrier than I thought. All I've had is a banana today.”

“Probably why you're so skinny,” Mrs Moore said as she held a large torch out to him. “Here, have a proper torch as well. It's got the added benefit of being able to _whack_ things if you need to.”

A grin flashed across his face.

“My, my, Mrs Moore, you really did come prepared.”

Fingers clumsy from the cold, it took him a moment to find the _on_ button, nearly blinding himself when he did. Angling the beam away from his eyes that danced with light, he flicked it around the cooling tunnel and froze, humour draining from him when the light reflected off the metal casing of the Cybermen that lined the walls. On either side of the tunnel, Cybermen stood inert and stretched down into the darkness, out of reach of the torch's light. Rose flicked on her own torch and pressed her lips together even as Mrs Moore took a startled step back, the heel of her boot scuffing against the ground. The Doctor held his arm out across her body, quietly signalling to stay where she was, and reached into his jacket to remove his sonic screwdriver. Torch in one hand, screwdriver in the other, he stepped closer to the nearest Cyberman and scanned it.

“We're okay,” he said, finally, and Rose breathed out. Sharing a relieved smile with her, he glanced back at Mrs Moore, her face pale in the artificial light. “They're powered down, that's it. These must've been some of the first Lumic created before he worked the kinks out. Useful if he's running out of foot soldiers but not the sort you'd put into the field first. They're probably just waiting now.”

Mrs Moore rubbed her chest and took a heavy step forward. “Waiting for what?”

“The rise of the Cybermen.”

Rose exhaled, annoyance flaring. “Stop bein' dramatic. _Rise of the Cybermen_ , _the_ _silent realm_ , it's not helpful in makin' a person calm an' collected.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor apologised. “But seriously, don't worry about them. As long as we don't touch them, we'll be fine. What we need to do is get a move on. We've been here too long and the longer we wait, the more difficult it'll be. Ready?”

“Yeah, let's go,” Rose said, stepping past him and making her way into the darkness, recklessness running through the Tylers like a curse.

The Doctor took a step forward before remembering Mrs Moore who was unable to tear her eyes from the sight of the converted in their ghastly metal shells, wondering who they had been before their deaths.

“Hey,” he said, softly, catching her attention. “It's okay. Really.”

“Yeah.” Clearing her throat, she nodded and pulled herself together, taking a step forward until she was moving naturally. “Sorry. It's just like something out of Star Trek.”

“Oh, you have Star Trek here, do you?” The Doctor was pleased, filing the information away to tell Zoe later. “Is it any good?”

“I like it,” she said.

“Popular?”

“I guess so.” She frowned at the back of his head. “It's a cult classic, I think.”

The Doctor hummed, one eye fixed on Rose as she walked ahead of them, not wanting her too far out of his reach in case something happened.

“Parallels,” he mused. “Weird the things that change but sometimes it's stranger the things that stay the same.”

“There's a president of Great Britain,” Rose said over her shoulder. “Not a prime minister.”

“ _Huh_. Not Harriet?”

“No, some Black guy,” she said. “He was at Mum's party – it's her birthday here – she was havin' a big blowout when everythin' happened.” She paused, hesitated, and decided to tell him. “She has a dog called Rose.”

The Doctor was grateful that she wasn't looking at him when that information landed. It was only the stress of the last few days when the tension on the TARDIS had been unbearable that stopped him from laughing as he might otherwise have done. By the time she looked back at him, suspicious of his silence, his face was more or less under control.

“That's interesting,” he said, lightly.

Her eyes rolled. “Oh, shut up.”

He grinned.

“Are you two really from another universe?” Mrs Moore asked, suddenly, startling them both. “Like _another_ universe?”

The Doctor coughed, clearing the amusement from his throat, and nodded. “Yeah, we are.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You're sure you don't mean another planet?”

“Absolutely positive,” he said.

Mrs Moore stared at him, mind refusing to fully accept it. “How's that even possible?”

“Accidentally,” the Doctor said. “We were minding our own business travelling through the Time Vortex when we fell through a small crack between the universes that brought us here. The fall should've killed us but my ship used up all her energy to keep us safe. Thankfully, there was just enough energy leftover to charge up this tiny little power cell that's going to take us back home but I used it up back at the house. Once it's fully charged, we'll be out of here and back home quicker than you can say lickety-split, hopefully.”

“I'm not sure any of that made sense,” Mrs Moore said.

“Don't worry about it,” Rose replied. “You get used to it. If you can understand the beginnin' an' the end, you're doin' all right.”

They pressed deeper into the cooling tunnels and grew accustomed to the silent sentries that guarded the walls, though they took care not to walk too close to them just in case. While Mrs Moore occasionally jerked when something caught the corner of her eye, her breathing increasing and the sharp scuff of her shoes against the ground as she turned, searching for the danger that wasn't there, Rose and the Doctor moved as though comfortable with the danger they were in. The Doctor had to stop himself humming the latest piece of music that Zoe was working on at the piano – a rather depressing Beethoven piece that was slowly driving him mad – and he examined the back of Rose's head.

“How was it?”

Rose looked back. “How was what?”

“Meeting Pete.”

A heavy sigh left her, and she slowed her steps, waiting for them to catch up.

“I don't know,” she said, troubled. “Him an' Mum – Jackie, _whatever_ – they're gettin' a divorce apparently. Things didn't work out for them here either by the looks of it. Maybe you were right an' I shouldn't have gone off to have a look at him. Guess I'm still that stupid ape you picked up ages ago.”

“Hey,” the Doctor said, softly. “You're not a stupid ape. You never have been. I was just...you lot, you got under my skin and made me start caring again and it scared me. I reacted to that by insulting you, and I'm sorry. You're not a stupid ape.”

A watery smile appeared. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted from meeting him.”

She shrugged. “It's fine. I'm not sure what I actually wanted. Zoe asked an' I just...I don't know. I s'pose it doesn't matter. I met my dad an' that was the important thing. That was my real dad, not this bloke. He's like – you know when you look at a photo an' you recognise the person in it but there's somethin' off about it? It's like that. He's kind of like an imprint of my dad but not.”

“I get that,” the Doctor said. “And, for what it's worth, your father was a good man. He loved you very much.”

“Yeah, he did,” she agreed, voice thickening with emotion. “An' I don't think I ever thanked you for that. For takin' me to see him. I know I fucked up with everythin' else but gettin' to meet him an' actually talk to him? It meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, Rose.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her against him, kissing the top of her head as her fingers curled into his jacket. “I'm sorry we couldn't save him. For you, Zoe, _and_ Jackie.”

Rose turned into him properly, and he was forced to stop walking or bowl her over. Her arms went around his waist and her face pressed into his chest, hugging him tightly. Lowering the torch, he hugged her back, thoughts lingering on his own family who were lost to him: wife, children, brother, and parents. He had been so angry with Rose at the time, not simply because she had done something unbelievably stupid but because she had done what he had dreamt of doing every night since Gallifrey's destruction. He bowed his head until his lips rested against her scalp and felt her dry her eyes against him.

Mrs Moore coughed delicately to get their attention.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “Especially since this looks long overdue, but I'm not sure now's the right time to be dealing with this.”

Rose pulled back, skin flushed with embarrassment. “God, yeah, you're right. Sorry. It's just – it's been a rough few days. C'mon. Let's keep movin'.”

She hurried away from them and the Doctor watched her go, throat thick with emotion. He looked to Mrs Moore who raised her eyebrows, and he gave a small shrug in response.

“Shall we?” He said, pointing after Rose and she nodded. A little uncomfortable from the emotion on display in front of a stranger – albeit a friendly one who enjoyed a good taser – he focused on keeping the path ahead of them lit and searched for something that would break the emotionally charged atmosphere. “Go on then, tell me. How did you get involved in all of this? Rattling along with the Preachers and trying to save the world? Not your normal day job unless you're, well, _us_.”

“You do seem to lead interesting lives,” she agreed.

“Mrs Moore, you don't know the half of it.”

“I bet,” she said with a small laugh. “I'm not like you though. I used to be ordinary. I got a job at Cybus Industries about ten years back. Nothing special, just working in HR. It was a nice, easy nine to five with a decent salary and good benefits. Didn't think anything of it until, one day, I find something I'm not supposed to: A file on the mainframe. I don't know why I read it, don't know if I thought about what I was clicking on at all, but I did read it. Next thing I know, I've got men with guns knocking in the middle of the night. I ran. I just ran straight out the door and didn't look back. I found the Preachers about four months after that, and they needed a techie so I just sat down and taught myself everything.”

“That sounds awful,” he said even as he admired his spirit. “What about Mr Moore? If there is a Mr Moore that is. Could be _mrs._ Could be no one. Do you have anyone you left behind?”

“I have a family,” she confessed, pain tightening in her chest at the thought of them. “A husband and two kids who all think I'm dead. He didn't know anything about what I found. I wanted to tell him but I was scared of what would happen to him if he knew. Turns out I was right. I found out they'd hauled him in for questioning, the kids too. They've moved now, back to Wales. I keep an eye on them when I can but I don't want to get too close. It's why I changed my name.”

Sympathy flared through Rose's eyes when she looked back. “I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Besides, it's safer not to use real names. At least that's what I think. Ricky and Jake don't seem to care who knows who they work for. I think they like the danger myself, but they're young. They don't have as much to lose.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor murmured. “Youth breeds it's own sort of recklessness.”

Her eyebrows went up. “You're not that old yourself. What are you? Thirty-four, thirty-five?”

“You just had to ask,” Rose complained.

“I'm 900 years old, give or take.”

She stared at him. “You're not.”

“I am.”

“But you said you weren't aliens!”

“No, I said we were from another universe,” he said. “And, I suppose, to you, Rose isn't an alien. She's a human from Earth in our universe. I'm definitely an alien though. Two hearts and everything.”

“Two –?” Her eyes flicked to his chest. “Really?”

“Really really,” the Doctor said, enjoying himself. “How you doing?”

“I'm honestly not sure,” Mrs Moore said, and Rose coughed to hide her laugh, pausing briefly to peer around a bend in the tunnel before moving forward once she was sure it was clear. “Aliens, parallel universes, and Cybermen is a lot for one day. I think I'm okay though.”

“That's the spirit,” he said. “You're taking this much better than Rose did. You haven't yelled at me once.”

“No,” she agreed. “I did tase you though. Does that count?”

He thought about it. “I'm going to say _no_ because it happened before you knew about everything else.”

“I only yelled because you were bein' an ass,” Rose said, looking to Mrs Moore. “I was datin' Mickey at the time an' this one here couldn't give less of a shit when his head started meltin' onto the console. Told me not to cry about it.”

“I didn't say that,” the Doctor protested. “I definitely did not say that.”

“It was more your general tone,” she shot back, leaning towards Mrs Moore. “He was an utter _dick_ back when I first met him. First place he took me to? The end of the world. Took me to this place called Platform One just to watch the Earth burn up an' die in the year five billion. Who does that?”

Mrs Moore looked dazed. “That's a little –”

“Dickish,” Rose said with a nod. “He made up for it with the second trip though. I got to meet Dickens. D'you have Dickens here?”

“Charles Dickens, the author?”

“That's the one,” she continued. “It was in Cardiff on Christmas Eve. We met ghosts.”

“Not ghosts,” the Doctor said to Mrs Moore who only seemed to be taking in 2% of what they were telling her. “The Gelth. They were an alien species displaced by the Time War and were looking for a new home. Unfortunately for them, Earth was occupied and this serving girl – a lovely Welsh woman – called Gwen stopped them in the end. She was a brave one.” He turned his eyes back to Rose. “And I am sorry about Platform One. If you must know, I've felt guilty about it since it happened. I was being an ass at the time.”

“God,” Rose said, surprised. “Today's the day for deep conversations, isn't it? You're in love my sister, you're sorry about my dad _an'_ Platform One...anythin' else you want to get off your chest?”

“I don't think so,” he said, scratching his jaw. “Guess we've been sitting on some stuff we probably should've talked about.”

“Guess so,” she replied, rubbing her chest, aware that they were leaving Mrs Moore out again. “Just between the three of us, what's your real name?”

Mrs Moore hesitated, weighing up the pros and cons before deciding that two people from a parallel universe were no risk to her identity. And, if she was lucky, she might get to go home and see her family sooner than she had thought.

“Angela Price,” she said, a weight lifting from her chest. “Don't tell a soul.”

The Doctor mimed zipping his mouth. “Our lips are – _Rose!_ ”

A red light broke through the dark and a hiss echoed around the tunnel as a Cyberman decoupled from the wall, stepping down to the ground an inch away from Rose. The Doctor lunged for her and hooked his arm around her waist, dragging her against his chest. Like a wave rolling down the tunnel, the Cybermen began to move, and the Doctor's hearts raced in his chest.

“They're waking up,” he breathed, pushing Rose in front of him and grabbing Mrs Moore. “Run!”

* * *

“It's too high,” Mickey said.

“Maybe, but we can do it.”

“Jack –” he bit off the exasperation that filled his tone, teeth sinking into his cheek so as to avoid a fight. The silence emanating from Jack let Mickey know that he was aware of the difficulties that faced them. Instead of reiterating them, he pointed at the side of the building. “That's the most obvious way in: quick, easy, more or less undetectable.”

“Agreed,” Jack said, hating the fact that he wasn't able to move as he was used to, acutely aware of the liability he posed for Mickey and Rita. “There'll be guards on the roof but definitely less than we'd find in the building.”

“An' no matter what way we look at it, we're still goin' to have to climb somethin',” Mickey said. “I doubt the Zeppelin is sittin' on top of the buildin' just waitin' for us. We could fight our way in? Although I don't much fancy our odds.”

“I don't doubt Mrs Smith can hold her own but I'd prefer not to risk it,” Jack agreed. “Our best bet is up the side of the wall. If you go first, you can take care of any guards up there and we'll come up behind you: Mrs Smith first so I can guide her, and then I'll make my way up.”

A muscle in Mickey's jaw flickered.

“You'd be climbin' about five minutes on knees that you can't even stand on for five seconds,” he said, Jack glancing away at the reminder. “I can carry the wheelchair up with me, use it as a weapon if I have to, but if you let go –”

“I won't let go.” Jack reached out to curl his fingers around Mickey's wrist. “Hey. I might be the weakest wolf right now but I can do this. Before the Agency caught up with me, I was teaching Zoe how to climb a rope without using her feet to propel her – upper body strength only. If she can do it with her chicken arms, I can do it with my jelly legs.”

Mickey snorted. “She doesn't have chicken arms.”

“Scrawny little things,” he continued. “Coat them in barbecue sauce and be done with it.”

“Stop tryin' to make me laugh.”

“Why? I like it when you laugh.”

Mickey sighed, tip of his tongue wetting his dry lips, and he crouched. Lately, with Jack in the wheelchair, Mickey spent most of his time looming over him and he didn't enjoy it, preferring when their eyes were level.

“Don't look so serious,” Jack said, touching the frown furrowed onto his brow. “You'll get wrinkles.”

“Not with the skin care you make me slather on every night,” he complained though he didn't mind the ten minutes they took together every night, side by side in Jack's bathroom that was rapidly becoming _their_ bathroom. “I'll be lookin' like this in my eighties.”

“I can't wait to see that,” Jack replied, and Mickey's stomach swooped with pleasure at the thought of them still together in their eighties. “Stop worrying about me. Please. I'll be fine. This is hardly the most difficult thing I've ever had to do.”

“It wasn't that long ago you were taken from right in front of me,” Mickey reminded him. “You came back all broken an' bleedin' with your bloody ex-husband –”

“I'm not even sure it can be called a marriage,” he said, stomach squirming with guilt. “That time loop didn't exactly have registry offices.”

“An' now we're in a parallel universe with the bloody Cybermen, your knees are fucked, an' you're tellin' me not to worry?” Mickey finished, ignoring his interruption. “If somethin' happens to you _again_ , I can't –” his throat closed up and he looked away, scowling at the edge of Rita's shoes, his not-Gran pretending she wasn't able to hear their conversation. “Please don't ask me to not worry about you. Not after everythin'.”

Jack found himself unable to meet Mickey's eyes. The relief and concern over his kidnapped and torture had – in his eyes – mercifully been overshadowed by the revelation of Zoe and the Doctor's relationship. Everyone's attention on them meant that Jack was able to let the happy facade drop a little, allowing small grimaces of pain and minute flinches at loud noises to creep through. He wasn't doing as well as he persuaded the others to believe he was, startled by shadows and the gentle shaking of the TARDIS when it passed through a current in the Time Vortex, and Mickey was the one seeing him through it.

Having Mickey see him at his most vulnerable was difficult for Jack, used to tending his hurts and his trauma by himself, that he wanted to push him away at the same time as pulling him close.

Love was, he realised, painful and revealing.

“Okay,” Jack murmured, fingers tightening around his wrist, thumb sliding to feel the thrum of his pulse. “I won't. I can do this though, and we need to take the risk anyway. We need to turn off the signal so these people have a fighting chance. And since I need to have another surgery anyway, it doesn't matter how bad I mess my knees up right now.”

“It matters to me,” he said. “You think I like seein' you in pain?”

“No, I don't,” Jack said, turning his head and kissing the inside of Mickey's wrist, eyes fluttering against the warmth of his skin as Mickey sighed, leaning closer until their heads nearly touched. “I need you to trust me when I say I can do this. Right now I'm not at my best but I can do this.”

Mickey swallowed and nodded, breath warm over Jack's knuckles.

“When this is over, let's go somewhere just the two of us.” It was an idea Jack had been turning over while in Stormcage in between his _interrogation_ sessions, promising himself that if he saw Mickey again then he would find the time for them to be together. “No Doctor, no Rose, no Zoe, just you, me, and my healing knees.”

Mickey looked up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jack's eyes swept over the faint smudges beneath Mickey's eyes, speaking of sleepless nights, and he wanted to rub his thumb over the marks until they disappeared. “I'm thinking that resort in Jamaica again. Or maybe we can try somewhere new. Zoe still has Sarah Jane's resort list. I'll get her to find it and we can choose from there.”

“I liked Jamaica,” Mickey said, remembering all the things he had wanted to do the last time with Jack – explore the waterfalls, hike in the jungle, go windsurfing – but had been too shy to ask for. “Probably like it more without the Doctor throwin' up.”

“That sun stroke was awful,” Jack said, mouth twitching with a grin. “We'll pack extra sun cream.”

“A bit of peace an' quiet does sound nice,” he said. “It's been a lot lately.”

“It has,” Jack agreed. “But before we get the sunshine and the sex –” heat climbed into Mickey's skin, his clothes feeling too tight for him. “We need to do this.”

“Okay,” he said, painfully aware that Rita was right there, silently listening. He squeezed Jack's thigh before rising to his feet, turning to face Rita, eyes not quite meeting hers. “Gran, I – you okay with the plan?”

“I'm not about to stay behind now, am I?” Her no-nonsense tone helped to ground Mickey, reminding him of what was at stake. “And you shouldn't worry about your boyfriend so much. He's a grown man. It's not becoming to fuss over an adult like you are.”

Mickey turned brick red. “ _Jesus_.”

She whacked him across the thigh with her cane.

“Don't blaspheme,” she ordered. “You might not be my grandson but you're still a Smith and I know I didn't raise you like that no matter what universe you're from.”

Jack ducked his head to smother his laugh as Mickey rubbed his thigh.

“Right,” Mickey said. “Let's get goin' then.”

Taking hold of Jack's wheelchair and placing Rita's hand in his elbow, Mickey hurried them across the open expanse, timing their movements carefully to slip in between passes of the security search light. At the base of the power station, the shadows plunged them into a bitter chill, the glass windows fogged with condensation that Mickey ducked beneath, bent over Jack's shoulder to avoid being seen as the sounds from within – the whirring, wet sounds – turned his stomach. The loose detritus crunched under the wheels of Jack's chair, and he grabbed hold of Rita by the back of her cardigan before she walked into the pass of the light, the rapid beating of his heart that only thing he was able to hear.

Up close, the building looked even higher than it had from across the road and uncertainty dripped its way through his veins. Jack was strong. He had seen ample evidence of that for months, and he knew the strength that the muscles in his arms housed as they were a source of fascination for him when they were alone in their room. It would have been embarrassing how much he fixated on Jack's arms had Jack himself not been thoroughly delighted by the attention.

“Here,” he whispered, pausing at the base of a ladder that was attached to the side of a wall. “Can you –?”

“Take my shoulders,” Rita suggested.

Her knees creaked as she crouched, ready to help, and Jack hesitantly put one arm around Rita's shoulders and rested most of his weight on Mickey's. Gritting his teeth, he breathed through the pain of transfer and didn't complain at the cold of the ground or the sharp piece of balustrade that dug into the meat of his right buttock.

“Do you work out, Mrs Smith?” Jack asked, attempting to act as though he wasn't in pain.

She snorted. “Why would I do that?”

“Endorphins,” he said. “Some people say they're better than sex but I have to do disagree there.”

Mickey groaned. “Please don't talk about sex with my gran.”

“As though you young men invented sex,” Rita scoffed. “Where d'you think you come from, eh?”

“I try not to think about it,” Mickey told her, relieved when the wheelchair snapped together. “Finally.”

Since the wheelchair had once belonged to Zoe and she was sometimes as bad as the Doctor when it came to tinkering with things, it folded neatly together in a manner that made it easier to carry. Lightweight but sturdy, it was the best wheelchair for the circumstances though Mickey wished it wasn't necessary.

“I'll call down when the coast is clear,” he said, nervous. “Come up then. If anythin' happens, yell.”

“Go,” Jack said, looking small and diminished on the cold floor with Rita standing guard over him. “We'll be fine.”

Mickey hoped that was true. Hesitating due to Rita's presence, he quickly crouched and touched Jack's jaw with his fingers, registering the surprise in his eyes before leaning in to kiss him.

Kisses with Jack tended to be long, languorous things that didn't always lead to sex for Jack was as focused at pleasure as he was at everything else in his life, his joy at taking his time slowing Mickey down and making him enjoy things he had considered only precursors to sex. Whenever he thought about it too much – the brush of Jack's fingers against the inside of his elbow, or how good it felt to have his strong fingers massage the knots from his shoulder – he felt guilty over how he had performed with Rose. At the time, he thought he was doing a good job but he now realised there was a lot lacking from his performance and part of him wanted to make that right with her even though their relationship was over.

“Stay safe,” Jack murmured against his mouth. “No heroics.”

“Not the heroic type,” Mickey said, swallowing as his thumb tracked over Jack's cheekbone. “See you soon.”

Mickey straightened and paused. Though Rita wasn't able to see what they were doing, her hearing was sharp and his mouth turned dry at the look on her face. Rather than dealing with _that_ , he turned and hitched the wheelchair over his shoulder and began his ascent of the building, only the slightest bit guilty at leaving Jack behind to make conversation with her.

On the ground, Jack tipped his head back and watched him for as long as he could before he shifted his attention to Rita, keeping his senses on their surroundings: a blind woman and temporarily legless man weren't going to be much threat to the Cybermen even with the few tricks he had up his sleeve.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked, aware that he, Mickey, and the Doctor had upended her day in a rather spectacular manner. “Today's been a lot.”

“Life is a lot,” Rita said, tightening her cardigan around her. “Today's just different.”

“Yeah,” he said, mouth twitching. “I suppose it is.”

Jack loved travelling in the TARDIS. It was wonderful and terrifying and the best thing he had ever done – meeting Rose, the Doctor, and a future version of Zoe that night in London had changed his life in ways he hadn't been able to predict – yet it was also without stability and structure. He didn't mind that as much as others might, though he knew that travelling with the Doctor was something he wasn't going to be able to do forever. At some point in the future, he wanted children. He wanted a home with a garden and a kitchen where he could bake with children who called him _dad_ and do work that was satisfying and less dangerous than his life had been so far. As such, he was aware of what their lives looked like to people outside of the TARDIS, and he sympathised with Rita's position.

Being thrown in at the deep end into the chaos of Cybermen, world domination, and parallel grandsons was challenging at the best of times.

He let his eyes linger on Rita, watching her worry about Mickey and Ricky in equal measure, and he wasn't surprised when she turned back to him.

“You and my grandson...” she began. “You love him?”

“I do, yes,” Jack said, folding his hands over his stomach. “Mickey at least. I don't know Ricky well enough.”

“Mickey, Ricky.” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “What's the difference? They're both my boys.”

“I'm glad you think so,” he said. “Because in my universe you died five years ago, and it's obvious Mickey's missed you.”

The news of her death rolled off her back even as her forehead crinkled with concern.

“What about his parents?” She asked. “Odessa? Did she –? Did she kill herself in your universe?”

Jack looked down at his fingers. “Yes.”

“My girl,” Rita breathed, sadness hitching her voice. “Oh, my baby. Couldn't get it right in any universe.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I never met her but she must've been wonderful simply because she's Mickey's mum.”

“She was such a beautiful little girl,” she said, shaking her head slowly, hand rubbing the pain from her chest. “The most perfect baby you've ever seen but her mind – it was a storm. She fought against those dark thoughts of hers ever since she was a little girl. I tried everything but nothing helped her. I hoped when Ricky was born that it might give her something to hold onto.” A tear slid down her wrinkled skin. “When a person is that sad, perhaps it's a kindness to let them go.”

Jack carefully linked his fingers together as his thoughts drifted to the Boeshane Peninsula and the soft, dry touch of his mother's hair beneath his lips as he kissed her goodbye.

“My mother's a little like that,” he admitted. “Sad. Lost in herself. Difference is she wasn't always like that.”

“I'm sorry,” Rita said, her hand reaching towards him and finding his head, arthritic fingers stroking back his hair. “You seem like a good man.”

“I try to be,” he said, quietly, leaning into her touch. “Not sure I always succeed.”

“Trying is the most important thing.” Her fingers eased a small tangle behind his ear, smoothing it flat against his scalp. “That's what my father said to me when I left Jamaica to make my way in Britain. He said to me, Rita, it doesn't matter if you fail, what matters is that you try. So you keep trying, and if you fail sometimes, you just try again, you hear me?”

Jack swallowed against the emotion in his throat, his response a rough whisper.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Good.” Her free hand wiped at her own face. “Because this other grandson of mine needs someone good and strong. I don't much understand the love between two men, but my God tells me to love as He has loved me and if it makes you both happy and fulfilled then so be it.”

Jack realised that he was never going to get another blessing from Mickey's family. With his mother and grandmother dead in their universe and a father who didn't care enough to stay and raise his son, Rita Smith in this parallel world was the closest he was going to get for approval and acceptance. He seized on it, surprised by how hungry he was for her to like him and accept his place in Mickey's life.

He opened his mouth to thank her when a low, sharp whistle sounded.

“It's clear,” Mickey hissed down to them. “You can come up.”

“Right then,” Jack said, bracing himself for the pain to come. “You go first, Mrs Smith. I'll be right behind you guiding you.”

Rita let her hand linger on his head, a gentle caress that forced him to look up. “Call me gran, dear.”

With a full heart, Jack helped place Rita's feet on the rungs, telling her the approximate distance between the steps. Rather like her driving, she was fearless and ascended the wall with a speed that made him panic until he saw she had it under control. Rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms, he cast one final glance around before dragging himself up until he had hold of the ladder and he _lifted_. The strain was nearly too much, his grip awkward, and he adjusted and heaved until he had his body positioned as best he could. It was a month or so since he had spent any considerable length of time in the gym, his session with Zoe that morning his attempt to ease back into things, and despite his words of confidence to Mickey, he wasn't positive he could make the climb.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself up.

It was easier than climbing a rope, the rungs less abrasive than rope, but he was exhausted by the time he was halfway up the side of the building with sweat rolling down his spine and turning his hands damp. At the top of the rope was Mickey and that helped him push through the pain in his arms and the screaming pain that ricocheted through his knees when they bumped against the ladder. Heaving himself over the side, twisting onto his back so as to avoid scraping his knees more than he had done, he fell back into Mickey's arms, panting.

The stars danced in the sky above him, and he wanted to throw up.

“I'm fine,” he rasped. “Just out of shape.”

“Jamaica,” Mickey reminded him. “We'll be in Jamaica this time next week.”

A low sound of longing left his throat before he was able to stop it, the sugary taste of the cocktails he favoured a welcome memory on his tongue.

Between Mickey and Rita, he managed to get himself back in his wheelchair where his eyes stopped dancing with lights and he was able to take note of the situation on the roof, pleased to note that there had only been two guards and both were unconscious. Above their limp bodies, Lumic's Zeppelin was tethered to the building with thick cables and a strong metal ladder stretching down the surface with – he was surprised to note – disabled access.

“Not lookin' a gift horse in the mouth,” Mickey said. “Meet you up there.”

The flat platform – large enough for two wheelchairs to sit comfortably side by side – moved slow enough for Jack to look out over the part of London that was visible to him.

It remained, in his eyes, a deeply unattractive city yet there was something about it that sent warmth through his heart. The familiarity of it was welcome, the source of good memories that filled him with joy, and the knowledge that the people he loved most in the universe called this city home. Yet his pleasure at the sight of it was tempered by the faint clang of Cybermen moving and the growling of engines as lorries transported more helpless people to Battersea.

“Unguarded,” Mickey said when the lift reached the top. “Guess no one thought people'd be stupid enough to break into it on a night like tonight.”

“Thankfully for us we're plenty stupid,” Jack replied. “Any sign of the transmitter controls?”

“I've no idea what they look like.”

“Neither do I,” he confessed. “Should think they'd be fairly obvious though. Check the bridge, I'll go check the back. Mrs Smith –” he caught himself. “Sorry. _Gran._ ” Mickey did a double take. “You should go with Mickey. I'll seal the door here to stop anyone getting in.”

_Gran_? Mickey mouthed at him, and Jack grinned in return.

Shaking his head, Mickey took hold of Rita's hand and hurried onto the bridge where there was a wheel that brought the mind the deck of a sailing ship. Recently polished, Mickey appreciated the touch of historical egotism that a man like Lumic would spend extra money in order to act as though he was a sailor of old. Ignoring the confirmation that rich people were weird, he searched the panels for anything that might look like transmitter controls while Jack wheeled himself into the back.

“Jesus – _fuck_!” He jerked back from a cupboard where an empty Cyber suit was hung on the wall as though a hunting trophy. “Sorry, Gran. I know I shouldn't swear.”

“You shouldn't,” she agreed, hand reaching out for a seat that she lowered herself into. Mickey's eyes dropped to her ankles that were swollen in her shoes and he hoped she had remembered to take her blood medication that morning. “I'll let it pass though.”

“Thanks,” he said, shutting the cupboard door. “You okay? You need something?”

“Don't you be fussing about me too,” Rita chastised. “There's enough to be dealing with without worrying about an old woman.”

“I'll always worry about you,” Mickey said, crossing the room to pick up the keyboard, hoping the onboard computer system had a back door into the transmitter controls.

His fingers flew across the keys, the rapid _clack-clack-clacking_ broke the silence that fell over them, and Mickey lulled himself into work, getting lost in the code.

“Do you work with computers in your universe?” Rita asked minutes later. “Is that your job?”

“No,” he said, deactivating a security alert with three swift keystrokes. “I'm a mechanic. I picked up the computer stuff after meetin' the Doctor. I wanted to know more about him an' I got into hackin' an' all that. Not that I hack into places or anythin'. I'm not committin' crimes. I _wouldn't._ I just – I know my way around computers is all.”

“Good, that's good,” she said, the strain of the door catching up with her all at once leaving her exhausted and sore. “Your mother wanted you to have a good job. I tried my best and I know I was too hard on you sometimes but it's only because I wanted you to be better than your parents were, better than I was. I imagine I was the same in your world.”

Old grief that had never healed properly opened a chasm in his chest.

“You were hard when I needed it,” Mickey said, voice rough from emotion. “I never doubted you loved me though.”

“Your Jack says I'm dead in your universe,” she continued. “Is that why you came here?”

“No, I – it was an accident comin' here,” he told her. “But then I thought that maybe you hadn't died here an' I could see you again, just once, just to tell you – to tell you –” tears filled his eyes and his speech warbled. “How much I loved you. How much I miss you. Every day, Gran, I miss you every day. An' it's my fault your gone. I didn't fix that stupid carpet on your stairs an' you fell an' it's my fault.”

“Oh, my boy.” Struggling to her sore feet, ankles twinging, she shuffled towards him and wrapped him in her arms, the edge of the keyboard pressing into her chest. Shuddering, Mickey hunched over her and and gripped her as tightly as he dared. “You're not to blame for me dying. God has a plan for me and if he planned for me to die that day then so be it. I don't want to hear any more about you blaming yourself, you hear me? I didn't raise a stupid boy in any universe, okay?”

“But –”

“Don't make me beat you,” Rita warned him, and he laughed against his will. “It's not becoming for a woman my age to have to whoop her grown grandson, so do as you're told and stop blaming yourself.”

“I –” unable to promise her exactly that, fearful that it was something he would break, he lifted his head from the top of hers and sniffed. “I'll try.”

“That's all I ask,” she said, reaching up with careful, fumbling hands to wipe his tears away with her thumbs. “It must be hard for you being alone. You need to find your people and hold onto them. Make yourself a family.”

“I have,” Mickey said, thinking of the others. “I've got them.”

“Then don't let them go,” Rita told him. “Family's not always blood, sometimes it's about kinship. Don't be afraid to tell them how you feel. Make sure they know you care.”

From the back of the Zeppelin, there was a loud clatter as Jack made his way towards them, creating enough noise in order to make sure they heard him and give them time to wipe the tears from their faces. Mickey pulled back from Rita and turned back to his work so that by the time Jack returned, his wheels making soft noises across the carpet, he had bypassed various security layers and accessed the security feed inside the factory. Jack tucked the back of his leg in greeting, eyes fixed to the computer screen that showed grainy images of people waiting in line for their deaths.

“We should never have let Pete and Jake go into that,” Jack said, concerned. “They're not going to make it out.”

“They will,” Mickey said, though his confidence waned as he looked over the conversion chambers and the vats of flesh and bone that were discarded. “They have to. Any luck with the transmitters?”

He shook his head. “No. I'm thinking that maybe they're remotely operated instead, which will be annoying if they are because it means I climbed the building for nothing, but have a look in the system and see if you can find something. I'll keep looking around here.”

“Be careful of the Cyberman in the cupboard.”

“The Cyberman in the what now?”

“It's empty but it gave me a bloody scare,” he said. “Think it's just Lumic bein' a rich idiot.”

“Money doesn't buy common sense then,” Jack noted, wheeling away.

Rita huffed a laugh. “Oh, honey, we all know that.”

* * *

Pete dropped to a crouch behind a parked lorry and peered around the side. Lines of people walked into the factories, their bodies moving as though strings were pulling them along, reminding him of his Aunt Patricia who used to make wooden puppets sitting at her kitchen table. Smoke curling up from where her cigarette rested in the ashtray on the scratched surface, her nicotine-stained fingers deftly threading silver wire through their joints, the marionettes jerked across the table. Having not thought of her in years, she filled his mind as he stared at the men and women making their way into the factory.

“There's too many of them,” he whispered to Jake at his side who had a small frown on his forehead, ear pods rattling quietly as he turned them over in his palm, scanning the perimeter for a discreet way in. “Finding Jackie's going to be difficult.”

“She's not the only reason we're here,” Jake reminded him. “We're looking for Ricky too.”

Unable to express how little he cared about Ricky, his heart and mind filled with worry only for Jackie, he kept his mouth shut. If saving Jackie meant leaving both Ricky and Jake behind then he would do it without question. Though things were objectively awful between them, their marriage in tatters, she was the love of his life. From the moment he had met her in the cluttered salon that reeked of hairspray and dye, he was mad for her and everything he had done in life was to make things better for her. The fact that she didn't understand that stung, her insistence on clinging to old wounds infuriating, but she was his wife and he would let all of London burn before letting anything happen to her.

“Here, put these in.” Jake dropped two ear pods into his palm. “And don't show any emotion. We're fucked if you do.”

Pete grunted, not enjoying being lectured by a man who looked to be half his age. Hooking the ear pods in, he grimaced at the weight of them.

Waiting for the perfect moment before rushing out from behind them lorry falling into line with the tail end of a group, lights blinking on their ear pods, Pete swiftly arranged the features of his face. Heart hammering and fear turning his hands clammy, he carefully positioned his arms at his side.

When he sold Vitex to Cybus Industries, he should have taken the money and Jackie and moved to an island where neither of them could be hurt by one man's avarice. Regret filling him, he focused on the factory that loomed high and foreboding in front of them. Set against the clear night's sky, halogen lights shining down on them and nearly blinding them them with their brightness, Pete swallowed.

From a tannoy placed on the outside of the building above the door, a Cyberman's voice spoke:

“ _Units upgraded now six thousand five hundred. Repeat. Six thousand five hundred and rising_.”

The last time Pete had felt so nervous he was waiting for Jackie to come home the night after he had taken her saved money and invested it in Vitex. She had been so angry, the fury rolling off her in waves, and he had braced himself for a smack only to hear the door open and close instead. Her silence and complete lack of reaction was worse than anything he had expected. He had known she wouldn't be happy about it though he had thought she would at least come around, not knowing she would hold onto that one incident for nearly two decades, letting it spread a rot through the foundations of their marriage.

When he saw Jackie again, he was going to apologise. Properly, this time, with no hedging or explanations. He knew that it wasn't the money she was upset about; it was the fact he had taken the choice from her and made her dreams second to his, and he wanted to make things right between them.

A large metallic hand appeared in front of his face, and his heart jack rabbited in his chest.

  
“You will wait,” it ordered.

“Jesus,” Pete muttered as it stepped away from them. In front of him, Jake's shoulders were lined with tension. “You okay?”

Jake's head twitched. “What do you think?”

“ _Chamber six now open for human upgrading. All reject stock will be incinerated_.”

Ten long minutes they spent standing in the sharp, biting cold, unable to show discomfort or fear as Cyber units marched past them. Pete kept his eyes open, focused on the back of Jake's blond head, and thought of the things he was going to say to Jackie, the promises he was going to make and actually keep. He sketched their future in his mind, one where she had what she wanted – what she actually wanted and not what he thought she did – and he held onto it as the Cybermen passed so close to him that he smelt their freshly soldered armour.

Other groups joined them, brought in from all over London though the absence of children sent a shiver running down his spine.

He thought of his family in Rochester that he hadn't spoken to in years, not since his father had published a tell-all book about his childhood and how his son was hoarding his wealth, conveniently leaving out the houses Pete had bought for him, the debts he had paid off, the savings account he had set up. Even after all that though, he hoped they were safe. As he hoped Jackie's family were, including Caroline who had never liked him and let that distaste tear asunder her relationship with her little sister. Yet, if it made Jackie happy, he would put aside the fact that he thought Caroline was a boring shrew and welcome her into their home and their family again if it meant Jackie stayed with him.

“Proceed,” a Cyberman ordered.

Pete barely controlled the flinch that rolled through him and stepped forward.

Inside the power station, everything had been changed. Hollowed out and remade, huge cylindrical containers were spaced at equidistant intervals, echoing reverberations of whirring blades and the gush of blood onto the ground created a terrifying cacophony.

Pete's eyes slid to the side, risking a glance inside one as he passed, and bile rushed up his throat with a speed that made panic run through him. He snapped his eyes away from the sight of an elderly woman splayed open on the table, chest cracked open and Cybermen working at integrating technological upgrades into her cavity. The sight of blood and torn flesh forced him into an awareness of the smells around him: hot blood, burning metal, and excrement as bowels vacated themselves both in and out of the conversion chambers. It seared itself into his memory and the urge to run pulsed through him, only the thought of Jackie keeping him where he was.

“I can't see Ricky,” Jake murmured from the side of his mouth. “Dammit, I'm too short and there's too many people here. Can you see him?”

“I can't see anyone,” Pete complained, the collar of his shirt too tight. He wanted to slip his fingers beneath it and loosen it. “Do you see Jac –?”

“You are Peter Tyler.”

Jake's entire body flinched at the suddenness of a Cyberman striding towards them, identifying Pete by name. Pete caught his yelp of surprise at the last moment – a small _meep_ his sole concession to the fright that beat a violet tattoo against his ribcage. His eyes snapped forward, mouth drying out, and watched as it approached them, the heavy, hissing _stomps_ not doing anything for his state of calm.

“Confirm you are Peter Tyler.”

Uncertain what to do, he kept his eyes locked on the blank, metal face in front of him.

“Confirmed,” he said once he had control of his wits again.

“I recognise you,” it said, sending confusion through Pete that last for a split second before the blow that changed his world was dealt. “I went first. My name was Jacqueline Tyler.”

“ _Oi, love, shut the door, yeah?”_

_Pete looked up from his box of paper cranes, trying to work out how much money he had lost on them because of the unexpected storm that had rolled in. The salon was busy, filled with the sort of women his mother was – loud, brash, and full of heart – and the copious amounts of hairspray in the air made him sneeze once, twice, and then a final, third time. Laughter rang out like bells, and he followed the sound to a young woman standing at one of the chairs, her bright blonde hair that he would later learn was fake was thick and curly about her face, pink lipstick neatly matching the bright colour of her leopard print leggings._

“ _Poor man,” she laughed, her hands deftly working on the hair in front of her. “You look soaked through. Didn't think to bring an umbrella, did you?”_

“ _I – er – the rain took me by surprise,” he said, fumbling over his words. “Didn't know there was a storm.”_

_White teeth flashed at him as she grinned. “Think you should've checked the weather this mornin', yeah?”_

“ _Probably would've been a good idea,” Pete agreed, dizzy from her smile. “Mind if I stay in here for a bit? Least until it dies down?”_

_Her slim shoulders lifted in a shrug, eyes flicking over him with an interest that sent blood rushing to his cheeks._

“ _Don't see why not,” she said, taking pity on him. “Might even get you a cup of tea if you behave.”_

_A smile spread across his face. “My kind of woman.”_

Pete stared at the Cyberman, mouth falling open as his lungs compressed in on themselves, cutting off his oxygen supply. Shock reverberated through him and chased out everything else on his mind. He gasped for breath as his face crumpled, blowing his flimsy cover.

“ _No_!” The shout bounced off the Cyberman that claimed to be Jackie and drew the attention of other individual units. “No, you're lying!”

The Cyberman stared at him. “He is unprogrammed. Restrain him.”

“Jesus,” Jake hissed, ripping a gun out of his belt and pointing it at the Cyberman. “Ricky Smith, where the hell is he?”

“You're lying,” Pete spat, heart shattering in his chest even as he knew it wasn't lying. There was no need for it too. The only explanation was that there was something left of Jackie inside of it, something that drew her to him. “You're not her, you're not my Jackie. What have you done to her? What have you done to her, you monster?”

“Pete,” Jake called out a warning, firing off a bullet that went wide and buried itself in the calf of a man who walked straight into a conversion chamber without realising he was shot. “Behind you!”

Heavy hands filled with strength grabbed hold of him and twisted his arms behind his back, restraining him yet also keeping him upright, the strength leaving his knees.

“I am Cyber-form,” the Cyberman said. Pete raised his agonised eyes to it, trying to imagine what Jackie looked like under the metal. “Once I was Jacqueline Tyler, now I am better.”

“Jacks.” The name twisted painfully on his tongue, grief clinging to it, his body lax in the hands of his captors. “I came to save you. I came to save you. _Please_...let me save you.”

“This man worked with Cybus Industries to create our species,” the Cyberman said, unmoved by his emotions. “He will be rewarded by force. Take him to Cyber Control.”

“No, Jackie, _no_!”

“Pete!”

Jake fired another shot, straight into the eye socket of the Cyberman that was attempting to restrain him. There was a moment of pure shock when the creature dropped, hands rising to its face as it writhed in pain, a modulated scream hurting Pete's ears. Jake froze, taken aback at his success, and Pete wrenched himself free and lunged at him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him away.

“Come on, run!”

Pelting through the crowd of people and Cybermen, they threw themselves deeper into the power station as an alert blared over head. Pete kept one eye on Jake, trusting him to keep up and wound his way around the conversion chambers, barrelling through lines of people, knocking them flat. He knew the layout of Battersea intimately, hours spent pouring over the schematics as he wondered the best way to get to Lumic's offices to implant listening devices without being noticed, unable to go through with his plan when internal security proved too complicated. He twisted sharply to avoid outstretched Cyber arms, his foot slipping in a river of blood, and he hit the ground _hard_ but Jake was there yanking him back up, tearing the sleeve of his jacket and pushing him forwards.

“We're fucking _fucked_ ,” Jake yelled, pale cheeks flushed. “You got a way out of here?”

“No,” he shouted back. “But I think –”

“RICKY!”

“Jake, no!”

Pete caught a glimpse of Jake as he disappeared into a conversion chamber, gun raised, and he had a moment to decide whether to follow him or to find a way out. Before his mind fully caught up to what he was doing, he had plunged into the crowd after Jake and slammed into the body of a Cyberman, knocking the air from his lungs and bruising the front of his body. From the corner of his eyes that were dancing with light, he saw Jake wrestling with another Cyberman, face set in a pained grimace as he struggled to keep the Cyber hands up and off his body, muscles straining as he held the wrists at bay. Pete grabbed the dropped gun and threw himself into the mix, jamming the barrel into the eye socket and letting loose a bullet.

That horrible scream sounded worse when it echoed around the conversion chamber.

“Thanks,” Jake panted, stumbling back to where Ricky lay on the table, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling, somehow unharmed. “Jesus, Ricky. Mate, can you hear me?”

“Course he can't hear you,” Pete said, hand at his side where a knotted stitch had formed. “His mind's fucking hijacked.”

Jake's hands fluttered over his body uselessly. “What the hell do we do?”

“Can you carry him?” Pete demanded, twisting on his blood-slicked heels until his back was to the two men, eyeing the crowded entrance. The only advantage they had was that only two Cybermen were able to enter at one time, which meant bottlenecking the way in was an option though he wasn't entirely sure how yet. “Jake, for fuck's sake, can you carry him?”

“I...” Jake looked down at Ricky, aware of how heavy he was from late nights dragging him to bed after having spent the evening in the pub. His throat worked with a swallow, thinking of Mickey and how fierce he had been when he swore he would carry Jack if he had to. He nodded. “Yeah, yeah I can.”

“Then get him up because we've got to move,” Pete ordered. “On three. Three – two – one!”

* * *

“Mr Crane, kill her.”

As the shadows moved, Zoe threw herself out of the way and vaulted over a bank of computers, dropping to the other side as a bullet glanced off the wall. She hit the ground on her hands and knees and swore violently under her breath as her phone skittered across the floor. Lunging for it, she made her way around the computers and moved through the heavy cables as Lumic's wet laugh sounded throughout the room. The urge to punch him sent an ache through her knuckles, believing no one deserved it more, and she sneezed as the dust got into her nose, a cobweb attaching itself to her face.

“Hiding?” Lumic taunted her. “Come out and face death with the courage you command of me, you hypocrite.”

“I've no plans to die today,” she shot back, realising that she had trapped herself behind the computers as the door remained blocked by a Cyberman. “I'm annoying like that.”

“Would you prefer an upgrade?”

_Humour_ , she thought sourly, _just what I need_.

“No, thank you,” she called back, tapping her phone and wondering if the Doctor might come to her rescue in the TARDIS. The text messages she swiped past told her otherwise, and she winced, frustrated at herself for getting into the situation in the first place. Needing to keep her mouth shut should have gone on her resolutions list at the beginning of the year. “Actually, now that I think about it – _ah_!”

Mr Crane surprised her by leaning over the top of the computers and grabbing her by her hair. He yanked her up onto her feet, forcing her to scramble for her footing. Lashing out with her phone, she cracked him across the temple. Instead of releasing her as she hoped, his grip tightened and he dragged her over the top of the computers, far stronger than he looked, and if she died after being manhandled by Lumic's goon, she would be mortified. Bracing the soles of her feet against the consoles, she pushed back with all the strength she was able to muster and toppled them over to the floor, Thomas's blood smearing across her arms and legs, and she twisted.

“You little cunt!”

“You rude _fuck_!”

Zoe sank her teeth into the thick forearm that wrapped itself around her shoulders, pulling her over Thomas's body in an attempt to strangle her. He gritted his teeth and attempted to dislodge her. Curling her hand into a fist, she slammed it back and missed his groin, her knuckles pressing painfully into his inner thigh as she slammed her head back, succeeding in loosening his grip. She staggered to her feet and slipped in Thomas's blood, kicking her foot out only to miss Crane's head, giving him to opportunity to knock her legs out from beneath her.

“Do you know how much this coat cost?” Crane demanded, vein throbbing in his temple as his hand wrapped around her ankles and _yanked_ her through the blood. “I'm going to have to get it dry cleaned!”

“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo!” Her arms came up to protect her chest and neck, a garrotte flashing in the light. “And it looks like bloody lamb's wool, you pretentious git. Don't dry clean it, just turn it inside out and soak it in warm water, for fuck's sake. It's not hard.”

“It's got blood on it now,” he snapped, kneeling over her, weight resting on her stomach and she felt herself becoming short of breath. “Going to have more when I'm finished with you.”

“Fuck – you.”

Pulling her arms back, she latched onto Crane's face and remembered her Krav Maga lessons that boiled down to _go for the soft bits_. Digging her thumbs into his eyes, she felt the sharp, choking edge of the garrotte pull back to wrap around her wrist instead, slicing into her skin. Pain lanced through her and hot blood trickled from the deepening cut as Crane roared in pain, fingers twitching on the wire before he dropped it completely to claw her hands from his face.

Eyeballs, it turned out, were harder than she had thought they were.

Unwilling to actually blind the man, Zoe shoved him off her and grabbed his head between her hands, slamming it into the ground until he fell unconscious, the violence of the act making her whole body shake as she collapsed back, dragging in rough gasps of air.

Lumic watched her from his seat above her like a Roman caesar watching a gladiator battle. She snarled at him and tried to right herself as his hands tightened on his chair, rheumy eyes darting to the Cyberman. “Kill her!”

With a pained groan, she swung herself around onto her knees and stretched her fractured up in front of her, bloodied hand splayed out.

“Wait!”

It kept moving.

“ _Wait_!” Her brain hurt as she tried to think of a way out of the mess her big mouth had created. “You don't want to kill me. I'm good stock. You said it yourself once. Well, not you, but the original you, if you know what I mean. You're going to want to upgrade me. You think the humans here are good? Just you wait until you get a load of my brain. I'm from another bloody universe! Think about the things I can teach you. Things you can use to improve your existing design!”

The Cyberman stopped.

Zoe didn't dare breathe.

“What are you doing?” Lumic demanded. “Kill her!”

“I lived in the 32nd century for four years,” she continued swiftly, pointing to her phone that was lying in the pool of Thomas's blood. “That phone right there? 32nd century tech. You won't find anything like it here. And there's more of that right up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “If you kill me though, you'll never get it.”

“Kill – her!”

Zoe slid her eyes towards Lumic. “Sorry, old man. Better tech beats your order any day of the week. I told you the Cybermen are always upgrading.”

He hissed, spittle foaming in the corners of his mouth. “It doesn't matter. Upgraded or dead, I won't have to hear from you again.”

“You're right,” she said, hands held in the air as she looked up at the Cyberman. “One quick question though – when are you going to upgrade Lumic? He's your creator. He deserves the best, doesn't he?”

“The Lumic unit is not scheduled for an upgrade,” the Cyberman informed her. “His upgrade will only commence when the Lumic unit is damaged.”

Zoe clucked her tongue and used the last burst of energy in her body to dive through the Cyberman's legs and grab hold of Crane's fallen gun. Rolling onto her back, her stomach muscles aching as she sat up and aimed the gun at Lumic. Panic flared across his face and there was a small part of her that thought about twitching the gun a little higher and to the right, getting him into her sights properly, but she pressed the trigger and shot a hole through the oxygen tank. Plumes of pure oxygen streamed into the room before it exploded, Lumic thrown from his chair as wires ripped from his body as his life support system failed.

“Oh no,” Zoe said, sarcasm dripping from her. “The Lumic unit is damaged. Whatever's going to happen next?”

Lumic scrambled against the ground, his body fragile and weak. She watched him and was reminded of Cassandra in her dying breaths, pity flaring through her for the pathetic creature responsible for the night's chaos and death, before she turned from it. The Cyberman's attention effectively diverted, Zoe got to her feet and staggered from the room with Lumic's cries echoing in her ears.

_Not my universe, not my universe, not my universe_ she repeated to herself, hot tears of shame blurring her vision.

Sprinting out of the door, her shoes squelched as she fled into the corridor, not sure where she was heading but knowing that she needed to get as far away from Lumic as possible. Her options were either up or down and since the stairs were swiftly blocked by Cybermen marching down them, she kicked open a door that had a _danger: electricity_ sign on it and plunged into the darkness.

Mouth slicked with bile and fear, she forced her way into an ice-cold tunnel with transport tracks on the ground, the silence blissful after the last few hours. Her fingers twitched for her phone that remained behind in Thomas's blood and the idiocy of not only leaving her 32nd century phone behind but also telling the Cyberman what it was hit her until she had to pause, hands braced against the side of the tunnel, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Zoe spat. “Why are you so fucking stupid?”

She wanted the Doctor.

She didn't know where he was or what he was doing but she wanted him at her side to help her fix the stupid mistakes she had made at every stage of the day since first deciding to go with Rose right up to telling the Cybermen all about her inter-universal travel.

“C'mon, stop it,” she told herself, pushing away from the wall and wiping the tears from her face, spreading blood across her skin. Balling up the sleeve of Thomas's jacket, she scrubbed at her face. “You're not a baby so stop crying like one. Come on, you can do it. Get out of here, find the others, then fix all the problems. That's only three things. C'mon, Zo. Move.”

Forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, she walked deeper into the tunnel, tugging her jacket tighter around her. Down, down, down into the darkness she went, finding her way along with the emergency strip lighting, the cold worsening the deeper she went.

She walked along the empty transport tunnel for twenty minutes before she turned off at section 4A-F, not sure where she was and needing to check the upper levels. The tunnel had to lead somewhere but she was afraid it would come out under a Cyberman storage room or something equally as sinister, and she was beginning to feel claustrophobic in the dark with only her thoughts to keep her company. Not even thinking of the safety of the TARDIS and how good it would feel to curl up with the Doctor when she got home, his hearts beating beneath her ear, his fingers tracing patterns on her skin, was enough to keep the panic from building under her skin.

Passing through the door and fumbling for the steps, squinting through the darkness, a sudden burst of noise froze her in place. Heart leaping into her throat at the sound of something heavy and metal clattering across the ground, she gripped the cold handrail to keep herself upright as –

“Get up, quick, they're coming!” Welsh tones bounced off the walls and the realisation that there were _humans_ in the tunnel had Zoe shuddering with relief. “Come on! Take my hand, quickly!”

“Doctor, come on!”

Zoe's breath fled her. She recognised that voice.

“Rose,” she breathed, racing up the stairs. “Rose!”

“Quick, shut it!”

_That_ was the Doctor.

She took the last four steps two at a time and burst through the door where the sight of Rose, the Doctor, and a woman she didn't know sprawled over the ground, breathing heavily.

“Zoe!”

Her vision narrowed down to the Doctor. Though it had been less than half a day since she last saw him, her eyes drank in the sight of him. His hair looked as though it had been electrified and his trousers were caked in mud; she thought he had never looked more perfect and, as he sat up, she flung herself at him. His arms came up to catch her, a small _oof_ pushed from his body on impact, and she wrapped herself around him, pressing her face into his neck. The spicy cologne he had carried over from his previous body due to how much she liked it greeted her, layered over the smell of his soap – a bland, somewhat medicinal brand that occasionally made her nose twitch when he lathered up too strongly.

_Home_ , she thought.

“You're okay.” His body shuddered beneath hers, arms coming around hers, one hand on the back of his head as he turned his face, nose digging into her cheek. “You're okay. Thank Rassilon, you're okay.”

Zoe pulled back, giving herself enough space to lean in and kiss him. Her desperation made her clumsy, their teeth knocking together as her fingers tightened their grip on his back, bunching his jacket up, before he took hold of her and kissed her properly. His lips were dry and a little chapped from the wind, carrying a faint taste of tea on the tip of his tongue that she chased before her need for oxygen forced her to release him, forehead pressed against his.

“You're covered in mud,” Zoe murmured.

“You're covered in blood,” the Doctor said.

“Not mine.” Relief eased the creases of concern around his eyes. “There are Cybermen.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, running a hand down the length of her back before his eyes went wide and he shoved her from his lap.

Zoe skidded across the floor until the wall stopped her progress as someone screamed a warning and Rose threw herself into Mrs Moore, tackling her to the ground: A Cyberman lunged out of the dark, death missing Mrs Moore by an inch. Zoe raised her head, tired of being thrown around, and scrambled to her feet. Attached to the wall was a fire extinguisher and, as the Doctor ducked beneath outstretched arms and tripped over his feet, she wrenched it from the wall. Aiming the nozzle at the Cybermen, she unleashed the icy foam onto its body.

“It didn't work,” she complained when the mist clear and it stepped forward, foam dripping from its handles. “That's not fair. It worked last time on Reinette's androids.”

“Different mechanics,” the Doctor yelped, pushing himself back like a crab scuttling across the ground. “This is half organic!”

Wielding the fire extinguisher, she hurled it at the Cyberman and succeeding in knocking it back a step and that was all Mrs Moore needed to reach into her bag and remove a hand-sized metal cylinder wrapped in bronze wire. Stepping around Rose who remained on the floor, she threw it at the Cyberman's back and they watched as electricity raced across its body before it dropped, face first, between the Doctor's legs.

His eyes went wide as he stared down at it.

“That could've been painful,” he said.

Zoe hurried towards the Doctor and helped him up. “What the hell was that?”

“Electromagnetic bomb,” Mrs Moore said. “My own creation. When we realised Lumic was creating something artificial, I thought it might help.”

She swallowed, hand gripping the Doctor's tightly. “It did. A lot.”

“Zo!” Rose picked herself up and slammed into Zoe, who rocked back into the Doctor, his chest a supportive wall. “Thank god you're okay! I've been worried sick about you! Why'd you have to go an' run your mouth off like that? Why couldn't you have just stayed quiet? What happened? Are you okay?”

Zoe flexed her arms around her sister and hugged her tighter. “I'm fine. The president's not, he's dead, but I'm fine _-ish._ Pretty sure I'm going to need to speak with Yatta when all this is done _._ What the hell are you doing here though? You were supposed to go back to the TARDIS not get in the middle of all this.”

“When would I ever do that when you're in danger?” Rose demanded. “Don't be stupid, it doesn't suit you.”

“Don't be mean to me,” Zoe complained. “It's been a really difficult couple of hours. Lumic is fucking insane and not the fun crazy either. He's properly mad and so dangerous. We need to get out of here now. He's being upgraded and I don't want to think what Lumic as a Cyberman'll be like.”

“He's upgrading?” Mrs Moore asked. “He chose to do that?”

“Kind of,” she said, hedging around the truth in a manner that both the Doctor and Rose noticed and left uncommented upon. “He's dying anyway. He's going to be dead in a couple of days with whatever he's sick with. This is a man with nothing to lose. He doesn't care any more and he doesn't think anyone can stop him. He had the president executed right in front of me. That's who we're dealing with, so can we please go?”

“We can't,” the Doctor said, apologetically, thumb rubbing a soothing circle on her hip beneath her jacket, pressing against her hipbone to let her know he was there. “I'm sorry, love, I am, but Jack and Mickey are working on shutting down the transmitter that controls the Cybermen, at least the London-based ones, and we need to buy them as much time as we can. We don't want Lumic shutting them out.”

“Best thing to do would be to blow everything up,” Zoe told him. “It'd be kinder.”

“Maybe,” he said, sliding his arm around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. “But I need to give him a chance first.”

Her throat moved. “You'll wasting your time.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “But I need to do it anyway.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, eyes skimming over Rose who was actively not watching them – evidently not comfortable enough with displays of affection yet – and onto Mrs Moore. “Hello, I'm being rude. Zoe, this is Mrs Moore, she's with a group of people who've been working to take down Lumic for years. Came across each other when they kidnapped Mickey and she tasered me. Mrs Moore, Zoe Tyler.”

Zoe frowned, hand half extended for a handshake. “You tasered him?”

“He was in the way,” Mrs Moore said, pleasantly.

“And kidnapped Mickey?”

“Case of mistaken identity, it turned out,” she replied with an easy grin that made Zoe reach out the rest of the way, shaking her her hand. “Lovely to meet you. I've heard a surprising amount about you in a short space of time from tall and skinny here.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Zoe said, remembering her manners. “But we should get out of this corridor. This place is crawling with Cybermen and I don't plan on being converted today.”

“Good point,” the Doctor said. “Rose, how you doing?”

“Just fine,” Rose said. “Bit cold, but fine.”

“That's the spirit.” His stomach rumbled and he slapped a hand to it. Zoe looked back at him, eyebrows raised. “Sorry. Like I said, I'm hungry.”

“I could go for a something to eat right now,” Zoe admitted.

“I'm dying for a hot dog,” he said

Her eyes lit up. “With extra jalapeños, _yes_.”

“Is this normal for the you lot?” Mrs Moore asked. “Saving the world and discussing what's for dinner?”

They looked at each other.

“Kind of,” Zoe said.

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed.

“All the time,” Rose said.

Mrs Moore rolled her eyes, reluctantly amused. “Well, if you can stop thinking about food for a moment, we still need to find a way to get to Lumic's main control centre.”

“I can get us there,” Zoe offered, reluctant to head back but unwilling to let the Doctor or Rose out of her sight. “I've just come from there. We can retrace my steps.”

“What about that?” Rose asked, nodding at the felled Cyberman. “Is it dead?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the Doctor said, releasing Zoe with a small squeeze and slipping his glasses on. “Let's have a little look-see: Know your enemy and all that.” He crouched down and touched the symbol on the front while Zoe drifted to Rose, their arms linked together. “Look at this, a logo. Honestly, as though things weren't awful enough, Lumic's turned them into a brand. Heart of steel, casing of capitalism.”

He clucked his tongue disapprovingly and ran his fingers around the edge of the logo. Slipping his fingernails beneath the small indent, he removed the embossed Lumic mark and opened the casing beneath it. Among the electronics that connected the organic to the inorganic were wet strands of pale flesh and nerves. Gently, he dug his fingers into the mass of organic material and scooped some up to show them. Rose made a small sound of disgust while Mrs Moore looked down at the pale mass, her face torn between disgust, horror, and fascination.

“Don't you _dare_ lick it,” Zoe warned. “I'm not kissing you if you lick it.”

“I'm not going to lick it,” he said, defensively, even though that had been his first instinct. “Why would I lick it?”

“We've seen you lick stranger things,” Rose pointed out.

“And please be careful,” Zoe urged, hating the thought of him poking around inside the chest of a Cyberman. “Don't break anything.”

“I won't break anything,” the Doctor assured her though he proceeded with more care than he might otherwise have done, the pale, tight look on Zoe's face let him know she was terrified, a sight he didn't normally see on her. “Look at this though. It's the central nervous system. Artificially grown then threaded throughout the suit so that it responds like a living thing. Well, it's already a living thing but you know what I mean.” He set the nerves back down and wiped his hand on his thigh, smearing mud further into his trousers. “But look at this here. I thought they'd have this.” Gently scraping the nervous system away with his little finger, careful not to touch the inhibitor directly, he gestured at it. “An emotional inhibitor. It stops them from feeling anything.”

Mrs Moore frowned, creeping forward until she was crouching next to the Doctor. “Why?”

“It's still got a human brain,” the Doctor told her. “Just imagine its reaction if it could see itself and realise what it's become. They'd go insane from the truth.”

“So they cut out the one thing that makes them human,” she said, hard and disgusted. “That's horrific.”

“They have to,” he said, quietly. “The alternative is so much crueller than this.”

“Is there nothin' we can do?” Rose asked.

“There's one thing,” the Doctor said. He took his sonic screwdriver and placed it carefully inside the chest cavity, the tip glowing blue as he shut down the systems and flooded the organic matter with a large dose of epinephrin to ease the poor creature into death. “There. No more pain now. They're at rest.”

Zoe stared at the fallen Cyberman.

“I have an idea,” she said.

The Doctor looked up at her. “Yeah?”

“It's a bit awful though.”

“Let's hear it anyway,” he said.

“If Jack and Mickey can't turn the transmitter off, why don't we turn the emotional inhibitors off?” Zoe asked. “Lumic's only able to control the Cybermen because they're mindless drones at the moment. If we can return their humanity to them, we'll throw the proverbial spanner in the works.”

He rubbed his mouth. “I was thinking the same thing. I don't like it but it'll give people here a fighting chance.”

“But what'll happen then?” Rose asked. “Everyone realise what they are, what'll happen to them? They're just – I don't know – _stuck_ in their armour?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No. I think it'd kill them. When they come to understand what's happened to them, their minds won't be able to handle it and it'll overload the biomechanical implants that fuse the technology and organics together.”

“What choice do we have?” Mrs Moore asked, running her hand beneath her damp eyes. “If we leave them as they are, they'll kill everyone else, right?”

He nodded. “Right.”

“If that was me, I wouldn't want this,” she said. “I'd want it to be over. Even if it hurt, I wouldn't want _this_.”

An echo of Cyber steps came towards them, distant at first though they soon grew louder, and Zoe slipped from Rose's loose arm around her waist to offer her bloodied hand to the Doctor. A frown rippled across his forehead as he took in the angry cut around her wrist, eyes turning to her questioningly.

“Later,” she said. “Right now, we need to end this.”

“I don't like this,” the Doctor said, slipping his hand into hers and tugging her close to his side. “But let's go.”


	41. Chapter 41

Predictably, everything went to hell.

As a fuse box exploded by his head, the Doctor twisted out of the way of a Cyberman that reached for him and grabbed hold of the nearest body. Mrs Moore yelped at the sudden added weight of a Time Lord on her shoulders, nearly dragged her down to the ground, her arms pinwheeling in an effort to keep her balance. His foot slipped from beneath him, knee buckling, and he was contemplating exactly how painful falling headfirst down a flight of stone stairs was going to be when Rose caught hold of him by the collar and yanked him back up, temporarily cutting his oxygen supply off. Releasing him, she pushed him out of the way of another Cyberman – they were emerging from every single nook and cranny the corridor had, which was far more than the Doctor thought structurally sound – and he turned to catch a glimpse of Zoe as smoke billowed down the hall in thick, rolling plumes.

“CRANE!” She disappeared into the smoke without a backwards glance. “You _murderer_ , get back –”

“Son of a bitch,” he swore, ducking under outstretched arms and reappearing next to Mrs Moore who was flushed and wide eyed. “I guess Jack and Mickey knocked out the transmitter controls.”

“You think?” She replied, breathless. “Could be they just don't like you.”

“Also a possibility,” the Doctor agreed and braced his back against the wall in order to plant his foot against the chest of a Cyberman and kicked it back, the loud clatter it made as it fell head over heels down the stairwell was satisfying. “Unlikely though. This lot don't know me.”

Rose surged from the shadows with a war cry and slammed the fire extinguisher in her hands against a Cyberman's head. The Doctor looked on, filled with pride; Rose had a wonderful affinity with fire extinguishers that always proved useful no matter the situation. He watched as she hit the Cyberman again and again and again around the head before it stumbled back and staggered down the stairs, its crashing tumble signifying that it was down and out for the count, at least for a little bit. Rose dropped the makeshift weapon by her feet and wiped the sweat from her forehead, cheeks flushed.

“Our plans always suck,” she complained. “Every time we plan it – where's Zoe?” Her entire body twisted in an effort to lay eyes on her sister, the sudden realisation that she wasn't there distracting her. “Where the fuck is Zoe?”

The Doctor pointed towards the thick smoke that was filling the room, casting them in a hazy, grey film.

“That way,” he said. “I'm going after her. You two get out of here and do what you can to help the unconverted.”

“We're not leavin' without you,” Rose argued. “There are bloody Cybermen everywhere.”

“Yeah, I know, and Zoe's chosen this time to go all Rambo on them,” the Doctor told her. “I can't deal with that and keep you two safe at the same time. Go, do what you do best, and we'll meet back up at the TARDIS. Or sooner. Hopefully sooner, but you need to go.”

“Goddammit.” Rose stomped her feet and dragged him into a quick hug. His arms wrapped around her with a fierceness that took them both by surprise, lifting her from her feet in his quick farewell. When she touched the ground again, she curled her fingers into fists against his shoulders. “Be careful. Don't you dare die. An' bring my sister back with you.”

“Cross my hearts,” the Doctor promised, kissing her forehead swiftly before pushing her towards Mrs Moore, to whom he gave a reassuring nod. “Now go, and for Rassilon's sake be careful!”

Pivoting on his heels, he took off after Zoe.

A fire had been set in the control room, the smoke billowing out of it as the Cybermen within put it out, and it invaded the Doctor's lungs and set him coughing. Scrambling for the handkerchief in his pocket, he clamped it across his nose and mouth though it did little to stop the smoke from choking him. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was finding Zoe in the confusing chaos of Jack and Mickey's victory. He ducked into a side room and sucked in a deep breath of cleaner air before surging back out in search of her, annoyed that she had hurled herself off after someone she loudly proclaimed to be a murderer.

She was an intelligent woman. She knew that starting fights with murderers was a bad idea. She also knew that disappearing in the middle of a fight with the Cybermen was a bad idea, yet she did it anyway.

_Humans._

“Zoe,” he shouted for her. “Zoe, where are you?”

His answer came in the sound of a door shuddering beneath an impact. He hurried to it and tried the handle, pushing hard against the bodies that were leaning against it, and staggered into the room when it burst free. Bronze pipes ran along the edges of the room and up the sides, steam bursting out in soft puffs as they vented the heat and smoke out of the control room. One of them creaked and popped out of its bracket when a man in a long, blood-stained coat slammed Zoe against it, his hand around her throat.

Anger crashed over him and he strode forward, wrapping his hand around the back of the man's coat and throwing him off of Zoe who slid to the floor gracelessly and gasped for breath. The man soared through the air and hit the wall opposite them, landing in a pile of limbs, dazed and pained. He looked up, furious, and the Doctor positioned himself between him and Zoe, rage wrapped around him like a shawl.

“You're not touching her again,” the Doctor warned, voice cracking with ice. “Leave. _Now_.”

The man heaved himself up off the ground and spat blood and saliva to the floor, pointing a bloodied hand at Zoe.

“Fuck you.”

“Go to hell,” Zoe rasped, a cough overtaking her, and the man was gone. The Doctor dropped to a crouch before her, her smoke-wet eyes glaring at him. “I had that under control.”

“You absolute liar, you did not,” he snapped, hands on her face as he examined her neck. “What the hell were you thinking running after him?”

“He murdered Thomas.”

“Who's Thomas?”

“The president,” she said, pushing his hands away and using his shoulders to help her stand, swaying into him. He vowed to lock her away in their room for at least two days to let her heal and sleep but also to reassure himself that she wasn't going to get herself injured or worse when his back was turned. “He killed him right in front of me. Shot him through the head. This blood on me, its his. I couldn't – it was –”

“Okay.” His voice turned soft, the annoyance at her behaviour rushing from him at the clear sight of her barely holding it together. Swiftly standing, he drew her to him and cradled her against his chest. “It's okay.”

“No, it's not,” Zoe said. “None of this is okay.”

“I know,” he said gently, stroking a hand down the length of her spine. “But we'll make it okay.”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes on his jacket. “Where's Rose?”

“She and Mrs Moore've gone to help the unconverted,” he said. “Or escape. Probably both, I kind of wanted them out the building in case everything goes even more sideways than it already has. We should do the same.”

“No.” Zoe stepped back from him and he noticed how absolutely filthy she was: blood, smoke, and sweat covered her in a thick film. “I need to see Lumic.”

“I know I had the idea of deactivating the emotional inhibitor and I still want to do that but I'm beginning to think seeing Lumic's a bad idea,” the Doctor admitted. “We'll just deactivate it from wherever Jack and Mickey are. I'll give them a call and get them to find the code while we get the hell out of here.”

She shook her head. “I want to see Lumic.”

“I'm going to be brutally honest right now,” he said, annoyance returning. “I'm not enjoying this streak of vengeance currently running through you. It's very unattractive.”

“It's not vengeance,” Zoe scowled. “It's taking responsibility.”

“For what?” The Doctor demanded. “None of this is your fault.”

“Lumic is,” she said, shame spreading across her face and pausing him in his tracks, confused by its presence. “And I need to see this through. Go, if you have to, but –”

“You and I both know I'm not leaving you here alone,” he interrupted, holding his hand out to her. “If we're doing this, we're doing it together.”

Her hand slipped into his and squeezed his fingers gratefully.

The control room looked like a war zone. Scorch marks seared the walls and the white foam used to extinguish the fire slid down the computer banks and fell together in a loose mess in the large pool of congealing blood that was smeared across the floor. Judging from the drag marks that ran through it, the Doctor assumed that Zoe had been pulled through it and he regretted letting Mr Crane leave unharmed. He froze in surprise when Zoe freed her hand from his and dropped to a crouch by the blood and plunged her hand into the thick, foamy mess as she searched for something.

“What are you doing?” The Doctor asked, wondering if this was how his friends felt when he stuck his body parts into places they shouldn't go. “Zo, that's deeply unhygienic.”

“It's not here,” she muttered, ignoring him. “ _Fuck_. It's not here.”

“What's n –?”

“LUMIC!” She straightened from her crouch and spun to face the raised platform, the Doctor jumping at her shout. “John! Get out here, you coward.”

“That's great,” the Doctor sighed. “Just go yelling for the megalomaniac with absolutely no concern for your well being.”

Her eyes cut sharply over her shoulder. “I'm looking for my phone. I dropped it earlier and it's not here any more.”

“For Rassilon's sake,” he muttered, barely resisting the urge to rub his eyes. “Your phone isn't that important. All the information's back up on the TARDIS as in, and I know you've got a stack of handsets somewhere on board.”

“And what about the handset itself?” Zoe demanded, the sound of Cyber boots getting closer and closer to the control room. “It's from the 32nd century. What do you think the Cybermen'll do with that?”

“It won't matter when we stop them,” the Doctor told her. “And it's certainly not worth you throwing yourself headfirst into danger.”

“Pot, kettle, black.”

Frustration with her rose up in his chest, annoyed at how easily she was able to trigger all the instincts and emotions he normally kept controlled. He was saved from starting an ill-timed fight when a Cyberman entered a room at speed and raised its hand in their direction. He lunged forward and grabbed Zoe around the waist, pulling her back to him as the Cyberman paused, listening to instructions being fed into its helmet. Movement caught their eyes, a flicker of it in the darkened room set back off the raised platform, and he felt Zoe's body stiffen with tension.

“Lumic, is that you?” Zoe called out, his fingers flexing on her, a warning to be careful. “What did you do with Thomas's body? Where is it?”

Silence was the only response, and she sank back against him.

“What would they do with it?” She asked, quietly.

He hesitated. “Incineration, most likely. They've no use for organic components at the end of the day. At least not the living kind.”

“Right.”

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“No, I'm glad I know,” she said though she didn't sound grateful. “Didn't know him long or at all really but I'm glad I know.”

The Doctor tightened his arm around her waist and pressed a fleeting kiss to her temple before refocusing, eyes lingering on the Cyberman. It made him uncomfortable. A still Cyberman was generally a sign that something worse was coming.

“Oddly quiet for a Cyber control centre,” he said. “Especially given what Jack and Mickey have done. Figured it'd be a veritable hub of activity but here we are and there's nothing doing. Bit boring really.”

“Shouldn't have let Crane go,” Zoe replied. “Then there'd be a spot of excitement.”

“Crane?”

“The bloke trying to kill me just now,” she said in a tone of voice that he associated more with what she wanted for dinner than murder attempts. “Lumic's goon. Tell you what, if they've taken him to a proper conversion chamber, I'm going to be really pissed. We've come all this way and talking to an empty room is a bit much even for – _woah_!”

Another Cyberman lurched through the smoky doorway and paused, blank face looking at them and analysing the situation, a silent conversation held with its partner. It stilled, blank face fixed in their direction, and the Doctor slowly released Zoe, patting her hip in an unspoken request that she _not move_ before he turned and rapped his knuckles against the Cyberman's chest. Despite passing through a heat-filled corridor, the armour remained cool to the touch – not quite chilled but cold enough that it was off-putting.

“Where is he then?” The Cybermen stared down at him, never good conversationalists regardless of where they sprung from. “Good old Mr Lumic who does what anyone with a bit of genius and some money does: turn the world to chaos, I'd quite like a chat with him.”

It tilted its head down, empty eyes staring into the Doctor's, the experience less unnerving than it was on Mondas. He was never able to get over how utterly terrifying the simple white cloth was, preferring the newer and improved version that held less humanity in their build.

“He has been upgraded,” it said.

The Doctor caught Zoe's flinch within her reflection on the Cyberman's armour. He stretched out his hand behind him, waiting for hers to slip into his, curling his fingers around hers when it did so.

“He's just like you then?” He asked. “Tad disappointing, all told.”

“He is superior,” it replied. “The Lumic Unit has been designated Cyber Controller.”

“So not just like you,” Zoe said, stepping next to the Doctor. “Where is he? Tell him Zoe Tyler's back and not finished with our conversation yet.”

The gentle sound of wheels against the ground broke through the alarms that blared distantly in the corridors beyond the room and mixed together with the quiet beep-beep-beep of the computers along the wall. Zoe turned and watched as, from the darkness, Lumic emerged; the sight of him dropping guilt and shame onto her shoulders. Clad in Cyber armour and with his wheelchair upgraded into something that closely resembled a metal throne, the superiority of his designation superior designation was clear and made clearer still by the large L that was embossed on his chest in place of the Cybus Industries logo.

“Zoe Tyler,” Lumic said, his voice modulated as all the other Cybermen's were, and she wondered if it was only her imagination that heard the fumbling, up-and-down quality of Lumic's natural voice behind the upgraded voice box. “You fell into this universe in time to witness the birth of the Age of Steel and now stand in the presence of its creator. History will mark this day as the beginning of humanity's new golden age.”

“Don't you mean steel age?” The Doctor asked. “If this is the Age of Steel _and_ the golden age, what would that really make it? Iron and gold go together about as well as oil and water, but I suppose if you use magnesium as a binding agent you might get some form of alloy. Of course, magnesium metal is highly explosive so that probably won't help in the long run.”

Lumic stared down at him. “You speak like an idiot.”

“I've heard that before,” he agreed, inclining his head towards Zoe. “Often from this one.”

“This fool is the one you spoke of?” Lumic questioned. “The one who would bring hell upon me for killing you?”

“Yes.”

“He does not look like much.”

“You'd be surprised at the amount of trouble he can cause,” she said, glancing around the room with a casualness that belied the tight grip she had on the Doctor's hand. “Your night seems to be going from bad to worse. Dear old Mr Crane's left you in the lurch, our friends seem to have cut out your transmitter, and it'll only be a matter of time before the unconverted storm the building looking for you. How does it feel to have your life's work come to nothing?”

Impossible as it was to read the emotion's on Lumic's face, the square metal concealing whatever human remained in him, through his modulated voice it was easy to hear his frustration and shallow grasp at victory.

“So London has failed, it makes no difference,” he said. “I have factories waiting on seven continents. The Cybermen will take humanity by force if you refuse the peaceful assimilation I designed.”

“Peaceful assimilation,” Zoe mocked. “You're too smart to be this stupid.”

“I offered humanity a quiet transition free of fear and pain,” Lumic told her. “And you took that from them. Out of the two us, which is truly the more monstrous?”

“That'd still be you,” the Doctor said, slipping into the conversation as Zoe's hand tightened its grip on his to an almost painful degree, tension running through her spine. “Spin this whatever way you want but you did this. You took humanity and twisted it to suit your own goals and look where that's got you: a cheap suit and a fancy chair. All your money and intelligence, you could've done anything.”

“And I have,” he said. “I will bring peace to the world: Everlasting peace, unity, and uniformity.”

“Peace through force is no peace,” the Doctor told him. “Where there's authoritarianism, there's dissent. _Always_. And I've been around humans a very long time to know that they won't accept you deciding their fate for them. They'll keep fighting until they've got nothing else to give, and then they'll fight some more.”

Stepping forward, the Doctor left Zoe's side and slipped his hands into his pockets. Zoe followed his movements, wondering what he had up his sleeve and hoping it was better than the cold, scared anger that was her only weapon.

“If they want to die fighting, so be it,” Lumic said. “The end will be the same.”

“How are you not seeing this?” He strolled the room with a languid, careless pace, hopping over the mess on the floor and shooting Zoe a small wink that brought a small, confused frown to her forehead. His eyes flicked to the security cameras in the corner in an attempt to explain his behaviour. “I keep hearing about what a clever man you are but I'm not seeing any evidence of it right now. Think about it, Lumic. Think about all of human history. Throughout time, humans have never been very good at doing what they're told, even when it's for their own good. They don't like being ordered about. Now, make it seem like their idea and they'll hop, skip, and jump into the boiling water but force them? Nah. Never going to happen.”

Lumic's head tilted, as though a glitch in his system had jerked his head to one side. “What is your name?”

“The Doctor,” he said, passing by the computers. “I'd say it's a pleasure but – _eh_.”

He seesawed his hand back and forth, pulling a face.

“A redundant title,” Lumic dismissed. “Doctors need no longer exist. Cybermen never sicken.”

The Doctor leaned carelessly against a console, one hand in his pocket moving and the other attempting to catch Zoe's attention by wriggling madly over his stomach. Normally, his various gestures and swagger towards triumph made sense to her but, in that moment, she had no idea what he was doing or why he was pointing discreetly at the cameras in the corner.

She lifted her shoulders in a small, confused shrug and the whites of his eyes flashed as they rolled in exasperation.

“And is that it?” The Doctor questioned. “You used your genius to get rid of your sickness and in a burst of misplaced philanthropy, you decide to do the same for all the human race. But what happens next?”

“We succeed.”

“At what?” He asked. “Once you remove all of that lovely human morality with the back and forth and the contradictions that drive a Time Lord mad, what exactly are you going to succeed at? Cybermen have one goal and one goal only: upgrading. If you've got plans of turning Earth into a new empire, think again. It won't be Earth with them here, it won't be your planet any more. All you've done is take away the human ability to strive and imagine. Remove their mortality and what's there for them to do any more? If you have all of time then you get lazy, and you can trust me on that, I know.”

“You talk too much,” Lumic decided.

“He really does,” Zoe agreed. “But he's making a point here, Lumic. Your idea of a golden age is always going to be that: An idea.”

“This is it,” the Doctor told him. “Today, right now, if the conversions continue and Cybermen take the planet by force, this is what the pinnacle of human achievement will be. Because you're not going to be human after today. You'll be Cybermen forever. A metal Earth with metal people and metal thoughts without that little burst of infuriating ingenuity that makes humans so special. You'll have stripped that right out of them along with all of their emotions.”

“What use are emotions?” Lumic demanded. “Fear is a weakness that holds us back. Love is a disease that softens us. Without them, we will be better.”

“You're wrong,” he said. “Fear teaches us who we are. Love shows us that life's worth living.”

“Spoken like man who has never known grief and rage and _pain_.”

The laugh that left the Doctor's mouth sucked all the warmth from the room and sent a shiver down Zoe's spine.

“Are you kidding me? _Me_?” Age stole over his expression, all the long centuries of his life etching deep lines into his face, and she wanted to do something – anything – to make it better, aware that it was a suffering she wasn't able to carry for him. “I've known more grief than you've ever experienced, more pain than can be imagined, and the rage I've felt? Planets burned because of it, so I know emotions, Lumic. I know the good and the bad.”

“Then why would you not want to be set free?” Lumic replied. “You could live a life without pain simply by cutting them out.”

“No.” The Doctor shook his head. “Because I've known all of those horrible, painful emotions that sent me down a dark path but I've also known love, friendship, _happiness_. If you take away the bad, you'll also be stripping away the good. And if that's the option, then you might as well just kill me.”

“Then I take that option.”

“But it's not yours to take,” he argued. “You're a _Cyber_ Controller. You don't control me or anything with blood in its heart.”

“You have no means of stopping me,” Lumic reminded him. “I have an army, a species of my own. What do you have?”

“More than you'll ever know,” the Doctor said. “Because an army's nothing against those ordinary people. They're the key. The most ordinary person can change the world given the right tools and the opportunity. Sometimes the universe comes together just right to put the right idiot –” his eyes flicked to the camera again and Zoe frowned. “In the right place at the right time. All it takes is for this idiot to find the right numbers and the the right code.”

Lumic stared at him. “What are talking about?”

“No, no, bear with me a second because you'll want to hear this,“ he said, holding up a finger to keep the attention on him. “So let's say this idiot – for clarity's sake, we'll call him, I don't know, how about Mickey? That's a good name. Mickey the Idiot.” Zoe glanced back up at the camera, the Doctor's plan slotting into place as he spelled it out for her. “So, imagine it: Mickey the Idiot is in front of a computer and he knows all about computers because who doesn't these days? He knows how to get past firewalls and passwords and stuff to look for – oh, I don't know – the code behind the emotional inhibitor in the Lumic Family database under –”

He leaned forwards and licked the Cyberman's arm.

“Doctor!” The sharp chastisement snapped from Zoe's mouth before she stopped herself. “You don't know where it's been for Christ's sake.”

He worked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Nowhere exciting apparently.”

“ _Jesus_.”

“But I'm going to say binary nine,” the Doctor said. “And away he goes. Mickey the Idiot's going through the old family database looking for this code, this tiny little code that seems like it's nothing but is actually really quite important and, let's be honest, the difference between life and death for Zoe and me here. So he's working and working, typing away at that computer of his, and he'll do it because Mickey the Idiot's not an idiot and I don't mind putting our lives in his hands.”

Zoe stared up at the camera, wondering if Mickey was actually able to hear them through the camera or if it was simply a visual feed as the Doctor seemed to be banking on the fact that Mickey could hear them.

“Your words are meaningless,” Lumic said. “Your hypotheticals reductive.”

“Maybe, but I wanted to keep it simple for you,” the Doctor said with an easy grin, his phone beeping in his pocket with a message alert. He slipped it out and tapped the screen open. “Sorry, this is important. I don't normally like to answer the phone when I'm in the middle of something.”

Zoe felt energy return to her, aware that they were going to have to run soon.

“You don't like answering your phone full stop,” she said.

“I answer when you call,” he replied. “Not my fault other people aren't as interesting as you.” He looked back up at Lumic and grinned. “Ask me what your biggest mistake was?”

“No,” Lumic said.

The Doctor deflated. “Oh, come up. It's not as much fun when you don't ask me questions.”

“What was his biggest mistake, Doctor?” Zoe asked, humouring him and enjoying the delighted smile he sent in her direction.

“Thank you very much for asking, love,” he said, twirling his phone in his palm. “His biggest mistake – and do pay attention here, Mr Lumic – was making every bit of technology compatible with everything else.”

He clucked his tongue and set the bottom of his phone that miraculously fit into the docking station, uploading the code Mickey had sent straight into the main computer system that began to distribute it to every Cyberman across London.

“What is that?” Lumic demanded, hulking body twitching and jerking in his chair. “Tell me what that is!”

The Doctor tilted his head back to look up at him. “Just a nice little cancellation code. Those plans of world domination are seconds away from crashing down around your ears. Shame about that. Well, I say _shame_ , I mean good riddance.”

The Cyberman at his side buckled. Knees collapsed beneath it as its emotional inhibitor switched off and the human within reasserted itself, horror yawning through it as it realised what it had become. Heavy, metal hands clutched at its head and the rumbling, echoing cry of pain that ripped through its modulated voice box sent a flinch snapping through Zoe. Its body jerked and convulsed, the dam breaking and flooding their systems with an overdose of human emotion and adrenaline that wreaked havoc with the technological implants seared into its body.

Screams echoed back through the corridor and sounded out across London as the lack of emotional inhibitor took effect.

The Doctor watched as death slammed into the Cyberman before him, its humanity rewriting its programming and theincomprehensibility of what it was driving it mad. Dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide, and serotonin raced through its remaining organic system and it dropped heavily to the floor, face first, fingers spasming even as death claimed it for its own.

_I'm sorry_ , he thought.

The other Cybermen that stood guard over Lumic writhed in pain as it tried to rip the casing from its body, succeeding though Zoe wished it hadn't; the sight of what lay beneath the helmet was an image that was going to haunt her.

Lumic rose from his city, a towering metal giant that cast a long shadow, voice shaking with rage and fear. “What have you done?”

“I gave them back their souls,” the Doctor said. “They can see what you've done to them, Lumic, and it's killing them.”

Zoe stepped close to the Doctor and dipped her hand into his pocket, startling him at the unexpected touch. Curling her fingers around the sonic screwdriver, she hesitated for only a moment before rushing up the wheelchair ramp to Lumic. Fear lodged itself in the Doctor's throat, vision whiting out in his panic, only to watch her duck under his outstretched arms and jam the sonic screwdriver firmly against the L on the front of his armour, sending a large electrical charge through the technology in his body and into his brain. Lumic's body convulsed, heavy arms flying out and missing Zoe by an inch as she ducked, catching him on the fall down and lowering his inert body back into his wheelchair.

The Doctor stared at her, waiting for her to move, but she stood above him as though frozen in place. Cursing under his breath, he leapt over the fallen Cyberman and pirouetted around the blood and foam, dashing up the steps to take hold of her clean _ish_ hand. Her feet were rooted to the ground and her eyes never wavered from Lumic's deceased form; he put an arm around her waist and forcibly pulled her back.

“No time for this,” he told her. “You need to move those legs of yours.”

“I killed him,” Zoe said, blankly, horror yawning through her. “What have I done?”

“Stay with me,” the Doctor whispered in her ear, hearts breaking for her. “I need you right now. Please stay with me.”

An explosion rocked the room, the building shuddering as something outside and close by went up in flames. Unable to wait for her to gather her wits to her, he took her by the hand and the elbow and dragged her from the room, catching his sonic screwdriver before it was lost to the quiet despair of the control room.

“No, _wait_.” She struggled against him, trying to push back. “My phone. We can't leave it behind!”

“I'm pretty sure this building's going to go up in flames soon,” the Doctor told her, pulling her back. “Your phone doesn't matter. The Cybermen are done!”

“But –”

“ _Enough,_ ” he interrupted loudly, impatience making him sharp, and he took hold of her hand firmly. “It doesn't matter. We need to hurry. Please keep it together until we get to safety and we'll deal with everything then. Right now, I need you to run.”

Hesitation and confusion slowed her down before her common sense reasserted itself, survival instinct kicking in, and she soon matched his pace as they raced through the corridors littered with the bodies of the Cybermen.

The Doctor took a corner at speed and kicked a door that led _up_ open. “Quick, quick, quick.”

Relieved that she did as she was told, the Doctor glanced behind him to take in the damage before turning on his heels and following her. He found Zoe at the top of the stairs attempting to force open a fire escape door that was jammed shut.

“What's the point of an emergency fucking exit if it doesn't open in an emergency?” She demanded, ramming her shoulder against it one last time and then stepping to one side, gesturing. “Superior biology, go.”

He braced himself and slammed his shoulder into the door, the lock breaking, and he staggered through the door and into another corridor. Zoe followed him through and caught him by the back of his jacket.

“Why's everything exploding?” She asked. “Who decided to blow stuff up?”

“It's probably the unconverted,” the Doctor said, rubbing his shoulder. “If you woke up in the middle of a conversion chamber, you'd probably want to blow things up too. My bet is they'll be storming the building soon. You know how revolutions go. We've been involved in some here and there.”

“Always accidentally,” she replied, catching her breath. “We don't typically start them though.”

“We are more of a catalyst,” he agreed. “I blame the TARDIS myself. She's the one who takes us to most places.”

“You've been a bad influence on her,” Zoe said, peering out of the narrow window that looked down onto the courtyard below. “Goddammit. Lumic's men are still putting up a fight. They're gunning people down. _Idiots_. Don't they know what's coming?”

“Sunken cost fallacy,” the Doctor explained. “They've invested too much effort to be told they're wrong now. I think we should keep going up. If we head to the roof then we'll have a better lay of the land. And I think Mickey and Jack should hopefully have the Zeppelin still tethered to the building. That'll be our way out.”

“I do want to ride in a Zeppelin,” she said, wiping the blood and foam from her hands onto the front of her maid's uniform. “It's that scene from Indiana Jones, y'know? Love it.”

“I know you do,” he said, smiling. “Hey, the Hindenburg didn't happen here by the way. I think that might be the deviation point between our universes. Funny how things work out, isn't it?”

She looked up at him, the emergency lighting casting her face in a strange glow, and she breathed out.

“I killed a man today,” Zoe said, the admission sending ice through his veins that only melted with her next words. “Lumic. I killed him.”

“He was already dead,” the Doctor told her. “The second he had that upgrade. It was never going to end any other way for him.” Shame stole across her features, and she looked away. “Zoe, look at me. Hey.” He reached out and touched her cheek, gently guiding her eyes to his. “You're not to blame. What you did there at the end, that was a kindness some might argue he didn't deserve but I'm glad you did. I'm proud of you for it.”

“No –” the word shook as it left her mouth, filling him with confusion. “Don't say that. Not when I –”

Another explosion shook the building again and sent Zoe tripping into his arms.

“Best finish this conversation later,” he said, grabbing her hand again. “Come on.”

Furious shouts of those freed from the conversion chambers reached Zoe and the Doctor as they raced up the stairs, loud demands for Lumic to come out and face the crowd, unaware that his body was cooling within his Cyber armour. The door at the top of the steps opened easily and they burst out onto the open rooftop where Rose was waiting at the bottom of a rope ladder, her arm waving wildly at them when she caught their entrance, twisting to yell something up into the Zeppelin.

“Thank _God_ ,” she exclaimed, slamming into both of them with a quick hug, one hand latched around the ladder. “We saw you on the security cameras but we weren't sure if you were goin' to make it out.”

“Not us,” the Doctor said. “We've always got a way out. Thought you were helping the others?”

“Do they look like they need help?”

“Yeah, good point,” he admitted. “Things okay here?”

“Yeah, Mickey's got the Zeppelin under control but Jack wants us movin' so up the ladder, both of you,” Rose ordered.“Chop chop.”

“Ladies first,” the Doctor replied.

Rose put her feet on the ladder and began to scale the rope rungs, moving swiftly and efficiently towards Jack whose pale face peered out of the emergency hatch. The Zeppelin gave a shudder as Mickey activated the engines, and the Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at the thick cables attaching it to the roof, snapping them loose. One arm stretched in the direction of the stern cable, he pointed his finger firmly at the ladder, indicating that he was quite happy to wait for his death if it meant getting her up first.

Zoe shook her head. “Chivalry's not that an attractive quality, you know.”

“I beg to differ,” he said. “Up.”

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder as Zoe began the climb and took in the building that was falling apart under his feet, the factories surrounding them going up in flames, the screams of the Cybermen wailing through the air. Planting his feet on the ladder and keeping a firm grip as the wind buffeted them, he felt the Zeppelin take flight, inching away from the top of the building and guiding them to relative safety. He hadn't climbed a rope ladder in years – perhaps centuries – and he had forgotten how hard it was to climb one. He focused on the stretch of Zoe's long legs as he tried to find his footing, a smile appearing on his face: At least the view wasn't bad.

Without any warning, Mickey's voice boomed out into the air around them.

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please keep a firm grip on the emergency ladder so as not to plummet to your untimely deaths. Enjoy your ride._ ”

“This is high, this is high, this is high.” Zoe's muttered words caught on the wind and were carried down to him. “Oh god, this is too high.”

“Don't look down,” he called up to her.

“Oh, there's some good advice,” she shot back, sarcastically. “Don't look down. Thanks, Doctor, I'd never have thought of that.”

Zoe dragged herself up the rope ladder, terrified of plunging to her death in the flames below, and trembled when Jack and Rose grabbed hold of her and pulled her into the Zeppelin. She crawled over Jack, who was lying on the floor with cushions placed beneath his knees to protect them, and shoved herself up against the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees as she held them to her chest. She watched the Doctor's head appear, his arms following as he used Rose and Jack's hands to help him in; her stomach bottomed out when he missed his footing and fell two inches, catching himself easily. Pushing himself in the rest of the way, he fell face first onto Jack, and Rose slammed the hatch shut. The sudden absence of noise forced an awareness on Zoe of the ringing in her ears.

“Hello,” Jack greeted, cheerfully, patting the Doctor's head and smoothing his wild, smoke-stained hair down. “Had a good evening?”

The Doctor groaned into his chest. “Cybermen. They're the worst.”

“Absolutely agree with that,” he said. “Mickey's flying a Zeppelin though.”

“It's very cool,” the Doctor agreed, peeling himself off of him. “How are your knees?”

“I can't feel anything so I'm going to assume good,” Jack greeted, eyeing her with concern. “Hey, Zo, you look like hell.”

“Feel like it too,” Zoe said into her knees, staring at him over the top of them. “It's been a rough night.”

“I bet.”

The Doctor got to his feet and winced, a muscle in his back twanging with pain; he stretched carefully, attempting to work it out only for his eyes to fall onto Zoe who looked tired and small on the floor. He dropped his hand from his back and held it out to her, worried about her emotional wellbeing now that they were out of immediate physical danger. She wiped her eyes with the edge of her oversized jacket and took it, letting him help her onto her feet as Jack shifted and sat with his back against the wall.

“You did good,” the Doctor said, softly, drawing her close to him. “We made it out.”

Her throat moved with a swallow. “Yeah.”

Mickey's head popped out of the bridge's door. “Good, you're both alive. Overdid it a bit with Mickey the Idiot, didn't you?”

“Had to make sure you knew I was talking to you,” the Doctor said, Zoe tucked safely under his arm, Mickey's grin faltering as he took in her appearance. “Don't recall telling you to steal a Zeppelin though.”

“You didn't tell me not to either,” he said. “I improvised.”

“It's not as nice as I thought it'd be,” Zoe said, examining their surroundings from where her temple lay against the Doctor's chest. “Bit boring to be honest.”

“There's a golden toilet in the back,” Jack told her. “As in actual solid gold.”

“Rich people,” Rose said, disapprovingly. “Bunch of twats.”

“No arguments from me,” the Doctor said. “Hey, Micks, if you're here talking to us, who's flying this thing?”

“Gran.”

“Mrs Smith?” He clarified. “Your _blind_ grandmother?”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “What's she goin' to crash into up here?”

“Rassilon,” the Doctor breathed, torn between annoyance and laughter, settling on the latter for simplicity's sake. “You know what, fine. It doesn't matter. Just find somewhere to put us down, yeah? And has anyone heard from Jake and Pete?”

“Nothing,” Jack said from the floor. “People were fleeing the conversion chambers so we hope they're heading to the TARDIS. They know we were going to meet on the South Bank. Even Mrs Moore hasn't been able to get in touch with them.”

“Jake's not that good at answering messages,” Mrs Moore said, emerging with a tray of tea and biscuits from the back, unconcerned with the fact that part of London was burning beneath her. “But he knows where to go. If he's made it out with Ricky and Pete, he'll meet us on the South Bank.”

“Can you get us there?” Rose asked Mickey.

“Course I can,” he said. “Not that hard. It's kind of like playin' video games.”

“Excellent,” the Doctor said.

“Although,” he considered, frowning out of a dark window. “I'm not sure I actually know how to park this thing.”

* * *

The screaming finally stopped.

Pete slowly lowered his hands from over his ears and raised his eyes above the blood-slicked table to peer out through the conversion chamber's entrance. Lines and lines of Cybermen lay on the ground, limbs twitching in the final throes of death, and the one that had seared a black burn mark on the wall behind his head was slumped against the edge of the entrance, liquid leaking from its dark eyes. The silence broke only with the ringing in his ears and the cries of the survivors that began with one long, loud wail that drew others in until weeping echoed off the walls and replaced the horrible, dying screams of the Cybermen. Falling back, the ground cold and wet beneath him, he looked to Jake and Ricky at his side.

“They did it,” he said. “Those mad bastards did it.”

Ricky shivered. “Who did what now?”

“Mrs Moore and those weirdos from the other universe,” Jake said, arms looped around his best friend, knuckles white where they gripped his shoulders. “They were planning on stopping the Cybermen and they did it. God dammit, they actually did it.”

“Jackie...” Pete breathed, grabbing hold of the table and heaving himself up. “I've got to find Jackie.”

“Wait,” Jake urged as Pete staggered through the blood. “Pete, _don't_ , she's already dead!”

Ignoring him, Pete left the room by leaping over the Cybermen and disappearing into the darkness. Jake sank back, a frown creased across his forehead, before he looked down at Ricky who was collapsed half on top of him.

“Are you okay?”

“I don't know,” Ricky said, cold and shaken. “The last thing I remember was telling that Mickey bloke to run and then I wake up here with my arm nearly half off and you and Pete fucking Tyler of all people keeping those Cybermen at bay.”

Jake touched near the deep incision that ran around the curve of Ricky's shoulder. “It's not half off. You might have a scar at the end of it though.”

“It hurts!”

“Like that time you sprained your ankle and wouldn't stop complaining hurts, or the time you stubbed your toe and it was like the world had ended hurt?”

“Like the sprained ankle, you ass.” Ricky grunted as he pushed himself up, struggling to his feet, reluctantly allowing Jake to help him. He sobered at the sight that stretched out before them and exhaled long and slow. “Shit, man. Look at that.”

“We were right,” Jake said though he felt no joy because of it. “People thought we were crazy but we were right all along. If people had fucking listened to us, we could've avoided this. If they'd listened to Nomi and the others instead of calling us conspiracy theorists, they'd still be alive.” Anger brought his hand down on the table that rattled under the force of it. “We fucking _told_ them!”

Ricky caught his arm. “Hey, _hey_. It's done. It's on them for not listening to us. We'll make sure they know it as well. We won't let them pretend they weren't warned about all of this when things get back to normal. The president's going to have to answer for being in bed with Lumic, just like the rest of them. It's not over.”

Jake blinked, pale cheeks flushed red. “It's not?”

“Course it's not,” he said. “Someone needs to hold the toffs in power accountable and we Preachers are just the people to do it.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, a knot of tension easing in his chest, a smile beginning to grow. “Yeah, you're right. It's not over. We've still got a lot of work to do. Reckon Mrs Moore will stay around and help us?”

“I don't know,” Ricky mused, rooting through a bin of discarded clothes for his shirt that had been torn in two, choosing instead a large polo neck that smelt of sweat. He pulled it on and decided that the warmth it offered was a fair trade off for the smell. “She's got that family of hers she thinks we don't know about. She'll probably want to go back to them. I know I would. How's my gran? She okay?”

“She's fine,” Jake told him. “Went off with Mickey and his boyfriend. They'll have kept her safe.”

“They bloody well better have,” he said, stepping out of the conversation chamber and pausing. He turned so suddenly that Jake took a step back. “Thanks for coming for me, man. I appreciate it.”

“It's what mates do, isn't it?” Jake replied, colour climbing up his neck and settling in his cheeks. “You'd have done the same for me, no question.”

“Too right I would've.” Ricky held out his fist and Jake grinned as they bumped knuckles. “Where's the rendezvous?”

“South Bank,” he said. “Apparently their ship or whatever is there.”

“D'you actually believe them about that stuff?” Ricky asked. “Parallel universes and everything?”

“I mean...Mickey looks exactly like you,” Jake said with a shrug. “And I'm pretty sure they're not the weirdest thing that's happened today, so parallel universes? Sure, why not? It makes about as much sense as a rich twat building an army of cyborgs.”

Ricky snorted, blood seeping through the grey polo neck from his wound. “Fair point. Which way did Tyler go?”

“That way, I think,” Jake said, gesturing vaguely into the dark. “He might be trouble. His wife's one of the Cybermen. She's already dead but I don't know if he'll accept it.”

Ricky nodded and silently absorbed the information, leading them through the chaos of fallen Cybermen and weeping survivors.

It was a scene lifted from a nightmare.

He had to turn his eyes away from those Cybermen that had ripped their armour off, the sight of their torn flesh turning his stomach, acutely aware of how close he had come to such a fate. His arm gave a painful _throb_ at the sight of an elderly woman who had woken mid-conversion, her eyes glassy and blank as blood dripped from her and onto the floor, her daughter weeping into her knees by her, having missed death by a minute. The sheer waste of life infuriated Ricky, his anger at Lumic growing with each step he took; it wasn't just Lumic though, it was the people that supported him, turned a blind eye to his unethical practices, and who cut him deals and dined with him. They each had blood on their hands as much as Lumic.

Ricky swore he wouldn't let them get away with it.

Not when it could have been him on that table.

Or Rita.

Or Jake.

Or Mrs Moore.

He was lucky; the people he loved had survived – at least that was the assumption he was working under until proved wrong – but there were going to be thousands and thousands of people who had dead to mourn. This night was going to change Great Britain for generations and he wanted to make sure it changed for the better, not that he knew how to go about doing that. Before working for the Preachers became too dangerous to live a normal life – Lumic's men trailing them and setting up observation posts outside Rita's house – he worked as a driver for the local supermarket. He knew nothing about holding government's accountable; though, as he took in the death and destruction, he felt he could learn.

“There.” Jake's hand touched his before he pointed. “You see him?”

Pete was on the floor, cradling a heavy Cyberman in his arms, and Ricky wondered how he knew which one was his wife until he stepped closer and –

“ _Jesus_.”

He knew Jackie Tyler, or at least he had done. She had been friends with his mother before Odessa killed herself one grey afternoon and let her young child find her body in the bathroom. He remembered her from the funeral and how kind her eyes had been and how soft her embrace was, her perfume wrapping around him. Occasionally, since then, he had seen her picture in the paper when she attended events with her husband or promoted whatever charitable endeavour she had decided to put her name to; but, the woman lying within the Cyber armour looked nothing like the woman from his memories or her pictures.

She looked destroyed.

“Pete.” Jake edged past Ricky and gently laid his hand on Pete's shoulder, the man's face stripped free of any pretence and laid bare the grief that was etched on his features. “I'm sorry.”

“She's gone...” Pete whispered. “My Jackie...she's gone.”

“She is,” Jake agreed, quietly. “And I'm sorry.”

“What am I supposed to do without her?” Grief bowed his shoulders, hunching him over Jackie's body. “I don't know how to live without her. I don't...this can't be happening. It can't be. We were supposed to have more time. I need more time to get it right, to fix my mistakes. This can't be how it ends. It just can't be.”

Jake shifted until he was able to crouch next to him, arm around his shoulders. “What can we do to help? Tell us and we'll do it.”

“Give me my wife back,” he murmured. “Give me our future back.”

“Shit,” Ricky said under his breath. “Mate, we can't do that. She's gone.”

“No.” Pete shook his head, arms tightening around Jackie's mutilated corpse. “I can – I can't – she's not gone.”

“Pete.” Jake shook his shoulders. “She's dead. She died the moment they cut into her on the table. She was dead hours ago. I'm sorry but you need to let her go and come with us. There's work that needs to be done. We need your help to do it.”

Ricky wasn't quick enough to stop the expression that whipped across his face, grateful that only Jake saw it. When it came to rebuilding the country, Pete Tyler wasn't exactly his first choice to help them. Jake threw him a sharp look of rebuke and he swallowed his reservations back.

“He's right, man,” he said. “We need to make sure something like this doesn't happen again, and we can't do that with you on the ground like this. So, come on. Get up and let's get to work. We'll mourn later.”

Pete stared up at him, pain and grief behind his eyes. “I'm not leaving her here. I can't just leave her here. She'll be scared alone in the cold like this.”

Ricky bit his cheek to keep his impatience in check. The man had just lost his wife and needed grace from those around him.

“We'll take her outside, yeah?” Jake said. “Put her somewhere safe so you can come back for her. How does that sound?”

“Trucks,” Pete said, sounding as though he was speaking through a thick glass his words were slurred and quiet. “There are trucks outside.”

“That's it, we'll take her to one of them,” Jake said.

“I'll take her home,” he continued. “That's where she belongs. Home.”

Jake sighed but nodded, aware that it was a lost battle, and the three of them managed to lift Jackie up a foot from the ground. The weight of her armour and the fallen Cybermen in their path made it difficult to carry her from the building, and Ricky's arm spilled fresh blood into his stolen polo neck, his back aching by the time they passed through the wide entrance and into the cold air. The sky was dark though he knew it wasn't long until dawn as the birds were waking up and there was a smell in the air that he associated with dawn. Carefully, they lowered Jackie to the ground and –

– an explosion ripped through the air, the force of it sending them from their feet, cries of terror lifting into the night.

“The fucking building's gone up!” Jake stared wide-eyed and shocked behind Ricky and Pete, watching as the buildings that houses Lumic's offices collapsed in on themselves, rubble spilling out in a dangerous tidal wave as a silver Zeppelin drifted slowly away. “Jesus Christ.”

“We need to get out of here,” Ricky said. “Where are the trucks?”

“I'll go,” Jake said, tearing his eyes from the burning building. “Wait here.”

People streamed around him as they fled the power station. Most fled into the darkness, others did as Jake was doing and stole a car; not that Ricky blamed them. He wanted to get as far from the factory as possible, hide himself away behind a locked door so that he was able to feel safe again. The thought of home with Rita's décor that she hadn't updated since the 1970s and its particular smell of spices, perfume, and bleach was all Ricky wanted in that moment, and he pressed his knuckles against his chest to rub the knot of emotion from under his heart, eyes falling to Pete who was sat on the floor with his wife's head in his lap.

“I knew her,” Ricky heard himself say. “Jackie, I mean. She was friends with my mum back in the day.”

Pete glanced at him up. “Your mum?”

“Odessa Smith.”

Surprise settled around his eyes. “You're Essie's boy? I remember you. Jackie looked after you a bit when we were still living on the estate. Caught you trying to eat some protein bars I was flogging down the market once.”

Ricky swallowed. “I don't remember that.”

“You were only about three or four at the time, I reckon,” he said, eyes drawn back to Jackie's damaged face. “We never had kids. Not for lack of trying mind. Just another thing I couldn't do for her. Another thing that made her unhappy.”

Ricky didn't know what to say to that and was relieved when Jake came back.

“Found a truck,” he said. “Engine's running. There'll be enough space in the back for –” hesitation tripped his words. “ – Mrs Tyler.”

Bracing himself against the pain, Ricky joined them in lifting Jackie again and it was the work of five agonising minutes before she was inside an old army truck that Jake had emptied of everything unnecessary. Pete paused at the driver's door and looked back at them.

“I'll help you,” he said. “With what comes next. I just...I need to take care of my Jackie first.”

“We appreciate that,” Jake replied. “Thank you.”

“D'you remember my gran?” Ricky asked. “Rita Smith, she lives in the Docklands?”

“Yeah, I remember her,” Pete said. “She's still alive?”

“Course she is.” At least he hoped she was. “Point is, you can find us there. She'll know where we are if we're not there.”

“Right.” He lingered at the door before nodding and sliding into the seat, drawing the seatbelt across his torso and glancing back at Jackie, knuckles tightening on the wheel. “I'll be in touch.”

Ricky and Jake watched him drive away, headlights illuminating lines of people that were walking away from the factory and heading back into London, huddled together for warmth and security.

“Think we'll see him again?” Ricky asked.

“Yeah, I reckon we will,” Jake said. “How does he know your gran?”

“He knew my mum back in the day,” he said with a dismissive wave that made him wince as it pulled against his wound. He pressed a hand to it and grunted. “Christ. Let's get going. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to call it a night.”

“Come on then,” Jake said with a small smile. “It's an hour or so's walk from here.”

“Can't you steal us another car?” Ricky complained. “Everything hurts.”

“That was the only one left,” he said. “Unless you fancy taking one of those.”

He pointed at a large refrigerated lorry that Ricky would have been able to drive had his arm not lost feeling down to his fingers. With a sigh, he nodded and the two of them set off into the night.

* * *

The Zeppelin was parked awkwardly in the middle of the street. Mickey had done his best at setting it down only to crush a Marks and Spencer's at the last minute. Not that it mattered. Most of London was in a state of disrepair and one broken building was barely noticeable among everything else. As it was, there was also no one there to watch the descent of the Zeppelin as the majority of the population had been taken to the conversion chambers in Battersea and the Millennium Dome. The streets were quiet and only wild animals snuck out of their urban hiding places, sniffing at rubbish bins and tentatively stepping out into the unusual stillness.

A fox paused in the middle of the road and watched the Doctor cross the street with a bag of stolen sandwiches dangling from his arm and a styrofoam cup of hot black coffee in the other. Catching sight of the fox, he gave it a cheery smile only to have a pointed nose turned up at him, bushy tail turning in his direction as it padded off.

The Doctor watched it disappear into the shadows cast by the street lights and slip down the path to where the TARDIS sat. Dark and lifeless, his ship was dead, although he hoped temporarily, and the Time Lord technology containing the dimension within its snug exterior wouldn't last forever. The dimensional dam was going to break if he didn't get the TARDIS out of the parallel universe; the thought of what might happen if the interior dimension broke free while they were sitting in London made his blood turn to ice. It was best to avoid that completely, though he knew that he had at least a year or two before that actually happened as while his people had been – as Brother Lassar of the Krillitanes told him recently – indolent in recent millennia, their early technological development was built to last.

The more selfish reason for wanting to leave the parallel universe was less to do with protecting it from the effect of a dimension popping into existence where it shouldn't and more to do with the fact that being cut off from his ship was like a knife digging into his brain.

The sharp suddenness of their link sundering reminded him of those hazy, awful days after Gallifrey's death. While there was a blank stretch of time that he didn't remember, his memories only kicking in four days after his crash landing in Foreman's junkyard with a throat raw and bloodied from screaming, the first and overwhelming memory he had was of finding the empty space in his mind where Gallifrey and his people had once been and how the TARDIS had wrapped herself around the spot to ease the pain, holding him tight as he slowly grew used to the emptiness.

Without his ship, he didn't know what he would do with himself.

It had been him and the TARDIS for so long – his one, beautiful constant – that being without her was something he wasn't able to imagine.

“Sandwiches,” the Doctor announced, shaking the dark thoughts from him and holding up the plastic bag of food. “If you're hungry, come and get one.”

“Toss one this way, would you?” Jack asked from his wheelchair that was parked next to the bench Mickey was sat on. “Any filling, I don't mind.”

“Egg mayo?”

“Anything but that.”

The Doctor laughed and threw him the vegetable sandwich he had stolen for him, following it up with a ploughman's that he aimed at Mickey. He turned and jumped at discovering Rose standing right behind him, the trait for sneaking up on him running through all three of the Tyler women.

“Don't s'pose you've got a –?”

“Chicken mayo?” He pulled it from the bag. “As if I'd get you anything else.”

Her face lit up. “Thanks, Doctor.”

“Mrs Moore, Mrs Moore,” he said, sliding towards her as though dancing. “Wasn't sure what you like so I got a selection. Egg mayo, tuna mayo, ham and cheese, just cheese, cheese and pickle –”

“I'll take the ham and cheese, thanks very much.” There was a looseness about her that the Doctor thought sat well on her, the worry over Lumic and Cybus Industries draining the years from her face even as she looked around every few minutes for Jake, Pete, and – they all hoped – Ricky. “Normally break and enter for food, do you?”

“Only on special occasions,” he replied. “And it was only from Tesco's so they won't really miss it. Bon appétit.”

Turning on the balls of his feet, Rose joining Mrs Moore at the wall that overlooked the River Thames, he made his way over to Zoe who was sat at a distance from everyone else with her coat from the TARDIS draped over her lap in an attempt to keep her warm. He had offered to find her a proper throw like Jack's but she shook her head and took her coat from the mess that was the console room. The blood on her body, her clothes, and in her hair had dried into an uncomfortable layer on her skin, and he watched as she lifted her hand to scratch at her cheek, flecks of blood falling away like dandruff.

“Coffee,” the Doctor said, holding the cup out to her. “And your favourite.”

“Coronation chicken?”

“One in the same.” He took his seat next to her, thigh pressed along the length of hers, close enough that he heard her small, barely audible sigh as she took her first sip in nearly twenty-four hours. “Taste all right?”

“Slightly caramel,” Zoe said. “Probably the beans, but it's great, thank you. I needed a cup.”

“And something to eat,” he said, unwrapping the top half of her sandwich for her. “This'll help you feel a bit better. You know what you get like when you don't eat for a bit.”

She took the food from him. “I'm not that bad.”

“You really are,” he disagreed, remembering many occasions when he wasn't sure if she wasn't actually annoyed about something or simply hungry before he had learnt to keep food on his person for her to snack on. “Eat up. The ride back's going to be rough and you'll want something to throw up when we get to the other side.” Her mouth froze around the sandwich, eyes flicking to him. “Sorry. Travelling from one universe to another is difficult at the best of times and we'll be riding a small burst of energy that shoots us straight through the crack between our universes. The only control I'll have is making sure we don't hit the wall and bounce back.”

Slowly chewing her mouthful, she frowned. “That hard?”

“Like threading a needle while riding a horse blindfolded.” Slipping an arm around her shoulders, he unwrapped his cheese and pickle sandwich one handed. “I'll do it though. I just can't make any promises to keep the contents of your stomach where they should be.”

“I trust you,” Zoe said, letting her weight sink against him with a quiet murmur of contentment. “It'll be nice to get home. I know we've got the TARDIS to put to rights – and Jack, for that matter – but I don't like being here. It's not just the Cybermen. It's everything. It feels wrong here. Like the air's different or something.”

“That's probably psychosomatic,” the Doctor said around a mouthful of food. “You know we shouldn't be here so your brain's making things seem out of place. Admittedly, the Zeppelins probably don't help matters.”

“That and –” she turned her coffee cup around and tilted her head to one side to read the writing. “Folgers. Isn't this an American brand back home?”

“Think so,” he said. “That or Canadian.”

She rubbed her eyes, narrowly avoiding smearing coronation chicken across her forehead, and settled deeper against his chest. The sky was beginning to turn grey as the sun started to rise over the Houses of Parliament, a definitive signal that their long night was at an end. Zoe was more than ready to leave the parallel universe behind and wash the night from her, hoping that as the blood swirled down the drain and her bruises healed, the feeling of shame that cloaked her would go with it. Resting against the Doctor's chest helped calm the frayed nerves and the tempest of guilt that swirled within her, but she was certain turning her back on the universe and never returning was what she needed more than anything else.

“This may not be the best time to tell you this,” the Doctor began, brushing the crumbs he had scattered against the top of Zoe's head from her. “But I like the outfit.”

She scoffed around her sandwich. “Of course you do.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm wearing a French maid's outfit,” Zoe said. “Isn't this one of the many, many fantasies that all blokes have?”

“I keep telling you, I'm not a bloke.” He slipped his fingers against her waist and lightly tickled her there, her body twitching, elbow pressing back into his ribs as a warning. “And it's not so much the outfit, really, it's more how it looks on you. If you ignore the blood and the dirt, you look gorgeous.”

“Shut up,” she said, reluctantly smiling into her coffee. “The French maid fantasy is overdone and rooted in sexism. It speaks to man's belief that women are there to service them be it cleaning for them or through sexual activities. I expect better from you.”

The Doctor made a sound of agreement in his throat. “All very valid points. However, if you'll allow a counterpoint?”

“Go on then,” she said.

“Your legs look _amazing_ in it.”

Her sudden burst of laughter drew their friends attention and she pinched his thigh in retaliation. Pleased with himself for making her laugh, a triumph considering the day she had had, he looped his arm around the front of her chest and pulled her closer to him as she popped the last of her sandwich into her mouth and chewed. The food in her stomach and the burst of much-needed energy that raised her blood sugar levels did as the Doctor predicted and made her feel marginally better. Her head no longer throbbed with pain and though her wrists hurt and while the various bruises she had accumulated were sore where they rubbed against her clothing, she felt more like herself.

“So if I'm the French maid in this fantasy of yours,” Zoe started, screwing up her sandwich rapper and aiming it at the nearest bin, satisfied when it went in the first time. “What does that make you?”

“The wealthy older man obviously in love with you.”

Her fingers tapped lightly against his thigh. “This character of yours wouldn't happen to be Scottish, would he?”

“Ah, does my wee bonnie lass miss the sound of the Highlands?”

It was no surprise to him that she liked the Scottish accent he was able to slip in and out of. After their meeting with Queen Victoria she had put the accent to good use and his body gave a _throb_ with the echo of remembered pleasure.

She squirmed against him. “A bit.”

“More than a bit, I reckon.” His nose brushed under her ear and a shiver ran through her when his lips grazed the soft skin beneath it, her breath catching as he breathed her in, the slow burn of arousal starting in the pit of her stomach. “I'm open to taking your fantasy for a whirl.”

“My fantasy?” There was a breathless quality to her voice that forced the Doctor to swallow back a groan, fingers tightening on her waist, the low sounds of conversation from their friends reminding them that they weren't alone. “You're the one who brought it up.”

“Did I?” He hummed a thoughtful sound and smiled against her neck. “Gold star to me for an excellent idea.”

Turning her head, she bumped her nose against his, the freckles spread across her cheeks blurring at their closeness. Instead of responding, she tipped her mouth up and kissed him, sending a ripple of surprise through him. Zoe was not one for public displays of affection, tending to frown at him if his hand rested on her back for too long or if he brushed her hair from her face in front of too many people, and he hadn't thought she would be the type of instigate a kiss in public, particularly in front of their friends. As he lifted a hand to brush across her jaw, tasting the traces coffee and curry on her lips, he wondered if it was to be their new normal.

If it was, he had a list of locations he wanted to kiss her in.

A small sound of protest slipped from his throat when she pulled back, his mouth chasing hers and grazing against her lips before she was out of reach.

“Sorry,” Zoe apologised, her hand patting his thigh lightly. “I shouldn't be kissing you when you're still sore from all that sex. D'you need some chapstick? Water for the dehydration?”

The Doctor pressed his nose into her dirty hair and laughed. “You think you're so funny.”

“Your laughter only encourages me,” she said, a grin tugging at her mouth. “And I'm very funny. Many people have found me to be one of the funniest people they know.”

“Yeah? Who's that then?”

“You and Reinette.”

“Right, okay,” he laughed. “The two people who've loved you find you funny. Do you think maybe Reinette and I might be a little biased?”

“Nope, can't think why,” she said.

“You're ridiculous,” the Doctor said, fondly. “But more fool you. Charging up the power cell yesterday got rid of all those aches and pains so I'm afraid it's _you –_ ” he booped her gently on the nose, withdrawing his finger before she bit it. “– holding us up.”

“I am a little achy,” Zoe admitted. “I got my ass kicked today but I did win the fight so I'm not sure if that's a tally for me or for him.”

He traced the Gallifreyan word for _love_ on her shoulder. “The man from earlier? What was his name again? Cranium? Chrysler?”

“I've known you for over ten years,” Zoe reminded him. “Three of them actually spent in your company. Do you honestly believe that I'm going to fall for that I-don't-care-if-you-tell-me-it's-really-fine tone of voice you're using?”

His mouth twitched, fingers looping back around and starting the word again. “I'm using a tone of voice?”

“What good would come of me telling you anyway? It's not like we'll ever see him again.” She finished her coffee and aiming it at the bin only to send it bouncing off the edge. Mickey watched it roll along the ground before getting up to throw it away for her. “Thank you!”

“You're a shit shot,” Mickey told her.

“The Doctor's annoying me, that's why.”

He shook his head in response, already falling back into conversation with Jack, and the Doctor pressed his cheek against hers, rubbing his stubble across her skin.

“I'm annoying, am I?”

“Deeply,” she said, shying away from him as a smile twisted across her mouth. “I love you for it anyway.”

“Good,” he said, kissing her cheek and pulling back. “I doubt the TARDIS is going to be liveable for a bit. We might have to stay in a hotel until she gets her energy back. I'm a little worried about Jack's knees though. I can manage his pain but the longer we leave the second surgery the worse the recovery time's going to be.”

“Can't you take the Vortex Manipulator?” Zoe asked. “I know you think it's an awful way to travel but if the TARDIS isn't up for it, it might be the best option.”

“Maybe, I'd rather not though and not just because it's offensive to time travel but it wouldn't provide any protection for Jack's knees,” the Doctor said. “If I have to, I'll take the TARDIS when she's got enough fuel in her and do a two-way trip: drop Mickey and Jack off with the Vortex Manipulator and then go back to Cardiff to finish refuelling.”

“We'll figure it out,” she promised him. “As long as we're not _here_. I really hate the Cybermen. I know they weren't responsible for what happened to me on Mondas but they're just awful. Honestly, I'd rather the –” _Daleks any day_ caught itself before it left her mouth, aware that saying such a thing to the Doctor of all people was not advisable. “You know, I'd rather anything else but the Cybermen.”

“Perfectly understandable,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “And I'm just eager to get you home to fuss over you a little bit. You're annoyingly stubborn to being fussed over in public.”

“Because I'm an adult not a child.”

He huffed. “Yes, dear.”

Zoe let her mind drift though she shouldn't have. Her phone was missing and while the Doctor had used his to deactivate it remotely, the fact that the technology was unaccounted for concerned her. The building _had_ blown up, which was a point in its favour of being gone, but the unfinished business made her uncomfortable. Part of her wondered if she was focusing on it to avoid thinking about other things – namely Lumic – but every time her mind touched him, she wanted to cry, the ruthlessness of her actions in forcing an early conversion left her untethered. Desperate for something to ground her, she turned into the Doctor properly and draped her legs over his, taking him by surprise.

“I'm cold,” Zoe lied.

He wrapped both arms around her. “Want me to steal Jack's throw?”

“No.” She scrunched her nose. “Maybe a little.”

“We'll be off soon enough,” he promised her, rubbing a hand over her thigh to warm her up. “The power cell's ready to go, I just need to put it back and start the TARDIS up. Since we're waiting though, do you want to tell me what's bothering you?”

She twirled his tie around her fingers. “Aside from the obvious that is?”

“Of course.”

Zoe tugged lightly on his tie, shame slipping through her again. The Doctor loved her. She knew that from his words and actions. Of all the things in the universe she questioned, his love for her wasn't one of them.

Yet, she worried.

His code of ethics was so strong that she knew he had thrown people out of the TARDIS for breaking it in the past – Brain Door was the one that came instantly to her mind. And she understood why that was. He had himself broken his own vows and used his friends as the things that held him accountable and stopped him slipping into the darkness that he had once seen reflected back in the form of the Valeyard.

If he relied on his friends to keep him on the straight and narrow, he leaned more heavily on Zoe who knew better the consequences of straying from his ethics. She saw firsthand what damage he had done to himself by disregarding the vow of the Doctor during the Time War; she lay in bed next to him as he twitched and mumbled, hands gripping the sheets as torment washed over him. And despite knowing the consequences of her actions, she had chosen to convert Lumic early in an act that went against everything he stood for simply to give her a few moments that allowed her to escape.

She worried that his love for her might not be enough to outweigh what she had done to Lumic.

“I –” Zoe began, heart slamming into her chest, her grip on his tie tightening until his hand came up to loosen it. She splayed her fingers across his chest and pressed her fingers over his left heart to feel the steady thud of it. “I did something. It was bad.”

His shoulders eased. “I told you, what you did for Lumic was a kindness. Can you imagine what a mob would've done to him if they'd got hold of him?”

“I'm not talking about that,” she said, mouth dry. “I'm talking about –”

“It's Jake, he's here!” Rose's voice interrupted her, and Zoe felt relief crash through her like a cold wave as she was granted a temporary respite from his disappointment. “Ricky's with him! Ricky's alive!”

Mrs Moore leapt off the wall and sprinted towards her friends, the three of them meeting in a tangle of limbs that ended up on the floor, while Mickey carefully escorted Rita to her grandson, the two of them hugging tightly with tears wetting their face. The Doctor watched from the bench but his attention was caught by Zoe who had closed her eyes and flexed her fingers against his chest, concerned at whatever it was that she was keeping to herself. Aware that it wasn't the best time to have the conversation, he silently tabled it and brushed a kiss over her cheek, gently removing her legs from him.

“I'm going to get the TARDIS ready to go,” the Doctor told her, eager to be on their way now that they had assurance of Jake and Ricky's survival. “Five minutes, we need to be on our way.”

She nodded, hand falling from him. “Okay.”

“Hey.” He stroked her dishevelled eyebrow back into place with the pad of his thumb. “Whatever it is that you think you've done, I love you. There's nothing you can do that'll stop that.”

Her eyes closed, a soft sight leaving her. “I know. I love you too.”

The Doctor's hand lingered before he let it drop and made his way to the TARDIS. Zoe watched him step inside, missing the warmth that normally spilled through the open door, before she stood up and tucked her coat over her crooked arm. She was going to have to tell him sooner rather than later; a lesson had been learnt not to keep things from him for too long – or at all – and she knew he would find out eventually. She wasn't as discreet with her emotions as she might have liked when in his company.

“What about Pete?” Rose asked as Zoe approached, eyes fixed in fascination on Ricky Smith who looked _identical_ to Mickey. “Did he – is he okay?”

“He's alive,” Jake told her. “His wife didn't make it though.”

“Jackie's dead?” Zoe asked, a strange jolt passing through her stomach at the thought of it. Jack's hand touched hers and she pushed away the faint grief for the woman who wasn't her mother to give them a nod. “Zoe Tyler, hello.”

“Hey,” Jake greeted. “And yeah, his wife was converted. We were able to get her body out but he wanted to take her home. Man's in shock and wouldn't hear of anything else. What about you lot? Everything taken care of?”

“Yes,” Mrs Moore said. “Lumic's dead and the Cybermen aren't Cybermen any more. Should think most of them are dead now. Don't know what's going to happen to the ones who aren't.”

“Something for you to deal with then,” Jack said, smiling when they looked at him. “Come on, the president's dead, the government's in disarray. Who better to deal with things than the only people who saw it coming?”

“There's a woman who can help you,” Zoe said. “A politician. Her name's Harriet Jones. Call her at her constituency office in Flydale North. She's the leader back in our Britain and does a bloody good job of it. She'll be just the person you need, especially now the president's dead.”

“The president's dead?” Ricky asked, surprised. “How? Was he converted?”

“No, he was executed by Lumic for refusing an upgrade,” she replied, pulling Thomas's jacket tighter around her. “I'm not sure how much of your government is left actually. A lot of them were at Pete and Jackie's party. Like I said though, Harriet Jones. She's a woman you want in your corner.”

“We'll call her,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Hey-up, there's the mad bastard,” Jake grinned as the Doctor came up behind Zoe and rested his hands on her arms. “Was that you that blew the building up then?”

“Actually nothing to do with us,” the Doctor said. “I think it was probably a mixture of those that were freed from the ear pods followed by whatever Cybermen survived the emotional inhibitor being turned off. Good to see the both of you in one piece. Ricky, close call.”

“Too close,” he agreed, his good arm around Rita. “Thanks for the rescue.”

“Nothing to do with me,” the Doctor said, nodding at Mickey. “Him and Jack knocked out the transmitter as well as found the code for the inhibitor.” He suddenly noticed the absence of Pete Tyler. “No Pete? Is he –?”

“Alive but busy,” Ricky said, succinctly.

“Ah.” The Doctor didn't fully know what that meant but it didn't matter as time was of the essence and the TARDIS was creeping back into his mind, touching the edges of the space where she lived in cautious welcome tinged with utter exasperation at their current situation. “We need to be saying our goodbyes now. Our ship's about five minutes out from being ready to go and we can't miss our window.”

“So quickly?” Mrs Moore asked, dismayed. “You can't stay for a bit?”

“Sorry, but we don't belong here,” he apologised. “Too many people in a parallel universe can have a detrimental effect on the fabric of things. Besides, I'm not sure this universe can handle two Smith boys.”

Ricky and Mickey grinned at each other.

“Two of them,” Jack said as though the thought had only just occurred to him. “I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now.”

“Stop it,” Mickey said, laughing.

“Yes, please stop it,” Ricky said, frowning.

“Might be nice to go,” Jack considered. “Not just because my knees are pretty much like jelly right now, and not the fun, tasty kind of jelly with hypervodka in it, but also does anyone else notice how the air tastes different here? It's like pepper or something.”

“That's what that is,” Rose exclaimed. “I thought I was havin' an allergic reaction to a salmon pinwheel.”

“You had a salmon pinwheel?” The Doctor asked, betrayed. “When? I _love_ salmon pinwheels.”

“Back at Pete's place,” she shrugged. “Nicked one from a servin' plate, didn't I?”

“I'm not entirely sure you lot are sane,” Mrs Moore laughed. “Here you are just having saved the world from a fate worse than death and you're talking about salmon pinwheels.”

“Sanity's overrated,” the Doctor told her. “Life's much more fun when you're on the edge.”

She smiled “I'll take your word for it.”

“Nah, I think you're about to find out for yourself,” he said. “There are still Cyber factories all across the world. Lumic was thorough and well-planned. Someone's going to have to go and make sure they're all shut down – advise governments and the like.”

Mrs Moore raised her eyebrows. “What, _us_?”

“Who else?” Ricky asked, and she turned to him in surprise. “Come on, Mrs M. We've spent years investigating Lumic, documenting what he was doing. We've got the names of every CEO in the world who did business with him and the location of all his international factories. I think we're the best people to take the lead on this. Someone's got to tell the world what really happened here tonight, and it might as well be us.”

Rita patted her grandson's chest. “If one of my grandson's can travel the universe, then the other can save the world here. You'd best come back and visit mind. I'll set you plates for Sunday dinner. Make sure you get here in time for church though. Lord knows you lot probably need a good church service to help your minds.”

“Is that possible?” Mickey asked, the hope in his eyes searing through the Doctor when he turned to look at him. “Can we come back and visit?”

“I'm sorry but no,” the Doctor said, hating the way Mickey _and_ Rita deflated in front of him. “Once we leave, that's it. We can never come back.”

Jack reached and took Mickey's hand in his.

“You could stay,” Ricky offered. “All of you could stay. I don't know what you've got in that universe of yours, but you could have a home here. Stay and help us fix this. Between the lot of us, we'll have it fixed in no time at all.”

Rita reached out and took Mickey's other hand. “Stay with us, sweetheart.”

“I –” the _want_ surged up and took Mickey in its grasp, startling him with how powerful it was, but the sensation passed, washing through him in moments. “I'm sorry, Gran. I can't. This isn't my home. An' I'm not about to leave Jack behind.”

“I'll stay with you,” Jack said, the Doctor's hands tightening reflexively on Zoe as Rose drew in a sharp, startled breath. “If you want to stay, I'll stay with you.”

“What? _No_!” Rose looked between them, panicked. “You can't stay. We won't see you again. Doctor, tell them. Tell them they can't stay.”

“Rose,” Zoe said, gently even though nausea swirled within her at the thought of leaving them behind. At her back the Doctor struggled to find his words, thrown by the sudden possible future that stretched out before him where Mickey and Jack weren't there, where he would never see them again. “If they want to stay, that's their choice.”

“No,” Mickey said, squeezing Rita's hand gently, feeling the thin fragility of her bones beneath her papery skin. “You told me to find my people. These are my people, Gran. My family. Besides, Rose an' Zoe'd never leave their mum behind, the Doctor'd never leave Zoe, an' I can't leave them. I need to go home.”

Rita looked up at him, his face reflected back in her glasses, and her chin wobbled.

“I'll miss you,” she said. “And I'll always think of you.”

Mickey swept her up into his arms and hugged her tightly, tears slipping free of his eyes that were squeezed tightly shut. He had never thought to see his grandmother again and the last twenty-four hours had been a gift even with the chaos and the destruction. He had the opportunity to introduce her to Jack and to gain her blessing, which meant more than he could say, but it was over now and he needed to move forward with his life and let go of the guilt that surrounded her death. Carefully, he set her back onto her feet and looked to Ricky.

“Fix her carpet,” he said, roughly. “You don't want to live through what happens if you don't.”

“I'll do it as soon as I get home,” Ricky promised.

Mickey stepped back to Jack, hand resting on the back of his neck, unable to put into words how grateful he was that he was ready to give up his life and settle down with him in a parallel world. He looked over at Rose who wiped the tears from her face, hands shaking at how close she had come to losing both him and Jack, and she sniffed just as the Doctor's phone beeped.

“Rassilon,” the Doctor hissed. “Time's up. Right, we need to move _now_. Everyone who came here with me, TARDIS, now.” He twirled his phone around and held it out to Mrs Moore. “Here. This has the cancellation code on it. Use it to get it out to the rest of the world. And whatever you do, don't lose this phone. It's from the 32nd century so just be careful with it.”

Mrs Moore took it and slid it into her pocket. “I'll keep it safe.”

“I know you will,” he said. “Well, Mrs Moore, it's been absolute pleasure.”

“The pleasure's been mine, you mad sod,” she said, laughing when he hugged her, patting him on the back. “Thank you for everything.”

“Make sure you hug your husband and kids extra tight when you see them next,” he said into her ear before releasing her. “They're going to be so proud of you.”

“This has been nuts,” Ricky said, shaking Mickey's hand firmly. “But good to know there's another me out there fighting the good fight.”

“Same here,” Mickey said, clapping him on his good shoulder as Jack shook hands with Jake in a fond farewell and Rose and Mrs Moore hugged their goodbyes, only Zoe on the edge of the group, not having had the chance to form a bond with the Preachers. “Good luck with everything, and look after Gran, yeah?”

“Course.”

“Come here, my boy.” Rita opened her arms for Mickey one last time and he fell into them, hugging her tightly, trying to sear the moment into his memory. “You forgive yourself and live a good life. Be the best man you can possibly be, Mickey Smith, and you'll never let me down.”

Hot tears pressed at his eyes once more. “I love you, Gran.”

“I love you too.” She kissed his cheek and smoothed a hand over his head like she had done when he was a child, turning to Jack. “And you, you make sure you look after him and love him like you're supposed to.”

“I will, I promise,” Jack said, accepting her hug with unconcealed delight. “Thanks, Gran.”

“All right, all right, everyone who doesn't belong in this universe, inside,” the Doctor ordered, pointing at the Preachers. “You lot, good luck. You're going to need it.”

Mrs Moore looked the TARDIS over with interest, itching to explore inside the doors that revealed a warm orange glow that steadily grew in brightness as more power returned to its engines. It seemed too small to contain five adults but they walked in one after another, Jack's wheelchair easily passing through the doors, and she was reminded of a clown car. Leaning, she attempted to get a better look inside and caught a glimpse of something bright and blue before the Doctor reached the door and blocked her view.

“Wait,” she called out, unable to resist one final question to the maddest man she had ever met. “How is that wooden box a space ship?”

The Doctor opened his mouth only to pause. He looked back towards his four new and unexpected friends and a slow grin unfurled on his face, unable to resist.

“Magic,” he said and shut the door on Mrs Moore's _whoop_ of laughter. He grinned and turned around, taking in the sight of the people he treasured preparing for takeoff in the ship that he loved. “Definitely magic.”


	42. Chapter 42

Beneath a spray of hot water, Zoe rested her forearms against the tiled wall in front of her and let the water pressure – surprisingly good considering the last-minute acquisition of the hotel room – beat against the back of her neck and sluice between her shoulder blades. It was something of a miracle they had even managed to get a single hotel room let alone three considering they had walked into the lobby looking _exactly_ like the sort of people hotels didn't want patronising them. Not that Zoe blamed the receptionist as it had been after midnight when they staggered into the hotel carrying with them the sand from the beach and dripping seawater across the floor, desperate for a place to get rid of the aftereffects of intra-universal travel.

Whatever the Doctor had said to the man worked and they were soon in possession of three separate plastic key cards that they took with them as they parted ways on various floors: Jack and Mickey took the first room on the second floor, Rose slipped away on the fourth, and the Doctor and Zoe entered a room on the fifth and final floor.

Teeth still vibrating from crossing universes, Zoe had managed to get out of her filthy clothes with his help before staggering into the shower where she had been for the last thirty minutes. She knew that she needed to get out as the Doctor also needed to shower but it was difficult to tear herself away from the comfort of the hot water, trembling finely from the journey.

As the Doctor predicted, the trip had been as violent and uncertain. Pieces of the TARDIS had gone up in flames: They lost an entire corridor of rooms that devoured Zoe's old bedroom and started to burn away at the library before the Doctor was able to shunt the fire into unused rooms. Jack briefly lost consciousness and Zoe lost the contents of her stomach before they passed through the thin crack in the wall between the universes and hurled themselves across the void as the power drained rapidly. There had been a moment when Zoe thought they weren't going to make it, fear climbing through her veins as she held tightly onto Rose's hands; the Doctor was at the controls, his attention focused entirely on the task at hand, when they burst into their universe and power began to seep back into the TARDIS.

The brief surge of triumph the Doctor felt at getting them back caused his attention to slip for a half a second and, in that time, he lost control. The TARDIS plummeted through time and space, locked onto the rift in Cardiff only to slam them into the shore of a beach in Norway in the middle of the night.

The TARDIS was half buried in wet sand and seawater streamed inside when Zoe and Rose – both desperate for fresh air – pried the door open. Between the gush of water and a sudden stream of poisonous gas making its way into the console room as one of the fuel chambers cracked, they were forced to evacuate. The Doctor grabbed Jack, Mickey grabbed the wheelchair, and Rose had the presence of mind to grab their emergency kit that contained first aid, food rations, and thermal blankets before the TARDIS kicked them out for their own safety.

Also, the Doctor told them later, because she was more than a little annoyed about recent events.

The worry they felt about the state of the TARDIS was assured by the Doctor. He was confident that being back in their universe was enough for the TARDIS to more or less heal herself; although, he did rest his forehead against his ship and _exhale_ in relief and with joy at having her presence back in his mind.

Unable to stay in the TARDIS and unwilling to spend the night in the bitter cold of Norway, they dragged themselves across the beach and went in search of a hotel.

Zoe didn't care they hadn't made it to Cardiff. The fact that they were on Earth was a victory in and of itself, and since they needed a couple of days to get their feet back under them again, Norway was a good enough place as any to do that.

The Doctor's knuckles rapping against the bathroom door made her jump. She slid her eyes towards it, making out the blurred shape of it through the shower curtain, and wondered if he was going to walk in as they both did on the TARDIS.

“Zo.” His voice sounded through the door, no move made to enter. “There's pizza out here if you're hungry.”

She was hungry.

Not that that was a surprise.

The Doctor was right when he said that she needed food on a semi-regular basis throughout the day or got grumpy and since her coronation chicken sandwich now decorated the floor of the TARDIS, she needed something else to eat.

Pushing herself away from the wall, she turned the spray down so she wasn't shouting to him. “How did you get pizza at this time of night?”

“I asked Eivind very nicely and he had room service cook some frozen ones for us,” he said, referring to the night receptionist. “I can't speak to their quality but it's better than nothing.”

“Thank you.” Her stomach gave a low rumble. “Have the others –?”

“Jack's fast asleep but Mickey's got his and Rose practically inhaled hers,” he replied, voice lilting with amusement. “I think she dislocated her jaw to get it all in. I'm a bit traumatised by the sight, to be honest.”

“You'll be fine,” Zoe said with a smile he couldn't see. “I'll be out in a minute then you can jump in.”

He knocked his knuckles against the door once more before leaving her to her shower. The water was running clean now, the blood and filth on her having swirled down the drain in thick black and then red rivulets. Still, she lathered up the white shower puff and scrubbed her body over for the last time, hoping she would finally feel clean. Her hair hung wet and slick against her back, empty bottles of hotel shampoo littering the bottom of the tub after having washed, washed, and then washed again to get the smoke, blood, and sweat out. She felt better having it off her and being back home but there was a heavy weight sitting on her chest that she wasn't going to be able to ignore for much longer.

Rinsing the suds off, she turned the shower off and stepped out, gathering the plastic bottles and throwing them into the bin, certain someone would recycle them for her.

Since everything she owned was on the TARDIS, she ripped open a complimentary toothbrush and squeezed the hotel's toothpaste onto the bristles, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. Spitting into the sink, she quickly cleaned up before wrapping a towel around her and leaving the bathroom to find the Doctor sitting in a chair naked, mouth full of pizza. The sight made her pause, having not expected his nudity though it was hardly the worse sight in the world.

His eyes swept over her, lingering on the bruises that littered her skin, before meeting her eyes and smiling. She tapped her finger to the corner of her lips with a small smile, and his hand came up and wiped the tomato sauce staining him away.

“You look cleaner,” the Doctor told her.

“Feel it too,” Zoe said. “Shower's all yours. The water pressure's great.”

“Thanks.” He finished his slice of pizza and wiped his hands on his thighs. “I've sent our clothes to be dry cleaned, the others too. Eivind said we should get them back in the morning with our paper.”

“Ah,” she said. “I did wonder why you're naked.”

“Thought I'd surprise you,” the Doctor said, spreading his arms wide and making her laugh. “Surprise!”

“You're ridiculous.”

“I am,” he agreed.

“But it sounds like you've been busy,” Zoe said. “Getting us food, gathering up all our clothes...you can take it easy now that we're back, you know?”

“It was nothing. Besides, Rose helped,” he replied, bumping his hip against hers as he walked passed her. “Now, eat your pizza. There's a drink on the bedside table and a dressing gown in the wardrobe if you don't fancy being naked. Although, if I have a vote, I vote for –”

“I know,” she interrupted, ignoring his grin. “Get gone. You stink.”

He turned his head and sniffed his shoulder before disappearing into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him. Zoe picked up a slice of pizza and pulled a face. She liked pizza, though normally when it was heavy with cheese, mushrooms, and barbecue chicken, and the hotel's pizza looked dry and tough but she was hungry and it was better than nothing. She ate two slices in quick succession, her stomach growling with hunger, and, having learnt her lesson from previous bouts of hunger, waited to finish the rest of the pizza. Instead, she dried her body off and wrapped the towel around her wet hair, twisting it onto the top of her head, a chill from the air conditioning making her shiver.

The dressing gown was where the Doctor said it was, and she took one for him and left it on the bed, her skin tight and dry and she wanted to moisturise but her moisturiser was back on the TARDIS. Ignoring her discomfort, she cracked open a can of something called Solo and was hit by the overpowering taste of carbonated orange that made her cough, the sugar hitting her system and helping to restore a balance. She drank it all down and crushed the can in her fist, tossing it into the bin as she took in the room for the first time.

Given the paucity of their hotel choices – it was between this and a hotel that made it clear gay men were not allowed, which infuriated everyone in equal measure – it was a surprisingly nice hotel room. The ceiling slanted in the corner above a comfortable looking double-sized bed with dark blue covers and a grey comforter folded over the bottom. There was a leather chair, a small table, and a TV set up on the wall opposite the bed, a room that clearly was intended only for sleeping rather than spending a considerable amount of time there. She eyed it, wondering how the Doctor was going to fold his long body into it, deciding that if he ended up curled around her, she would be content.

Pushing the chair to one side, she looked out of the window onto the lake below. As she was peering out into the darkness, the Doctor reappeared with a towel wrapped around his waist, his reflection catching her eye in the window. His hair was wet and slicked back, hand rubbing at his jaw as he contemplated whether or not he needed to shave soon.

He caught sight of her watching him and his hand fell from his jaw. “Nice view?”

“It's not bad,” Zoe said, eyes fixed on his reflection rather than the water. “There's a lake outside. At least I think it's a lake. Could be the ocean. Hard to tell.. Where exactly in Norway are we anyway?”

“Bergen,” the Doctor said. “Outskirts of. We're lucky its the middle of winter otherwise we might not have been able to get rooms.”

“Not unless we pretend Jack and Mickey are just good friends,” she said, sarcastically.

“Those two couldn't pass for _good friends_ if their lives depended on it,” he said, dropping the towel to the floor and slipping into the dressing gown that left his ankles on display. “And don't think I don't know you wouldn't have found the first willing women to snog to make a point.”

“If you're homophobic, I'm going to kiss in front you,” she shrugged, drawing the curtain across the window and facing him. “Those are the rules.”

“Quite right too.” He sat on the end of the bed and let his eyes rest on her, shoulders dipping as the long day slowly caught up with him. “How are you?”

“Happy to be back.”

“Me too,” the Doctor admitted, rubbing his eyes. They had been in the parallel world for less than a day though it certainly didn't feel like it. “It's been a weird day even by our standards.”

“We do have high standards for weirdness,” Zoe agreed, unwinding the towel from her hair and squeezing the excess water out before sitting next to him and resting her head against his arm, hand finding his. “I'm glad you're okay.”

He hummed. “I should be the one saying that. You were in more danger than I was what with mouthing off to Cybermen and all.”

“It was all I could think of,” she said, blinking slowly. “Besides, it kept me alive for a little longer.”

“And that's all that matters,” the Doctor said, honestly. “Have you eaten?” She nodded, cheek rubbing against his arm. “You should eat more, it'll help.” He pushed the sleeve of her dressing gown up her arm. “How's this, is it still hurting?”

“Huh?” Zoe looked down and remembered that she had broken her arm only the day before when the TARDIS slammed into the parallel universe. The splint was in the bathroom on the edge of the sink, filthy and in need of a good wash, but she hadn't noticed it as it was just another item to remove before she was able to get clean. “Oh. No. I'm fine. It doesn't hurt.”

His fingers brushed lightly over her skin. “Let me?”

Nodding her permission, the Doctor slipped from the bed to the floor where he knelt at her feet. She watched him as he ran his long fingers over her skin, occasionally pressing lightly to check the damage. There was less bruising than expected – faint patches of green and yellow that would be gone when she woke up – and it looked significantly better than the rest of her body. He left her briefly to fetch his sonic screwdriver that he passed over her limb, running the best scan he was able to without the TARDIS, before leaning down and pressing his lips to the faint bruises. She touched his damp hair, curling her fingers behind his ear and wanting to stay with him in the quiet, gentle moment forever.

“How do you feel?” The Doctor asked, lifting his eyes to hers, hand resting on the outside of her covered thigh.

“Exhausted,” Zoe said, truthfully. “You?”

“I could sleep for a bit,” he admitted. “How are things with Rose? It looks like you're both being friendlier to each other.”

“We still need to talk.” She smoothed her fingers through his hair, his eyes fluttering, and she realised he needed a haircut as it was getting a little long. “But it looks like we'll be okay. I'm not walking on eggshells any more and she's actually looking me in the eye again. I didn't realise I'd been missing that.” He hummed his approval, content to be petted. “What about you two? It looks like you're friends again.”

“We had the chance to talk earlier,” the Doctor said, her legs parting so that he was able to kneel between them, leaning deeper into his touch. “We were waiting for Ricky and Mickey to meet up with us after we'd split up and Jack was worried. I never would've pegged him as someone prone to worrying as much as he is about Mickey.”

“Says you,” Zoe said, amusement curling through her voice, stroking through his hair again. “You live in a constant state of worry about me.”

“That's because I love you,” he said, eyes popping open. “ _Oh._ ”

A soft laugh brushed across his forehead. “You're so slow sometimes.”

“Jack's in love.” Something warm and soft melted in the Doctor's voice. “Does Mickey –?”

“Yes,” she said. “But he's not ready to admit it yet. He didn't even realised he liked men until Jack popped into his life, and I'm still not entirely sure that it's men he likes or just Jack, but it takes a while to wrap your head around.”

His hands rested on the mattress behind her. “Speaking from experience?”

“It took me a good six months to realise I fancied Reinette,” Zoe told him. “Another six months and a bout of cholera to realise I loved her.”

“And you call me slow.” His nose brushed open her dressing gown to press a kiss to her chest, arms looping around her waist and he rose onto his feet, her legs wrapping around him, until he was sat with her in his lap looking down at him. “Although, I do recall you shagging her within about – ooo, what was it? – half an hour of meeting her.”

Her mouth pressed together to try and fight the smile that threatened to encourage him, his eyes sparkling.

“I was in France,” she said, primly. “It's what one does there.” He snorted, and she smacked his shoulder lightly, releasing her grip on his hair. “What did you speak about with Rose? Is it a secret?”

“No,” the Doctor replied, resting the curve of his nose against the side of her cheek, eager to be as physically close to her as possible. “She just wanted to know more about everything and seemed to accept it. She's got a good heart does Rose. Once the shock wore off, I knew she'd be all right. And her first instinct was to look out for you.”

She ran her nails over the nape of his neck. “Oh?”

“She told me not to break your heart.” A shiver rolled through him at her touch, and he caught sight of Zoe's surprised expression. “She said that Reinette had broken it by dying and told me not to do the same. It was actually rather lovely. Reminded me of when you were both new to the TARDIS and how you used to stick together.” He almost missed those days, although he wouldn't change anything about his life now. “ _And_ she didn't hit me, much unlike your mother. My nose stayed unbloodied and unbroken. I'm pretty sure there's a poem about that.”

“If you're talking about Invictus, broken noses is absolutely not what it's about,” she told him. “She really accepted everything?”

“Seems to have,” the Doctor said. “I mean, it's probably still really weird for her to think about but no weirder than you marrying an 18th century aristocrat or her ex-boyfriend taking up with a former Time Agent and conman from the 51stcentury. Rose is excellent at handling the weird and disorienting. Give her a few more days, maybe a week, and everything will be right back to normal.”

Zoe hoped that was true. She knew that Rose regretted what she had said about Reinette, but it was one thing to feel remorse for harsh words spoken in the heat of anger and another to accept her sister's relationship with the man she fancied. She turned her head towards the Doctor, forcing him to look up, and she kissed him, his hands tugging her even closer to his body as she kissed him long and slow. The fear of the parallel universe clung to her despite being home and safe in his arms; she wanted to reassure herself that he was truly with her and not some dream that softened the blow before death.

“I love you,” the Doctor murmured against her lips, pupils bleeding into his irises and making her breath catch in her chest. “But I'm not touching you until you've slept at least eight solid hours. I'm going to build a pillow wall down the middle of us so you don't tempt me in my sleep.”

Her eyes crinkled with laughter and she kissed his nose. “Silly man.”

“That's me, silly Doctor,” he agreed. “Now, come on, to bed with you.”

Reluctance gripped her and she made no attempt to move off him.

“I don't think I'll be able to sleep,” Zoe confessed, fingers playing with the collar of his dressing gown, frowning at it. “I'm tired – _really_ tired – but I can't stop going over everything that happened. It's like it's playing on repeat in my mind.”

“I have that problem sometimes,” the Doctor said, smoothing his hands over her hips, fingers splayed across her. “Talking about it with you helps. And you always make me hot chocolate when I'm feeling sad. I don't know why you do that but I like it.”

“Mum used to make it for me and Rose when we were upset about something,” she explained. “She always keeps a tub in the cupboard above the fridge.”

“That's really sweet,” he said. “Do you want a hot chocolate? I'm sure the kitchen has some.”

“No, I want to sleep and chocolate always wakes me up.”

“Have you tried reading Moby Dick? That never fails to send me right off.” The Doctor tipped his head back to look up at her, hands sliding to her waist. “I've been trying to read that book for centuries but I get a hundred pages in and can never finish it.”

“Just watch Wrath of Khan, that's pretty much all you need to know about the book,” she suggested, trailing one finger down the bridge of his nose. “It's all about an obsessed man hunting the thing that'll kill him. And, as a bonus, you don't need to read through a chapter on whaling that way.”

“Melville was in need of a good editor.” He caught her finger between his teeth, tugging lightly before releasing it. “Mickey said he and Jack want to spend some time at a resort after Jack's surgery, just the two of them. Maybe you should think about taking a holiday?”

“I don't have a job, my entire life's a holiday.”

“Yeah, that's true, most people spend their lives falling into parallel universes and saving multiple worlds,” he said. “Can't see why you'd want a holiday from that. We could go somewhere warm –”

Zoe wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. “Oh, you're coming with me, are you?”

“You wouldn't leave me behind, would you?”

Her mouth twitched. “This feels like a trick question.”

“I know just the place to take you,” he told her. “There's an ocean planet in the Comet Galaxy with a sky that has the best view of the stars you'll ever see. We can go to one of the floating resorts, and you can wear that bikini I know you've got in the TARDIS. The red one Jack bought you for a laugh.” Colour climbed into her skin. “And we'll drink cocktails and have so much sex you'll forget your name at some point, then we'll watch the stars at night.”

“Sounds like you had this one up your sleeve for a while,” Zoe noted, lightly.

“I've wanted to take you there for a couple of years,” the Doctor admitted. “It's where I planned on taking you after I got you back from France. I thought you might want somewhere to relax and think. I just didn't realise –” his chest expanded, the failure he felt for not being able to reach her in time clung to him even though he knew she wouldn't change those years. “Well, point is, I want to take you there. Just the two of us. We can make it our place where we don't take anyone else. Somewhere that's just for us.”

_Want_ pulsed through her.

“That sounds perfect,” she whispered, caught by an unexpected surge of emotion that lodged itself in her throat. “But we can't go while Jack and Mickey are away otherwise Rose'll be left by herself. I don't want her feeling left out.”

“Okay,” he agreed, easily. “But you need something to help you relax, and I'm still not having sex with you until we wake up tomorrow.”

“I'm fine,” Zoe told him. “Just wired up.”

“You say you're fine so often that it doesn't mean anything when I hear it now,” the Doctor said. “Come on, tell me what's bothering you.”

Anxiety tightened itself into a ball, settling like lead in the pit of her stomach. It was impossible to deny that she was worried about his reaction, his good opinion of her meant more than she would ever say, and even as he looked at her with soft, caring eyes, his hands a supportive weight on her waist, the worry built. Part of her wondered how much of her concern was based in how exhausted she was – it wasn't as though she had had a full night of sleep before arriving in the parallel universe, her mouth moving over the Doctor's body – and how much of it was rooted in reality.

It was difficult for her to tell when it felt as though she had sand in her eyes and blood on her hands.

“I killed Lumic,” Zoe said. “I'm responsible for his death.”

His head tilted minutely to one side, fingers flexing on her waist. “You didn't –”

“I did,” she interrupted. “I need you to understand that I did.”

“Zo.” His mouth pressed together as he thought how to address what he believed was unfounded guilt. “I've met murderers. You're not one.”

“No, you're right,” she whispered. “I'm worse. I didn't do it myself. I got the Cybermen to do it for me. At least if I had shot him in the head, it would've been honest. Instead, I was cruel.”

A small crease appeared in his forehead.

“What are you talking about?”

“After – after he had Thomas killed, he ordered his man to kill me too.” Her mouth was dry and the sugar of her Solo turned her mouth tacky, a slick feeling of nausea in her stomach as her eyes focused on a point over the Doctor's shoulder, unable to look at him despite being pressed against him. “I was able to get behind the computers but only just. The bullet missed me by an inch, I reckon. I was alive but trapped because the only way out was past the Cyberman guarding the door and that wasn't happening.”

The Doctor listened to her speak, his hands steady on her waist, and he was sharply reminded of the night she told him about her trip to Skaro.

“Crane dragged me out from behind them and we were fighting,” she said, explaining the litany of bruises across her body. “I was able to get the upper hand and I knocked him unconscious but the Cybermen were coming for me so., as like a Hail Mary, I told them where I was from and about my phone being future tech. That was all I needed to get them to stop trying to bloody kill me, and I was able to ask them why Lumic hadn't been converted yet.” Her hand tightened on his shoulder, gripping the material in between her fingers. “It told me that it was because he wasn't scheduled for an upgrade until he was injured.”

The Doctor slipped one hand from her rest to rub soothingly over her back, long, slow, circular rubs that he hoped were helpful as her voice shook and the colour slipped from her cheeks, her throat moving as she swallowed.

“So I took Crane's gun and I –” the truth jammed in her throat, muscles twitching around her mouth. “I shot the oxygen tank on the back of his wheelchair. I damaged him enough that the Cybermen converted him. To save myself, I forced an early conversion on him and then, later, I killed him.”

Gently, for fear of startling her as tension ran through her body and he knew what she was like when she was riddled with guilt, he cupped the back of her neck and smoothed his thumb over her skin. Her revelation was less of a surprise than it might have been had she been anyone else. The Doctor knew what she was capable of when the people she loved were in danger – Skaro was only one example; she had, after all, been willing to risk temporal stranding for Reinette after only a few hours of acquaintance – and if she thought to shock him with her admission, she didn't.

“You didn't do anything that wasn't going to happen anyway,” the Doctor said, her eyes snapping to his. “You said he was days away from dying as it was.”

Her hands planted against his chest and pushed him back. The ceiling appeared above him as his shoulders bounced and the weight of her removed itself from him. He quickly sat back up and watched her stride as far away as their small room allowed, her dressing gown swamping her and trailing along the floor.

“That's not the point and you know it,” Zoe snapped, turning back to him with anger and guilt written across her face. “I killed him. I killed a man. It doesn't matter that he was a bastard of a man, what matters is that I killed him.”

“I don't think it's as simple as that,” the Doctor said, watching her. “He tried to kill you first with that rabid dog of his. It was clearly self defence.”

Her whole body flinched. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Making excuses for me.”

The Doctor exhaled and spread his hands out before him. “I mean, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say here, love?”

“I don't want you to make excuses for me,” Zoe snapped. “I don't want you to find some way to make me accept that what I did was fine when we both know it wasn't.”

“You did what you had to do in order to survive,” he told her, wanting to rise and take her in his arms though given the way that her limbs twitched and her feet moved over the floor restlessly, she wouldn't welcome being touched then. “And if you think that I'm going to be upset about you walking away from something alive even if other people don't, then you haven't been paying attention.”

“Don't say that,” she said, turning from him so he couldn't see her face. “Don't treat me differently.”

He frowned. “Differently to whom?”

“To everyone else you travel with!” Her voice bounced off the walls, startling them both. He met her eyes from across the room, and he pulled a thread loose from his dressing gown, playing with it as she breathed in deeply and unclenched her fists. “You kicked Brain Door out of the TARDIS because he tried to steal information – or technology, or whatever it was he was doing – from the future. You're always going on about the peaceful solution and how we can talk our way out of anything. And you go on and on at Jack for wanting to carry a weapon because it goes against _your_ beliefs.”

“If Jack really wanted to carry a weapon, then he'd carry one,” the Doctor pointed out. “He's able to conceal Rassilon knows what on his person in places I personally don't want to check every time we leave the TARDIS. The fact he doesn't is more to do with him than my aversion to guns.” She opened her mouth but he kept talking. “And Brain Door was a complete idiot. I would never have taken him onto the TARDIS if Rose hadn't asked. The way she utilises that face of hers sometimes is downright criminal. No one should be able to inspire that much guilt and cooperation with a human face.”

“You still –”

“You asked me once why I know what people are suitable to travel with,” he continued. “And I said I never know why, I just know who. Brain Door wasn't a who. He was someone next to bloody useless and very nearly got you and Rose killed through his cowardice. So don't compare yourself to him. He doesn't even come close. And, furthermore, you _are_ different from everyone else I've ever travelled with. Of course you are. How can you not be?”

“So you don't hold me to the same standards as everyone else?” The exhaustion was written across her face, ageing her before his eyes. “You let me get away with murder?”

“To be honest...” he thought about it and found it impossible to find a situation where that might happen. “I can't see it. I can't see you killing people, certainly not in cold blood. And this hypothetical doesn't work because you know better than anyone that these decisions depend on a case by case basis. But I don't like talking like this. You're not some criminal that I need to pass judgement on. You're _you_. I can't condemn you for this.”

Frustration spilled over onto her features. “Why not?”

“Because I love you, you idiot, that's why,” the Doctor said, standing. “I know who you are as a person. I know you better than I've known any other human, any other person away from Gallifrey. What we have is what I used to have back home with my people. It's a connection, an understanding that I haven't had with a non-Gallifreyan _ever._ I've told you things about my life that I've never told anyone else. And I love you. Dammit, Zoe, I love you, and I think that love is deserving of a little grace here and there.”

Her eyes were wet and glasses, her chin trembled in a wobble before she firmed it up. “Even with murder?”

“Zo...” he breathed out and, unable to stay distant from her any longer, he crossed the room and took her in his arms, holding her so he could see her face. Sometimes it struck him how terribly young she still was. “What happened with Lumic was awful. And I'm so sorry that you had to deal with it alone. I should've been there with you. You shouldn't have been in that situation without anyone else. But you did what you had to do, and I believe that you did the best you could given the circumstances. Forcing an early conversion isn't something I'm going to judge you for, nor is overloading his mechanics at the end.”

“You should,” she whispered, agonised.

A single tear slipped down her cheek and he caught it with the pad of his thumb, wiping it gently away. “Why?”

“Because what if this is the start of something?” Zoe asked, and he read the fear in her eyes that went deeper than he expected, Lumic's death chipping away at a fear that she hadn't even known about. “What if I'm becoming someone I don't recognise?”

“That's normal,” the Doctor told her. “People change throughout their lives all the time, unless you're the very dull and uninspired, which you most certainly are not. Look at Jack, for example. Look at the person he was when we met him and the person he is now. He's a completely different man. The core of him may be the same but everything else is different. And Reinette as well. Did she stay the same during the time you knew her?”

“No, but –”

“Life is about change,” he said, tone soft and kind, hoping that she would take the benefit of his wisdom acquired through centuries of pain and grief so that she might avoid those feelings and be happier earlier. “Every day we make decisions big and small that gently nudge us in a different direction to what we envisioned for ourselves. Thirteen years ago, you made a decision to travel with me in the TARDIS. Can you say that you're the same person you were then?”

A flash of her seventeen-year-old self filled her mind: determined, scared, and her only goal was to get her A-Levels. Nothing else mattered to her then, and there was a sense of smallness when she thought of what she was like before she met the Doctor, how limited her imagination and dreams had been. In some ways, she felt as though she was looking back on someone she had once known rather than been.

“No,” Zoe admitted, quietly. “I'm not.”

“This life...” the Doctor began only to pause, uncertain how to phrase what he wanted to say. “I know how it changes people. I pretend not to see it but I know what it does. I put you – all of you – in situations that I shouldn't and it forces you to make choices that are sometimes difficult to live with. I made Rose miss a year of her life on Earth. I caused Zoe Heriot to end up in a care home on New Luna because of a choice I made. Adric...” remembered grief for his young friend slammed into him, and the emotion made his fingers tightened on Zoe's arms. “Adric died because of me. Because I put him on that ship. Because I brought him into my life and made him stupid and brave when he could've been safe back home. So I know how this life affects people. “

She touched her hand to his cheek, fingertips light against his skin. “Adric made his own decision. And he was brave long before he met you. You just bring out the best in us, my love, that's all. You don't give us anything that's not already there.”

“Sometimes I wonder...” he said, breathing through the pain of Adric's death centuries earlier though as fresh as the day it happened. Somewhere, distantly, he heard Nyssa and Tegan weeping. “But, my point is, we all change. Every single one of us. You don't need to fear that change.”

Zoe shook her head and pressed her hand to her chest, knuckles digging into her skin. “The way I feel right now...I don't know who I am. If I'm capable of forcing a conversion on Lumic just to save my own life, what else might I be capable of doing? Who else might I kill to stay alive, or to get what I want? What's stopping me from becoming my own sort of Valeyard?”

“This.” His hand covered hers over her heart. “This is what stops you. You've a good heart. It's big and warm and so full of love. You're not capable of the sort of evil you're talking about. It's not in your bones.”

“You don't know that,” she whispered. “I've done things that are insane to save the people I love. I snuck onto Skaro for you and Jack. I mean, who does that? Who thinks going to the Dalek home world is a good idea under any circumstance? Even the Corsair thought I was crazy and she was the Corsair.” She swiped at her eyes. “And I jumped through a Time Window for a woman I'd known for like an hour or something. It's ridiculous. I – I don't have a base of acceptable behaviour because I've always done the stupidest and most dangerous thing possible.”

“Because you care,” the Doctor argued. “You didn't do those things for personal gain. You did them to save people.”

“When you were gone,” she began as though she hadn't heard him. “There were things I did...things that I don't talk about because – because they make ashamed.” Her mouth twisted in an effort to stop the shame and guilt from overwhelming her. “The levels to which I sank to save you and Jack...sometimes I can't look at myself in the mirror because of it.”

He frowned, his concern spiking, and he moved his hands to her face, using his thumbs to brush away the tears.

“If you want to tell me,” he murmured. “Then I want to hear it.”

“I –”

“Keeping it to yourself is only going to make that shame grow in you,” he told her when she hesitated, his hands falling to hold hers, linking their fingers together between them. “Share it with me. You'll find no judgement here.”

Her throat moved in a swallow, tongue touching her dry lips.

“When I needed to find the Corsair, I went to Roxx,” Zoe started, the words falling out of her like heavy stones that dropped to her feet. “She doesn't trade information freely and I needed something worth enough for what I needed her to do: Tracking down a Time Lord's expensive work. But Roxx likes antiques because they make a lot on the black market and so I went to Sharaz Jek in order to get one of his data processors. I was planning on buying one but apparently he doesn't deal in money, rich bastard, and he suggested a game of logic instead. If I won, I'd get the data processor; if he won, he'd get a night with me.”

The Doctor breathed in sharply, taken aback.

Her eyes skittered away from his face once more.

“I lost the game,” she said with a small shrug. “Of course I did. Before meeting him, I'd never heard of logic games before. And I thought, not a problem. Whatever. I'll hold up my end of the bargain. He was moderately handsome after all, and I figured a quick shag for a data processor wasn't a bad deal but then we got to his room and I felt his mouth on my neck and I couldn't do it.”

Her body rippled in a shudder and he squeezed her hands, letting her know he was there and not letting her go. The next breath she took shook her from head to toe but she carried on with her story.

“He didn't like the fact I was backing out of the deal,” Zoe said. “I was just going to walk away. That's all I was going to do. Figured I'd find something else worth Roxx's while. It wouldn't have been hard to do. I know what she likes, I know what fetches a decent price on the black market, but he starting attacking me – not physically, verbally, I mean. He said I was a bitch for leading him on, that we had a deal, that he owned me for a night.”

Anger slammed through the Doctor at the knowledge someone had dared possess Zoe in such a way, and it took all of his self-control to stay perfectly still and not let his anger show for fear that she might believe it was directed at her.

“He pissed me off,” Zoe admitted. “God, he pissed me off so much. Cause I've known men like him. Mum used to bring them back home before she realised they were no good. And I told him to shut up but he got right in my face and I hit him.” A small, twisted smile touched her lips. “He looked so surprised. I remember thinking _why are you surprised_? But, I guess assholes never expect to be called out on their behaviour. They definitely never expect to face any consequences. And I looked at him and seeing that purple blood on his face...it felt good. So hit him again. And again. And again. I didn't stop hitting him.”

The Doctor imagined the scene perfectly. Some darkened bedroom somewhere on Jek's home world, a bottle of something alcohol set by two glasses – only one of which would've been drunk, he was sure – and Zoe lashing out in anger. He imagined her set against the darkness staring at Jek who was bleeding and how her mind would have worked in that moment.

“By the time I finished,” she said. “He was barely breathing. His face was a mess. He was making this horrible, gurgling sound like he was choking on his own blood, and – and I stayed where I was over him and took in what I'd done. I didn't feel guilty then. I didn't feel much of anything. I'd come within inches of killing him because he pissed me off and I didn't feel a thing. All I did was get up off him, take the data processor, and leave. I told Roxx I'd won it in the game and then I tried to forget about it but it didn't work, not always. Sometimes...sometimes I'd look at myself in the mirror and _then_ the guilt hit.”

There was a loud ringing sound in the Doctor's ears, like someone had slammed symbols right next to both ears, and his grip on her hands bordered on crushing.

“I was willing to whore myself out for a data processor,” Zoe told him, meeting his eyes evenly, trying to shock him. “And I nearly a killed a man for being demanding. So when you tell me that my big heart is enough to stop me from becoming a Valeyard, I can't believe that. My heart hasn't stopped me doing these things.”

“Honey –” the Doctor said, voice catching on the air. “Zo, I –”

“And in France I used to break the hands of men who'd look at Reinette the wrong way,” she continued, rushing over anything he had to say as though desperate for him to find her as guilty as she found herself and his hearts ached for her. “I also started a fight in a brothel with soldiers, not because I needed information about the Alfasi like I told Reinette but more because I enjoyed it and I was spoiling for a fight. Then there was New Earth.”

“What?”

“For a moment I was willing to let the Sisterhood keep doing what they were doing because the good outweighed the bad.” Her laugh reminded him of ice cracking. “And there was also that _asshole_ who'd been torturing Jack. If I'd been alone, if you and Mickey hadn't been there, I would have done the same to him as I did to Jek. I know it. And I worry I'm going to do it again. There's that person following me through time. What if I've done something to him? What if I've hurt him? I don't want to be that person, I don't, but I've been violent before and what happened with Lumic...I don't know if I can stop myself.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, her words wrapping themselves in the sobs that she was fighting against. The Doctor freed his hands from hers and pulled her against his chest, holding her to him, hating what she was doing to herself, aware that he had some responsibility in that matter for bringing her into his life. He wouldn't ever change that but it was hard not to feel as though he had dropped the ball somewhere with her that had led to her feeling so distraught and afraid.

“You think you're violent but you're not.” The Doctor cupped the back of her head and bowed his mouth close to her scalp so that he could speak softly and sincerely. “I've seen violence and I've known violent people. _You_ are not a violent person. You're not even a cruel one. You're just human. A human who's in situations that you were never born for. You didn't grow up thinking that you'd travel through time and space. You're doing the best you can with the experience you have.”

Her breath was wet and heavy against his chest. “I should be better.”

“Says who?”

“ _Me_.”

“You're always harder on yourself than you need to be,” he said with a soft sigh, smoothing her damp hair back from her face and catching her chin with his fingers, lifting it up just a little so their eyes met. “But let me tell you something. Everything you've just told me from Lumic to Jek and to all the idiot men who think they can touch a woman without her permission, it doesn't change anything. Not for me. It doesn't change how I see you, how I love you.”

She sniffed, mouth quivering, shaking her head in refusal, desperate for him to hate her as she hated herself yet also terrified of that outcome. “Doctor –”

“Some time ago, I told you what I did to stop the war,” he said. “You can't imagine the shame I'd felt over that, that I still feel sometimes. And the guilt. At that point, I was having nightmares every single time I closed my eyes. The TARDIS made sure you and Rose couldn't hear me screaming because I didn't want to scare either of you. And then along you come with your big hair and your big heart and you asked me about it. And do you know what you did?”

Her eyes were shaded with caution. “What?”

“You forgave me,” the Doctor said, breathing out long and slow as that moment filled him, the heat of Reylar on his back, Zoe barely a month from Tolandra and Jack still a stranger to them; none of them knowing what lay ahead. “I'd been holding onto so much anger and pain but you forgave me.” Even as he said it, it felt wrong. “No, wait, that's not entirely right. What you did was you gave me permission to forgive myself. When you told me I'd been the Doctor more on that day than I'd ever been, it was like this light shining down on me and I was finally able to think clearly. When I slept in your bed that night, it was the first night since Gallifrey burned that I didn't have nightmares.”

The tears briefly stopped as she stared up at him. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You never said.”

“I'm saying now,” he said. “My point is that you don't need me to forgive you for what you've done. I'll always forgive you, and I'll always love you. What you need is permission to forgive yourself. So take it. _Please._ Take my permission and forgive yourself for what you believe your sins are.”

Her hands flexed on his chest, fresh tears pooling in her eyes.

“I don't – I don't know if I can,” Zoe whispered.

“Then I'll forgive you until you're ready to forgive yourself,” the Doctor promised. “I forgive you, my love. Always and completely, I forgive you.”

A sob caught in her throat before she was in his arms and _sobbing_. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her back to the bed where he was able to lie her down, climbing on the mattress after her and pulling her against him, hooking his leg over hers and holding her as close as he was able. Gently, he smoothed her hair back and held her as she cried, humming a Gallifreyan lullaby in his throat as the moonlight peeked through the gap in the curtains.

_This too will pass_ , he thought, content to hold her in his arms until it did.

* * *

The next day, the Doctor scowled at a lamppost. “This is difficult.”

“I know.”

“This is _really_ difficult.”

Zoe smiled. “I know it is.”

“Not for you,” he said, looking both ways before they crossed the road. “I know exactly what you'd choose, you don't even have to tell me, but for me? It's like asking me which arm I like the most. I can't choose. They're both my favourite.”

“It's okay if you don't know,” she told him. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“There's just too many things to choose from,” he said their hands linked together between them. “Earth cuisine's nice, don't get me wrong, but I do like the food on Drana as well. If Jack ever gets over his aversion to being strangled by water nymphs then we can go back soon and actually eat at a restaurant.”

“Yeah.” A smile touched her lips. “I think he's firmly set against Drana for the time being.”

The Doctor pulled a face, the tip of his nose red from the cold. “All right, so Drana's out too. Oh! _Baekpal_ , I do miss them.”

“ _Baekpal_?” Zoe asked, taking her time with the pronunciation, recognising the Gallifreyan lilt to the word. “What's that?”

“Dumplings would be the closest translation,” the Doctor said. “My dad used to make them scratch, the dough and everything. He'd go out early in the morning and harvest some of the stalks from our fields. We had them because they purified the air but someone discovered that if you ground the red seeds up into dust and folded them into flour, it gave it this lightly spicy taste. He'd do that with the dough and used to tell me that it was his secret ingredient.”

“Does _baekpal_ have any filling?” She asked, faltering on the word but it made him beam, pleased she had tried.

“Stewed _va'ia_ ,” he said, unhelpfully. “Basically mushrooms. You'd love them. He'd make huge pots full throughout the day, enough that we'd end up eating them for at least a week, and he'd always chase me away from the kitchen because I used to try and steal some before dinner. It was one of the few things Brax and I did together. He'd distract Dad and I'd sneak in to take some and we'd share them in the garden.”

Zoe conjured an image of the Doctor and Brax in her mind. She had seen pictures of the Doctor's brother in the only body he had ever had – more careful than the Doctor who went through regenerations as though it was a race – and she enjoyed the thought of the tall, severe-looking man helping his irascible younger brother commit food theft.

“That's absolutely adorable,” she said, smiling. “Though, I should say, you haven't grown out of trying to nick food from the kitchen.”

“Why would I?” He asked. “It always tastes better when illicitly gained.”

“Thief.”

“Yep.” The p popped on a breath of white air that drifted up towards the cloudy sky. “But since I'm never having them again, I don't know. Can I choose the cuisine instead of just one meal?”

Zoe pretended to mull it over. She loved asking him ridiculous questions as he always took it seriously and gave it proper consideration. They sometimes spent nights when neither of them could sleep weighing up the pros and cons of stupid questions – _is cereal soup_ was a debate that covered three days.

“Go on then,” she allowed, lifting one finger from her cup to point at him. “Not planetary though. It's got to be specific to a culture.”

He groaned. “That's still hard!”

“It's not like I'm going to hold you to it,” she laughed. “Just choose one. I have.”

“Yeah, fish and chips,” the Doctor said. “Though I say you'll get sick of them after a week.”

Her shoulders rolled in a careless shrug beneath Thomas's jacket that was freshly laundered and sat large on her body. “I'm willing to take the risk.”

“Fine, _fine_.” His face fell into a pout that she wanted to kiss from him. “If I have to choose –”

“You do.”

“And it's got to be specific –”

“It does.”

“Then I suppose, _at a push_ , the one cuisine that I'd choose to eat for the rest of my life would be Indian.”

“Really?” Zoe asked, surprised. “Have we ever had an Indian together?”

“We must've done,” the Doctor said. “But yeah, Indian. Is that so surprising?”

“Apparently,” she said. “Why Indian?”

“It can be spicy, which I like,” he explained, hopping across the zebra crossing by only landing on the white lines, the bag of food shaking in his hand. “There's a lot of different variants so I'm not stuck with one kind, _and_ there's a lot of vegetarian dishes as well.”

“That's important, is it?” Zoe asked, sticking her tongue out at an old man who was frowning at the Doctor in disapproval. He scowled and she pulled another face in return, only turning back to the Doctor when he was gone. “The vegetarian aspect?”

“Yeah, a bit,” he said. “My lot never ate meat. I mean, we did way back when but I never ate meat until leaving Gallifrey.”

“Wait a second.” She pulled him up short as they reached their hotel that looked nicer in the daylight than it had when they had stumbled in exhausted and bruised the night before. “You're a vegetarian?”

“Not particularly,” the Doctor said, plastic bag bumping against her stomach as he readjusted her collar so it lay flat against her shoulder. “I started eating meat when I travelled with Marco Polo as there wasn't much of an option otherwise. Also, Susan was fussing about it so to get her to do it, I did it. I don't really think about it now. Although, let me tell you, when my people found out I was eating meat – absolute hell up. Really didn't help me fight my case during my first trial. Personally, I think it's why they exiled me. They just used the interference laws as a smokescreen.”

When his children heard that he was eating meat, they held an intervention for him during the weekend he was allowed home on temporary release while awaiting sentencing. The four of them had sat opposite him, his parents and Levokania's flanking them while Brax sat in a corner and eyed the brother he didn't fully understand. It was an entertaining memory now centuries later but, at the time, his children had been devastated at yet another sign that he wasn't well, believing his desire to travel a sign of unresolved grief. It had been so bad that even Susan's father was there and his son had refused to speak to him after he absconded Gallifrey with his daughter and then left her behind with a human.

“How did I not know this?” Zoe asked with a baffled laugh, drawing him back to the present, shaking the memory from him. “Do even you _like_ eating meat?”

“I like your roast chicken,” he told her. “And Mickey's goat stew is to die for. The way he gets that meat so tender is –” a pleased sound sent warmth spooling through her stomach. “And I occasionally get the craving for something like hot dogs, but I'm pretty ambivalent about it all told. If I don't eat meat again, it's not the end of the world.”

“Huh.” She stared up at him, eyes flicking over his face thoughtfully. “You know, I like finding these little things out about you. I like that I don't know everything yet.”

“Am I mystery, Zoe Tyler?”

“A little bit of one, I guess.” Her fingers slipped around his tie and gave him a small tug, encouraging him to lean down. “One I'm enjoying at any rate.”

He caught sight of her sparkling eyes and curling smile before he was close enough to kiss her, releasing her hand so that he as able to slip an arm around her waist and pull her closer. It was slightly awkward to kiss when she had a coffee cup that was releasing warm steam by his ear and he had a plastic bag half-squished between them but that had never stopped them in the past. The tip of his tongue tasted the black coffee on her lips and the flat surface of her teeth, wondering if they would be able to simply dump the food outside Jack and Mickey's room and retire to theirs without question. He had kept true to his promise and not touched her until she woke up but, by then, they were both hungry and Zoe was in a strange fugue after her emotional upheaval the night before, so they skipped sex and went in search of food.

“Is this the new normal then?” They broke apart and looked to the side where Rose stood, arms folded across her chest, a shadowed look on her face. “You two snoggin' wherever?”

“It's a possibility,” Zoe said. “He's very kissable.”

The Doctor's cheeks turned pink and Rose gave an unimpressed _harrumph_ but didn't rise to the bait Zoe dangled in front of her, testing the waters for an argument.

“Got your message,” Rose said, holding up the note that had _Gone for breakfast, will bring something back_ on it with the Doctor's illustration of an elephant in a top hat sitting down for pancakes beneath it. “Please tell me you've got food an' didn't get distracted by kissin'.”

“We saved the kissing for after we got the food,” the Doctor told her, holding up the bag. “We found this nice café that did all sorts so we bought everything breakfast-like on the menu more or less. Figured you'd all be hungry.”

“I'm starving,” she agreed, reaching eagerly for the bag. “Jack and Mickey are awake but they're still upstairs.”

“How's Jack?” Zoe asked as they entered the hotel and crossed the spacious lobby. “Is he with it?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “But he's really pale. I think he's puttin' a decent front up, an' Mickey's hoverin' around him like he does. D'you think the TARDIS is better yet?”

“Not yet.” The Doctor reached out with his mind and touched his ship; she felt sluggish and sick the way humans got after operating on no-sleep for a week. He sent soothing thoughts to her and a brush of gratitude lined his mind. “I'm sure she'll be able to manage a trip to the future for Jack though, but you two are going to have to stay here.”

“What, why?”

They turned on him, their images reflected in the mirrors that walled the turbolift. His hand touched his hair and smoothed down the errant strands that had dried funny after sleeping on them; unlike Zoe, he didn't have enough hair to twist into braids to look presentable.

“It's really weird when you two do that,” the Doctor said. “You're like the twins from The Shining.”

Rose snorted. “Don't change the subject. Why are you leavin' us behind?”

“Don't say it like that,” he complained, Zoe pressing the button for their floor, her silence enough to let him know she wasn't happy about his plan. “It makes it sound horrible when you say I'm leaving you behind.”

“If the shoe fits, Doctor.”

He rolled his eyes. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

Zoe and Rose exchanged a look at said together, “the short.”

“The TARDIS is much weaker than normal and when we're in flight there's a lot of complex things happening that change regarding how many people are on board,” the Doctor explained, absently running his thumb over Zoe's knuckles as she leaned into him. “Right now, it's best to keep occupants to a minimum especially with Jack not being at full strength. Besides, I'll be there and back before you know it and if either of you mention _twelve bloody months_ to me, I'm stopping this lift and you can take the stairs.”

Zoe slowly closed her mouth, about to make that very point.

“I suppose there are worse places to spend a couple of hours,” she mused. “I've never been to Norway before.”

“If we're goin' to explore, we need warmer clothes,” Rose pointed out; she was always wearing her clean maid's uniform beneath Mickey's jumper. “Shoppin'?”

Zoe groaned. “I hate shopping.”

“You'll hate freezin' to death more.”

Jack and Mickey were sitting up in their bed watching Norwegian TV. They looked up when the Doctor breezed through the door with a perfunctory knock, having not learnt his lesson about walking in on them in bed, and he greeted them cheerfully. As Rose had said, Jack was pale, the colour drained out of his skin and making him looking like a ghost, but he had an easy smile for all of them and happily tilted his face up so that Zoe could kiss his forehead in greeting.

“You look better,” he noted as Rose handed out the styrofoam packs of food. “Took a shower, did you?”

“And I didn't use up all the hot water,” Zoe said before glancing at the Doctor. “I didn't, did I?”

“Nope,” he said, slipping the screwdriver back in his pocket after running a quick scan on Jack. “We slept for a long time though. I can't remember the last time I slept that much. I don't know how you lot manage it.”

“Spare us the rant about humans bein' an inferior species until after we've had food, would you, mate?” Mickey popped open his container and took in the breakfast sandwich that looked like heaven, the pizza and sandwich from the previous night not enough to chase away the edge of hunger. “Thanks for this.”

“No problem,” the Doctor said, flopping into a chair, his legs splayed as he opened his own breakfast, eyes fixed on Jack, ignoring the pleased sounds Rose made in the corner when she discovered a large lox bagel in her container. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” Jack said around a mouthful of pancakes, syrup rolling down his chin.

Mickey frowned at him. “He does not. His knees are hurtin'.”

“Only a little.”

“Started about six this mornin'.”

“But I'm feeling good now.”

“Only because you took another dose of pain medication.”

“Exactly,” Jack said with a nod. “So I'm good.”

“Right.” The Doctor's eyes slid back and forth between Mickey and Jack before lifting an eyebrow at Zoe who took a large bite of her sausage in response. “Well, the good news is the sonic says that the swelling's gone down. The bad news is that we definitely need to leave for the 81st century today if you don't want to be recovering for the next two months.”

Jack bobbed his head. “I do not.”

“The TARDIS can do that?” Mickey asked. “She was lookin' a right state yesterday.”

“We all were,” he said. “And she's got a soft spot for Jack ever since he cleaned the manifold area when he first came on board and used to make himself useful.” Jack flipped him off. “So as soon as you two finish eating, we'll head off. The girls are staying behind due to safety issues so what I'll do is take you there, get you settled, meet with your surgeon and stay through the surgery and then take you to the resort where you can recover. Do you know where you want to go? If you haven't decided, Zoe had a nice time in France.”

“I did have a great time in France,” Zoe agreed, wiping some grease from her chin with a napkin as Rose finished her breakfast in the corner. “The resort was amazing, the food exquisite, the sex very good.”

“I knew you'd met someone there!” The Doctor pointed a finger at her. “I drop you off for a week's holiday and you go off _debauching_.”

Rose's eyes narrowed from the corner. “She was seventeen then. You tellin' me you fancied my sister when she was seventeen?”

He froze, finger extended accusingly at an unconcerned Zoe. “No?”

“You askin' me or you tellin' me?” As he squirmed, Rose was struck with the realisation of how much _fun_ she was going to have with him now. “Because it sounds to me like you were fancyin' her before you should.”

“No, that's not what – all I meant was –” he floundered. “Zoe, help?”

“Leave him alone,” she said except she spoke with a mouthful of food and it come out sounding like _leaf 'im alo'e_.

“Thanks,” he sighed. “Very helpful.”

She flashed him two thumbs up and made a smile appear, dimpling his cheeks.

“The sex sounds interesting but ours is a monogamous relationship,” Jack said, patting Mickey's thigh. “Although, I wouldn't mind hearing about Zoe's love affair.”

Swallowing her food, she rolled her eyes. “Not a love affair.”

“Shame,” he replied, winking at her. “Maybe we'll try France at some point but we want to go back to Jamaica: Nice weather, nice hotel, nice people. Anywhere else and we'd want to explore.”

The Doctor frowned, suddenly stern. “No exploring. Mickey, keep him off his knees for at least two weeks. Even in the shower. Carry him if you have to. Actually, now that I'm talking about it, maybe we should get a care nurse for the first couple of weeks after –”

“No,” Jack said.

“But –”

“No.”

The Doctor sighed. “ _Fine_ , but you're not to move until the surgeon tells you to. We need you healthy before anything else.”

“How long will it take?” Rose asked, discarding her rubbish in the bin and wiping her hands on Mickey's damp towel that was draped over the corner of the desk. “For him to get better, I mean.”

“Don't know,” the Doctor admitted. “A month I imagine, maybe six weeks if he doesn't keep his weight off it.” He glanced to Jack. “Are you sure you'll be okay in Jamaica that long?”

“In paradise on Earth with my sexy boyfriend?” Mickey slouched down the bed, embarrassed while Rose and Zoe grinned. “Once I can move around a bit more, we're going to rent an apartment so we've got more freedom. It'll be nice. _Peaceful._ What are you lot going to do while we gone anyway?”

“Haven't decided yet,” the Doctor said. “We'll probably just jump ahead six weeks so we link up again. One of the many benefits of a time machine.”

It was ninety minutes later that they were standing outside the TARDIS that was half buried in the sand, the tide mercifully out so at least their feet weren't getting wet, waiting for Zoe to let them in as she was the only one who had her key on her. The door opened an inch before sticking and she put her shoulder against it and forced her way inside. Instead of the usual warmth that greeted her when she entered, there was a damp, cold chill in the air and the lights were off. Puddles of sea water littered the ground and her nose twitched at the smell of wet metal that wrapped around the room.

“Christ,” Zoe said, stepping inside and out of the way so that the Doctor, carrying Jack in his arms, was able to set Jack down on the jumpseat. “She's taken a hell of a beating.”

Her hand pressed against a coral strut in sympathy.

“How is she?” Rose asked, concerned.

“Ticking along,” the Doctor said, leaving Jack in Mickey's capable care as he stroked the edge of the console. “Bit weak but she's getting better, aren't you girl?” The lights gave a weak flutter. “I know. I'm sorry about yesterday. Took us by surprise too, but I need you to take us to the 81st century for Jack. Can you do that?”

The lights flashed, stronger.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Jack said.

“All right.” The Doctor checked the systems and though everything appeared okay, he worried about taking flight with so little fuel. “Everything seems to be in order. It definitely won't be as bumpy as yesterday but you'll both need to hold on tightly. Zoe, Rose, –”

“Yeah, we know,” Zoe said. “Time for us to leave.”

She crossed the room to give Jack a tight hug, holding him to her; she knew she would see him again soon but it was the first time he was going away since they had got him back from the remnants of the Time Agency. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and smoothed his hair back from his forehead before stepping into Mickey's arms for a hug goodbye. She was loathe to let them leave without everyone together, fearful of what might happen when they were separated as no good had ever come from them splitting up, but she kept her fears to herself and made her way over to the Doctor. He straightened up and smiled when she took his face between her hands.

“Stay safe,” Zoe instructed. “And don't leave me waiting for you. I'll be very cross if you do.”

“You won't even notice I'm gone,” he promised. “You'll be like – _God, Doctor, I thought I'd just got rid of you, you handsome Time Lord_.”

“Is this your way of telling me I don't call you handsome often enough?”

“I could stand to hear it more,” he confessed.

She lifted herself up onto her toes and kissed him, aware that they were being watched but past caring after the previous night's emotional exhaustion. He still hadn't shaved and his stubble scratched against her shin, a beard darkening his lower face in a way that looked dirty; she didn't mind though and touched the tips of her fingers to the bottom of his chin, holding him in place as she eased back.

“You're beautiful,” she murmured. A pleased flush rolled through him, delighting her as he turned shy for the briefest moment. Giving him one final kiss, she eased back and smoothed her hands over his chest. “Now, I'll see you soon.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Right, yep. Soon, soon, soon.”

“God.” Rose rolled her eyes. “He turns into a right idiot when you kiss him.”

“Be nice,” Jack chastised, leaning his head against Mickey's arm. “It's sweet.”

Rose and Zoe left the TARDIS with a final round of goodbyes and stood on the beach as the TARDIS began to dematerialise before them. Despite not normally watching their home appear and disappear, they were aware that the churning, broken sound she made – like glass and rocks tossed into a blender – wasn't right. Her image warped, the police box briefly distorting into her original form of a silver cylinder as the Chameleon Circuit accidentally connected for the first time in centuries before her normal appearance reasserted itself. With one final belch that spewed time energy and exhaust into the air, golden curls missing with sooty exhales making them cough, the TARDIS was gone.

“Okay, now I'm worried,” Zoe said. “That wasn't at all healthy.”

“Yeah, no, that was awful,” Rose agreed. “Poor thing. I hope she gets better soon. I don't like thinkin' of her as somethin' that's broken. She's always so, y'know, _strong_.”

“I thought only Daleks could do that much damage to a TARDIS,” she frowned. “God, it's one thing after another with inter-universal travel. Happy not to be doing that again. Wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been Cybermen.”

Rose nodded. “You want to get goin'? Don't know about you but I'm fuckin' freezin'.”

“God, _yes_.” Zoe pulled Thomas's jacket tighter around her. “Can we at least get a taxi though? I don't want to walk any more.”

There was a sparse taxi rank ten minutes from where they stepped off the beach and they took one into the centre of Bergen. It was a nice city if somewhat small in size when compared with what they were used to though it was certainly pretty set as it was surrounded by water and large hills. The taxi driver who – upon learning they were British – took a shine to them for the simple fact that they spoke fluent Norwegian, something he said was an oddity for foreigners let alone British people; unable to explain exactly why they were fluent, Rose and Zoe reaped the benefits of his good nature and were deposited directly outside Kløverhuset, Norway's oldest shopping centre.

“Call me when you need another taxi,” Alf said, pressing his card into Zoe's hand. “Happy to help people who take the time to learn the language.”

“Thank you,” Rose said, hand on Zoe's back, pushing her away from the taxi that honked before sliding into the traffic. “He was friendly.”

“Only because we're fluent in Norwegian,” Zoe replied. “You keeping his card? He wasn't wearing a wedding ring, you could –”

“Shut up.”

Zoe grinned at her back as Rose walked in ahead of her. Warmth washed over them and pushed feeling back into their fingers that prickled as the cold left them, ignoring the curious looks they attracted given how they were dressed. Not only was it strange to see French maid uniforms anywhere in Norway, they were also inappropriately dressed for Norway in November; though, it was hardly the first time they had turned up to places with attire that drew attention and they doubted it would be the last.

Grabbing her arm, Rose dragged over to an information board that had a map of the shopping centre displayed for the convenience of those not in the know. Zoe shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable in her trainers that were stiff with dried blood, and allowed Rose to lead the way to the nearest clothing store that contained a style of clothing neither would have chosen to wear if they had other options but, cold and annoyed at still wearing Pete's idea of an appropriate serving uniform, they made do.

It didn't take long to snatch up clothes that fit and pay for them, the staff kind enough to let them use the changing rooms to get out of their dresses. Rose finished first and was adjusting the belt on her long coat, frowning at her reflection in the mirror, certain that Aunt Caroline was looking back at her when she caught sight of Zoe stepping out from behind the curtain.

Her eyebrows went up. “What the hell?”

Decked out as though a clown had thrown up on her, Zoe wore a pair of bright green, wide-legged trousers that cinched in around her waist with a furious fuchsia polo neck tucked into it. On her feet, she had chosen to wear a pair of shiny, sky blue boots that reflected the ceiling off them. For a final flourish, she slipped on a bight yellow coat that went to her knees with toggles for buttons. Shoving her hands into her pocket, she turned on the spot.

“What d'you think?”

“You look ridiculous.”

“Thanks.” Zoe's beaming grin almost made Rose laugh. “There wasn't anything I liked so I thought I'd channel my inner Doctor for fun. I kind of get why he used to dress the way he did. This is a lot of fun.”

“You're not the one who has to look at you,” Rose said, gathering their belongings. “Come on, Elmer.”

“Elmer?”

“The patchwork elephant,” she said. “Granddad used to read it to us, remember?”

“I'm not patchwork,” Zoe complained. “This was very carefully assembled.”

She snorted. “If you say so.”

Rose threw her maid uniform away, stuffing it into a bin that contained empty drink cans, discarded receipts, and half-eaten food, not thinking to question why Zoe kept hers folded into a small square in her pocket.

Despite having breakfast only a few hours earlier, they both remained hungry and deliberated over a number of different restaurants before stepping into the one that looked the friendliest and taking a seat in the back. Zoe set her coat over the back of her chair and jiggled her knee when she was seated, itching to pull her phone out to see if the Doctor had texted even though he knew she didn't have her phone any more.

“I called Mum this mornin',” Rose said, fiddling with a paper napkin after the waitress took their drink order and left, pulling her from her thoughts. “I needed to hear her voice.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Zoe said, mind drifting to the other Jackie. “She all right?”

“Bit freaked out by us bein' in a parallel universe an' her not knowin' about it, but yeah, she's fine,” she said. “Told me to tell you to call her soon as you can. Thinks she wants to make sure you're okay.”

“Once I replace my phone I'll give her a call.”

Rose bobbed her head, eyes looking anywhere but her sister. “I think she had a bloke around.”

“She what now?”

“I heard someone in the background,” she told her. “I asked her about it but you know what she's like.”

“Oh.” Zoe frowned. “Who d'you think it is?”

“Don't know, David, maybe.”

“Llewellyn?” Her nose wrinkled. “I think Mum scares him a little.”

“Probably,” Rose laughed only to lean back in her chair when the drinks arrived sooner than expected. Zoe had decided on wine, coming to the conclusion that she deserved it after everything, but Rose stuck with a diet coke rather than splitting a bottle with her. “What d'you want to eat?”

Zoe looked up at the waitress, a pretty Black woman whose hair was braided away from her face. “Whatever's the special, thanks.”

“Me too,” Rose said, silence falling between them as the waitress left, awkwardness settling where there had once been only comfort. “You all right? You looked awful last night.”

“Thanks, that's always nice to hear,” Zoe said, dryly. “And I feel better. The shower helped. So did sleep.”

_So did the Doctor_ , she thought though did not say.

“Good, that's good.” Rose's fingers tapped against the table and Zoe noticed that her nail polish was chipped. “Think Jack's goin' to be okay?”

“Yeah, I do.” For want of something to do with her hands, she picked up her glass of wine and sipped it. “It's Jack. Bit weird him and Mickey are taking a holiday though. I mean, good for them but it's more the thought of Mickey on a romantic break that's weirding me out. Wasn't his idea of a romantic trip a weekend Brighton for you two?”

“Yeah an' we never actually made it there,” Rose remembered, unable to recall what had stopped them in the end. “Besides, you're one to talk.”

“What's that mean?”

“You an' the Doctor,” Rose said. “That's so much weirder than Mickey an' Jack goin' off on holiday.”

“Is it though?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Right.” Zoe set her wine glass down and looked at her sister, feeling the tension in the air between them, not sure her heart was able to take Rose rejecting her, not when she was so bruised from the parallel universe. The Doctor said she needed to forgive herself for the things she had done but she didn't know how; what she did know was that she needed her sister to be able to do it. “Are we talking about this then? No more fighting, we're actually going to sit here and talk about it?”

Rose tore tiny shreds off her napkin, sending paper snowflakes over her lap and floor. “S'pose we have to. Can't keep yellin' at each other.”

“It would be the adult thing to do,” Zoe said.

“God.” Rose pulled a face. “Are we adults now? When did that happen?”

She shrugged. “Fucked if I know.”

“All right.” Rose shifted in her seat and let the mangled napkin fall next to her sweating glass. “You an' the Doctor.”

Zoe nodded slowly. “Me and the Doctor.”

The conversation stalled. There was so much to say, so many things to unpack, that neither of them knew where to start. Months and months they had been putting off talking to each other, papering over the fine cracks in their relationship that branched out from Rose's year of absence. Their relationship hadn't fully recovered from that year, not really; for Zoe, thinking about that time and the uncertainty and bone-deep fear that came with believing her sister dead lingered in her blood. Rose was oblivious to the pain as for her only a few hours had passed and she sometimes forgot she had even been gone at all. The distance started there, eroding the foundation of their relationship until France created another crack in it, Zoe's year with the Doctor a fracture, the Game Station chipping edges away from it, until the secrecy of Zoe's relationship connected all the cracks and making them impossible to ignore.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you about us,” Zoe said, taking the first step. “That was wrong of me. I've got all these excuses but none of them matter. I should've told you and that's that, so I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Rose agreed. “I felt so stupid when I saw the two of you together. I know we never talked about it but I fancied him. Still do a little even though I know everythin' now. It's hard not to. I saw you two an' I was humiliated, like you'd been talkin' about me an' laughin'.”

“Rose,” Zoe said, hurt. “I would _never_ –”

“I know,” she interrupted. “He wouldn't either. It's how I felt.”

“It sounds ridiculous now,” Zoe said. “But we really were planning to tell you the next morning. I'd been practicing this speech that I was going to give you, and the Doctor was going to make sure he was out of Mum's reach. I'd decided it was time after we met Sarah Jane and then Jack and Mickey told us about them. Figured I was just being a coward and I really was going to tell you.”

Rose looked at her and took in the faint distress around her eyes. “I believe you.”

“It was that stupid argument of ours,” she sighed. “If we hadn't been fighting, we wouldn't have been making up.”

“I don't really want to hear about that,” Rose said, stopping her before she went into details. “It's bad enough I see it on repeat when I close my eyes.”

“Well, stop thinking about it.”

“I can't help it,” she protested. “There I am mindin' my own business an' this _image_ pops into my head of the two of you in that bloody cupboard. I mean, what were you thinkin'? You know how filthy that pub is. It's disgustin'.”

“I didn't plan on having sex there,” Zoe said, defensively. “I don't actually plan to have sex in public. It just happened.”

“God,” Rose grimaced. “I'd just about accepted that you'd had sex with Reinette and then I see _that_. There are some things I don't want to know about my baby sister an' that's one of them. We're not like Keisha an' her sister.”

“Thank god,” she exclaimed, leaning forwards. “Did you hear about them and Rodrigo?”

“Rodrigo from the bank, or Rodrigo from the jewellers?”

“The bank.”

“What about them?”

“Threesome,” Zoe said, enjoying the way Rose's mouth dropped. “Yeah, Becky with the moustache told me about it. Thought she was talking a load of shit until Keisha told me it was true. She and Jewell both fancied Rodrigo –”

“Why?” Rose looked disgusted. “Rodrigo's such a twat. He's good lookin', I s'pose, but all he talks about is how much money he's makin'. The bank's a good job but it's not like he's workin' for Deutsche.”

“I don't see the attraction either,” she admitted. “But Rodrigo was playing them both. Don't know how he thought he'd get away with it since everyone knows those two tell each other everything. Anyway, apparently it all came out and instead of dumping him in the rubbish where he belonged, they had a threesome with him. I'm telling you, the details were gross.”

“Wait.” Rose's eyes filled with fascinated horror. “They didn't. Keisha an' Jewell didn't...y'know... _together_?”

“Nah, they didn't go that far,” Zoe said, and Rose deflated with relief. “Bad enough they were shagging the same bloke at the same time in the same room though. So, yeah, we're definitely not like Keisha and her sister.”

Rose reached over and took Zoe's wine, drinking the glass down before refilling it with the bottle that sat in the middle of the table. “D'you think how lucky we are for gettin' off the estate?”

“Only every time we go home,” she said. “I mean, it's home but I've wanted off the estate since I was about ten. The universe is a bit of an overkill but, yeah, it's good to be gone most of the time.”

“Yeah,” Rose agreed, the tension dissipating between them. “Guess meetin' the Doctor was a pretty good thing.”

Zoe snorted. “You doubted that?”

“A couple of times,” she admitted, honestly. “After Mondas was a pretty rough time. But I was questionin' it a lot after you came back from France. I was so angry at him then. I think I hid it, not that he'd have noticed as he was so fixated on you. He always has been. It's like from the moment he met you, you've just interested him. Guess it's like meetin' like, I s'pose.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, y'know.” Rose waved her hand dismissively. “You're pretty similar. You share the same interests an' you both like geekin' out over science an' books. Shouldn't have been surprised when I found out you two were shaggin'. S'pose it was only a matter of time.”

“I don't know.” Zoe ran her fingers over the curved stem of her wine glass. “I don't like to think we're meant to be. I prefer thinking of it as something we choose rather than something we can't control. The idea that he _chooses_ to love me means a lot more than the universe conspiring to get us together.”

Rose huffed a laugh. “You're just as romantic as he is. It's gross.”

“What are you talking about?” Zoe asked, confused.

“Earlier, back in the other universe,” she said. “Way he was talkin' about you, I thought he might break out into poetry.”

“He can get a little poetic,” Zoe said, fingers touching the hollow of her neck through her jumper. “It's one of his charms.”

“I'm sure,” Rose said, doubtful. “An' considerin' you're sittin' here talkin' about him like you are means that you're also completely mad for him.”

“I am,” she said, honestly. “And despite what you said, it's been six years since Reinette died, and I –”

“Don't,” Rose interrupted, Zoe's eyes snapping to hers. “I shouldn't have said what I said about Reinette. I know you loved her, an' I know you've been grievin'. It's been longer for you an' I sometimes forget that but I still should never have said what I said. I'm sorry. Really, really sorry.”

“Thank you.” Zoe swallowed, fingers clenching into a fist on her thigh. “I'm still a little upset with you though but that's not really your fault. I guess I'm just frustrated that we've let a lot of stuff get in the way of things, in the way of us. It's been...hard, for a long time actually. It's felt like one thing after another and it was just easier for me to not put the effort in because you're my sister and you're not going anywhere but that's a shit reason. I should be making the effort _because_ you're my sister and you deserve it, but I'm also annoyed that you haven't really been making an effort either because you had Jack and it felt like he'd replaced me a little.”

“He hasn't,” Rose told her. “He can't.”

“I know,” she said. “Can't help how I feel though.”

“Yeah, I know that feelin',” Rose sighed before sitting up straighter. “I've got an idea.”

Zoe raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Let's make a promise.”

“I'm not doing a spit promise,” she said, immediately. “It's gross and unsanitary. I didn't like it as a kid, I definitely don't like it now.”

“You kiss the Doctor,” Rose reminded her. “An' we all know he licks things he shouldn't. Don't be comin' at me with hygiene worries.”

Zoe folded her arms over her chest, stubborn. “I'm not doing it.”

“Fine, how about a pinky promise?” Rose extended her little finger and Zoe eyed it suspiciously, wondering if Rose was going to trick her at the last moment, before deciding to trust her. Hooking her pinky around Rose's, she raised her eyebrows, bemused. “Let's promise to make time for each other – no boys, no aliens, no nothing – just me and you. We'll do things together like we used to an' actually talk to each other this time because I really need to tell you about this thing that's goin' on with Drew. He keeps sendin' me all these messages an' I need him to stop because, honestly, it was just a one-night stand an' I know I could've chosen better than someone who fancied me but it's really a lot right now an' I don't know what to do.”

Zoe laughed, tightening her finger around Rose's. “I can help with that. I'm going to need your help to bring Mum around though. I really want the Doctor to be able to go back into the flat without fearing being smacked again.”

“Done,” Rose said. “But you've definitely got the easier part to deal with. Mum's really not happy about it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So...promise?”

Zoe looked at their joined fingers and felt hopeful as she lifted her eyes and smiled at her sister. “Promise.”

And when the Doctor returned later that evening, sliding his keycard into the door of his hotel room tired after two long days of helping Jack, he found Zoe and Rose on the bed laughing as though nothing had happened and the universe felt right again.


	43. Chapter 43

“Holy shit, look at you.”

Jack looked up from where he was watching his feet and carefully turned on his heels. There was a small wobble as he reached a 45-degree angle; his arms stretched out in an attempt to steady his balance, a smile spreading across his face when he managed to face Mickey without falling over. Steam from his morning shower rolled out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist looking pleased at Jack's success as he standing on his own two feet and halfway across the room. He stood near a plush armchair in their spacious hotel suite, the floor-to-ceiling windows bathing the room – and Jack – in the golden light of dawn.

“Fifteen steps,” Jack said, pride warring with relief in his voice. “That's more than I got to last time. I think I'm actually getting better.”

“Hell yeah you are.” Mickey shut the bathroom door to keep the steam contained and fought the urge to walk over to him and slide an arm around his waist to support his weight, aware he was being fussy. Instead, he crossed to the kitchen instead and popped a piece of kiwi into his mouth. “How d'you feel?”

The truth was Jack felt sore. Even though he was standing and _finally_ walking under his own steam, his knees and hips ached. Both the surgeon and the Doctor had told him that was to be expected given the extensive nature of his surgery and that the general aches and pains would die down after a fortnight, give or take. Jack was doing his best not to overdo it either, as eager to be back to normal as everyone else was; the discomfort was easy enough to manage through the twice-daily injections of pain medication and thrice-daily application of a cool gel that felt as though ants crawled beneath his skin.

“Good,” he said, speaking his half truth, flexing his fingers around his cane and readjusting his grip. “Strange but good. I don't think I'm going to use the chair today, I want to try and walk around for a bit because the backs of my thighs are killing me. I think the muscles are starting to atrophy.”

Mickey leaned over the counter and eyed the back of Jack's thighs. He didn't notice any difference in them as they were as muscular and strong as they had always been, and he laughed when Jack angled himself so that he was able to get a better view of his legs and rear end. Not that it was difficult. Jack wore a pair of tiny shorts that clung to every inch of him in a manner that stepped over the line of indecent and went straight into pornographic; not even the cheerful parrots that decorated the shorts made up for the fact they shouldn't be worn in public.

“I think you're fine,” Mickey told him.

“I know you do,” Jack said with enough heat in his voice to turn Mickey's attention onto the fruit salad in front of him, skin flushing. “And you don't need an excuse to check me out. You're welcome to do it any time.”

Mickey snorted and put the fruit back into the mini-fridge, unable to let it be thrown away by housekeeping when they came to tidy up the room. “I'll keep that in mind. You goin' to stay standin', or –?”

“I want to stay up for a little more,” he said, breathing in deeply. “I miss being tall. It's awful having everyone look down at me. Makes me feel like a child.”

Mickey left him to it, doing his best not to be overbearing. They had had a bitter argument the day after the Doctor had left when Jack put his foot down and refused to be treated like an invalid any longer simply because he was temporarily incapacitated. It was their first real argument with raised voices and hurt feelings and Mickey had stormed off to the beach to calm down. By the time he returned, Jack was silent and watchful, stopping short of apologising for things he didn't need to be sorry for, and they managed to find a compromise that gave Mickey space to worry but also gave Jack his independence again.

Left alone, Jack made his way slowly over to the window and stared out over their view of the sea calm that glittered beneath the sun, people already out and about as they enjoyed their surroundings.

They had been in Jamaica for two weeks, a tired and slightly grubby Doctor disappearing in the TARDIS that groaned and gurgled and protested at being made to fly again. Jack suspected that the Doctor's plan of skipping ahead six weeks to meet up with them wasn't going to work with the TARDIS sounding like that, imagining that a lot of repair work needed to be done and the TARDIS probably needed to spend a full day sitting on the rift in Cardiff soaking up the energy there. He tried not to think about it too much, a little guilty for relaxing in Jamaica when there was work to be done, though it wasn't as if he had the capacity to assist beyond helpful comments that he knew would wear thin after a while.

Their first five days were spent in bed, a necessity for him who needed to recover from his surgery and Mickey wasn't about to leave him alone, so they made the most of room service and the catalogue of films and TV shows on the TV. As soon as Jack was able to move without screaming in pain, they went down to the beach where they spent most of their time. He was significantly paler than he liked being and was eager to get some colour back to his skin; he also enjoyed the sound of the sea lapping against the shore and the general hustle and bustle of beach activities as it was all soothing to him.

“Thought maybe I'd try some swimming today,” Jack called out to Mickey. “Or maybe I'll just float, but I do want to get into the water at some point. I remember it working well for Zoe after Mondas.”

A cupboard door slid shut and Jack wondered if an argument was coming his way.

“All right,” Mickey called back. “Reckon we'll have to use the pool for that though. Don't want you bein' dragged out to sea an' all. The pool does have a bar _in_ it if I remember right, so that's an incentive to get you swimmin'.”

Jack huffed. “You're not going to argue with me?”

“D'you want me to?”

“ _No_.”

“Then no, I'm not,” Mickey said, appearing in the doorway holding two shirts in his hands: white and blue. “Like you said, it helped Zoe get some strength back after everythin' an' she mainly floated. Besides, both the Doc an' your surgeon said you could start doin' gentle exercise at two weeks.”

“Wear the white one,” Jack told him. “And I know they said that but you're normally the first in line to stop me doing too much. You stopped me drinking a week ago.”

“I stopped you drinkin' hypervodka, which shouldn't be drunk even if you're not on meds.” Mickey rolled his eyes and pulled on the white shirt. “I didn't stop you drinkin' that cocktail of yours. The weird pink one that left glitter on your tongue.”

“That was delicious,” he replied. “All right, swimming it is then. Do you want some more breakfast?”

“No, I'm good.” Mickey slipped his feet into his sandals. “I think I've eaten more fruit in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life. I can smell colours now.”

Jack laughed. “Watch out. Before you know it, I'm going to turn you vegan.”

“You're not even vegan.”

Mickey collected their belongings and double backed for Jack's pain medication just in case they needed it, hesitating over the wheelchair before deciding to trust that Jack knew his own body and wouldn't push himself just because. Slinging the bags over his torso, he offered his arm to Jack who used Mickey and his cane to balance as they walked slowly from the room.

The pool was busy, something that was hardly unexpected. Children scampered along the edges and there was a group of the elderly doing water aerobics in the shallow end while a group of teenagers performed tricks in the deeper. Normally Jack didn't mind throwing himself into the pool to make friends but he wasn't in the mood for anything exuberant that day; fortunately, the Doctor had got them a suit with VIP benefits, which meant that there was a pool specially for those who had the ability to pay through the nose for it.

It was quiet and and childless, and they claimed two sun chairs beneath a parasol. Jack let Mickey slather instant sunscreen onto his body – neither of them wanting to do as the Doctor had done and get sunstroke – and he leaned back into Mickey's hands, enjoying the way his touch moved over him, thumbs occasionally pressing into muscles that were knotted from sleeping funny.

The no sex rule the surgeon had insisted on – and the Doctor doubled down on by writing down a list of things they were allowed to do which consisted of _kissing_ – was playing havoc on him. He occasionally tried to initiate something light but Mickey, unfortunately, viewed anything sex related as off the table until they reached the milestones the surgeon had given them for recovery.

“Will you stop that?” Mickey hissed in his ear.

Jack turned and caught his mouth, shifting a little to conceal his arousal. “I can't help how my body reacts when you're touching me.”

“We're in public,” he reminded him.

“Makes it more exciting, doesn't it?”

Mickey narrowed his eyes. “Get in the water an' cool off.”

The pool was the perfect temperature, regulated as it was by heating and cooling ducks that ran along the side, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief as the water took the pressure off his knees and cooled his arousal.

Floating on the surface, arms spread out, he was glad they had decided to spend time away from the TARDIS. He missed the Doctor and the girls and the ship herself but the peace and quiet was desperately needed after _everything_. Yatta, to whom he had spoken on the phone since he was unable to get there in person for his session, was highly encouraging of his time away from the TARDIS and urged him to make the most of his recovery time. Life was so busy onboard that even when they were just bumping around inside her something was always happening, and Jack appreciated his time to decompress without worry of a planet that needed saving.

Breathing out, eyes closed against the warm sun that fell over the front of his body, he must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes, Mickey's hands were supporting his back to keep him upright and looked torn between amused and annoyed.

“Oh dear,” Jack said, faking a British accent. “Did I drop off?”

“Don't think speakin' like that's goin' to help you now,” Mickey said. “Out of the water.”

Jack laughed, knowing full well how much Mickey liked it when he twisted accents into his voice, and did as he was told. There was a drink waiting for him at his sun chair – the pink one he had enjoyed the other day – along with the book he was currently reading following a recommendation from Sarah Jane via text. His heart expanded at the thought of Mickey making sure everything was set up for him so that he was able to spend a day without having to think about everything. Next to him, Mickey settled down with his own book, sunglasses sliding onto his face that sent a spike of heat through Jack.

“What do you think the others are doing right now?” Jack asked, tucking the colourful cocktail umbrella behind his ear and stirring the ice. “Aside from missing us that is.”

“Honestly?” Mickey considered the question, mind rolling through the various scenarios that their friends were capable of getting into. “Knowin' them, could be anythin'.”

* * *

_ Roanoke Island, 1586 _

“Why d'you even have a boat in here?” Rose asked, grunting as her muscles strained as she dragged the front end of the row boat out of the TARDIS. Zoe sat primly inside it as she whipped open a fan and cooled her face, unhelpfully supervising. “What could you possibly do with a boat?”

“Go fishing,” the Doctor replied, pushing from the stern. “Have a nice afternoon spent on a lake. One time, I spent three weeks floating around the oceans of Medina Axias in naught but my birthday suit after a coronation gone wrong, or right depending on how you look at it.”

Zoe looked around, interested. “Your birthday suit, you say? My, my, how scandalous.”

He winked at her.

Rose rolled her eyes. “We've discussed the flirtin'.”

“That wasn't flirting,” the Doctor said. “That was recognising Zoe had spoken with the time-honoured custom of a wink. Definitely no flirting.”

“I had to put up with you and Mickey snogging in front of me for _ages_ ,” Zoe complained, revisiting her main point from the night before with a whine in her voice. “You think I wanted to know how much tongue he uses when kissing –”

The Doctor pulled a face. “Gross.”

“No, I didn't but I do because you used to use our bedroom for your shenanigans and –”

“Oh my god, you're _thirty_ , please just say sex,” Rose pleaded.

“You would think that you could put up with some mild flirtation every now and then,” Zoe finished, fixing her eyes pointedly on Rose who pulled a face at her. The Doctor gave the boat another push, pleased that their bickering didn't have the bite it did not too long ago. “Now, Doctor, my enthusiastic lover –”

“I swear to God, Zo,” Rose warned.

“What were you saying about why you have a boat in the TARDIS?”

“Only that you never know when you're going to need one,” he said, happy to pull them off the topic that veered too close to his and Zoe's sex life for comfort. “You'd be surprised how often a boat comes in handy.”

“I'm sure I wouldn't,” Rose said, giving the boat a firm _yank_ and nearly fell over as it moved further out of the TARDIS, soft sand washing over her bare feet. “An' what else d'you have in there?”

“All sorts,” he said. “I've got a couple of motorbikes, a hoverboard, a penny farthing, some roller skates, a car –”

“Yeah, I remember Bessie,” Rose said, something twinging along her shoulders and sending a sharp, brief surge of pain through her muscles. “It was very yellow.”

“A cheerful colour, isn't it?” She jumped out of the way as the boat finally jerked out of the doorway and slid against the sand, travelling down the length of the beach and knocking the hat from Zoe's head and her out of her seat. The Doctor placed his hands on his hips, unconcerned as the boat came to a slow stop. “See? That wasn't so bad, was it? Knew it wouldn't take long.”

Rose considered forty minutes a long time; though, she supposed, for a Time Lord it was probably nothing.

“That was bracing,” Zoe said, reappearing as she pulled herself back into her seat and caught the rolling bottles of ginger beer that had burst free of their picnic basket before they spilled everywhere. “And you both handled that marvellously. Very manly on your part, Doctor.”

The Doctor preened under the compliment. “That's me: A manly man.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” Rose grumbled, stretching her arms out and turning her face up to the sky where there wasn't a cloud to be seen. “It's a lovely day. When exactly are we?”

“May 30th 1586,” the Doctor told her, rolling the hems of his trousers up above his pale ankles in deference to their surroundings. He loosened his tie and followed Rose's gaze to the sky, enjoying the bright blue. “A Friday if you want to be specific.”

“It really is pretty here,” she said. “It's like we're the only people in the world.”

“This is the time before your lot colonised the Americas,” he said. “Well, just about. There's been a couple of missions by this point but nothing's taken root yet. This place was supposed to be the first colony as ordered by good Queen Bess but Raleigh wasn't able to make it work.”

Zoe put her large floppy hat back on. “Walter Raleigh?”

“No, Winston Raleigh,” the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. “Of course Walter Raleigh.”

The ocean glittered like a sea of diamonds set against the blue; a fresh and lovely smell coasting on a faint breeze across the surface, wrapping around them, and it was a perfect day for fishing.

All told, it had been Zoe's idea.

After the TARDIS had recovered enough strength to make the journey to Cardiff – day eight of their stay in Norway – and a visit home to Jackie on the train that had only gone smoothly because the Doctor stayed behind to fix the TARDIS up and Zoe and Jackie avoided any mention of him beyond the basics, they took the TARDIS for a test run to the moon and back. As they skimmed over the rings of Saturn like a rock skipping across water, they decided to idle a bit before picking up Jack and Mickey, none of them feeling quite right about skipping too much time without them. As they were brainstorming ideas of where to go and what to do, Zoe mentioned off-handedly never having tried fishing and they were soon digging out the row boat that the Doctor had picked up on a wet weekend in Cornwall with Victoria and Jamie.

“You're not going to get sea sick, are you?” The Doctor asked Zoe as he helped Rose into the boat.

“On a flat and calm ocean?” Zoe replied. “Unlikely.”

“Maybe I should jab you with an anti-nausea injection,” he said. “Just in case.”

“I'm not going to be sick.”

“You got sea sick on a puddle, once,” he reminded her.

“That was _not_ a puddle!”

“Yes, it was.”

“It was not,” Zoe argued. “And the only reason I was sick was because I got turned upside down very quickly after a big breakfast.” Scepticism swept his face. “Get in the boat.” He hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. “ _Now_.”

Rose snorted when the Doctor hurried to obey her, tapping the small button on the side of the boat that pushed them towards the water as the Doctor was incapable of owning anything without tinkering with it and _improving_ it.

The boat rocked as they entered the water, the Doctor eyeing Zoe warily, expecting her breakfast to make a reappearance, turning quickly away when she turned to look at him. The water was perfectly calm and the oars cut easily through it as the Doctor took them up and rowed away from the shore until he found the perfect spot. Leaning over the side, arms folded beneath her chin, Rose watched the schools of fish dart about the surface and scurry beneath the boat.

“Do we have to catch them?” She dipped the tips of her fingers into the cool water and watched them dart away from her. “They look so peaceful.”

“We do if we want to eat tonight,” Zoe said, untangling the old fishing rods the Doctor had been delighted to discover he had. “We're going to have pan-fried fish over an open fire. I've watched videos on how to gut and bone them so I'm ready to go.”

Rose and the Doctor exchanged a look of worry. Zoe was a good cook when she was in the kitchen but was, perhaps, a little too reliant on technology to make them comfortable eating anything she cooked over an open fire, particularly when she was deboning a fish for the first time. They looked away before Zoe caught them exchanging concern and took the a fishing rod each when she handed it to them, holding out a box of live bait.

“Why are they alive?” Rose asked, leaning back from the Tupperware box of wriggling worms, small clumps of dirt clinging to their pink flesh.

“Dead bait's no good,” Zoe said. “Don't be squeamish.”

“Like this,” the Doctor said, demonstrating how to hook the worm swiftly and painlessly onto the end of the fishing wire. Rose shook her head, nose wrinkled. “I'll do it for you. Close your eyes and don't throw up.”

“Honestly.” Zoe arched a disapproving look in her direction. “You used to work at a chippie.”

“Dunkin' an' fryin',” she shot back, turning away as the Doctor baited her line for her. “I didn't have to catch the fish.”

Never having fished before, Zoe had watched a series of videos on her phone in between preparing their picnic as the Doctor and Rose did the hard work of implementing her idea. Frowning her entire focus into her face, she cast her line with a flick of her wrist. The thin line soared through the air only to jerk to a halt when the metal hook caught on the back of her dress, its sharp point dragging out her skin. She swore and the Doctor coughed to cover his laughter while Rose, significantly less polite, laughed out loud and watched as she tugged uselessly in an attempt to free herself. Taking pity on her, the Doctor untangled the hook from her dress, quickly flicking the mushed bait into the water and hooked another worm onto the end.

He stood up and stepped over Rose's legs to stand behind Zoe, arms moving around to guide her wrist.

“Like this,” he said, softly.

The line arced beautifully through the air and landed with a gentle splash in the water, his thumb rubbing at her wrist, the cool warmth of him pleasant against her back. Despite what she argued regarding public flirting, Zoe was slowly getting to used to being open with their affection for each other in front of Rose, not actually wanting to overwhelm her sister when she was being so good at working to keep things normal. Risking it, she leaned her head back on his shoulder and looked up, his hair falling across his forehead as he hadn't bothered styling it that morning.

“Fish a lot on Gallifrey, did you?”

“No.” He gently bit the top of her ear to make her squirm. “But you pick up some skills over a thousand years.”

“What do we do now?” Rose asked, glancing at them only briefly before looking out over the water where her own line bobbed on the surface. “Wait?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “For how long?”

“Until we get a nibble,” he said, sitting down, wanting to pull Zoe into her lap but he kept his hands to herself as Rose was right next to him. “I could tell you a story while we wait if you want.”

“No, thanks,” she said, quickly. “Your last one gave me nightmares.”

“It was a little gruesome,” Zoe agreed. “The fact it was a fairytale on Gallifrey is awful.”

“All right, it was a little more bloody than I remembered but it wasn't that bad.”

“A bear ate children, Doctor,” Rose said. “It was like Goldilocks if the three bears decided to hunt her down an' rip her apart.”

“My children used to beg for that story when they were little,” the Doctor told them. “Which means that you two are a bunch of scaredy cats and my little baby Time Lords were braver than you are.”

“I'm hearin' a lot of this –” Rose brought her fingers up and down against her thumb. “But I want to hear this.” She closed her hand. “Silence is golden an' all.”

The Doctor looked to Zoe who was reclined with her feet propped up on the seat, her back against the side of the boat, elbows resting on the edge as she enjoyed the sunshine. “I think I'm going to push your sister into the water, are you okay with that?”

“Sure, why not?” She yawned and readjusted her hat. “Don't let her drown though. Mum'd be all upset.”

Rose picked up a worm from the Tupperware and flung it at Zoe, grinning when it caught on the brim of her hat and slipped down until the end touched her nose. At the touch, Zoe's eyes snapped open flinched back, shrieking in surprise, and flailed herself over into the water, a loud _splash_ rocking the boat.

“Oops,” Rose said.

* * *

Holding tightly onto the grip that dangled in front of him, stomach swimming around his knees as his instructor double checked their safety harness, Mickey was certain Zoe was to blame for his current predicament. It didn't matter that she had no idea what he was doing nor that she wasn't even in the same time as him – probably not even in the same galaxy for that matter – it was her once-mentioned anecdote that, for some reason, Jack had remembered that had taken him on a surprisingly short path to standing in the open door of a plan about to jump out. If she had kept her mouth shut and not told them that she had once done a parachute jump, the Doctor digging out photographs as proof, then he was fairly certain Jack wouldn't have thought of it.

As it was, Jack thought it sounded like fun and the fact _he_ couldn't go on a parachute jump because of his knees didn't mean that Mickey shouldn't miss out on all the fun. Half asleep and not really paying attention as he had fallen asleep late the night before, Mickey murmured an agreement and, before he knew it, he was being bundled into an airplane as Jack waved him goodbye.

So, yeah, he blamed Zoe.

With Jack was waiting for him on the ground, and Mickey's inability to say no to him the problem it had been when he was with Rose, there was no way he was able to back out of the parachute jump without copious amounts of guilt that he would rather avoid. Perhaps there was something psychological about his desperate need to make the people he was dating happy even if it cost him; whatever the reason, he felt that jumping out of a plane was really the stupidest thing he had done in the name of love. At least Rose had never asked him to do that; although, she had once asked him to help her get her stuff back from Jimmy's parents and that had been an awful day. He still had the scar from where Jimmy's dad had pulled a knife on him, Rose thinking quickly by throwing hot tea into his face before they sprinted out of there, leaving her things behind.

All in all, he was sure that he would benefit from learning how to say no once in a while.

Mickey's body wobbled when something shook the plane. He sucked in a sharp deep breath, resisting the urge to fall back inside. It wasn't as though parachuting was any less dangerous than a number of things he had ever done – it wasn't even the most dangerous thing he had done that week after an unfortunate incident involving sharks and a cut foot – but it was a very long way down and the parachute was only made out of cloth.

“You ready?”

He looked back at his instructor and thought of Jack. It hadn't been the best of nights. At some point, Jack had rolled over and trapped his left knee at an awkward angle, waking with a shout of pain that sent Mickey falling out of bed in surprise, fear, and worry. It took a while after that to fall back asleep so when he fizzed with excitement that Mickey was able to go on the parachute even though he wasn't, Mickey hadn't the heart to say no.

The one silver lining was that the Doctor wasn't there to take the piss as he plunged screaming to the ground.

“You'll be fine,” Femi, his instructor and somehow a friend of Jack's despite Mickey not knowing how or when they had met, said loudly over the rush of the wind that was deafening. “When we get to the ground you'll be glad you've done this.”

“I'm drawing the line at orbital divin' though,” Mickey called back, referencing one of the options that had been raised when they arrived at the airfield for orientation. “This is enough for me.”

Ze smiled. “If you say so.”

Counting down to three in his ear, the heavy Jamaican lilt of hir accent not as comforting as it might otherwise have been, Femi threw them out of the plane with a whoop of delight. Mickey's vision swam and his bowels turned to water as they fell through the air faster than he expected, tumbling through the bright blue sky towards the beautiful expanse of water that surrounded the coastline. They were to land in a field where Jack was waiting for him, probably watching his descent through the binoculars he normally used for bird watching, but, for now, Mickey fell. Laughter pushed up through his chest and streamed from his mouth, adrenaline pounding through him as enjoyment took him by surprise. He spread his arms wide and wished that Jack was there with him.

“Get ready,” Femi shouted.

He had only a few seconds to brace before Femi pulled the parachute cord. They were jerked up, his teeth clacking together in the instant before a gentle float took over and the powerful rush of wind stopped.

“Woah,” he said.

Ze laughed. “Yeah, I know.”

They landed in the field and Jack made his way towards them, limping heavily but using only his cane, and he stood with a wide grin as Femi unbuckled Mickey from hir. He staggered to his feet and fell against Jack.

“Good time?”

“I'm not doin' that without you again,” Mickey said against his neck. “But yeah, it was fun.”

Jack laughed. “Damn straight it is.”

* * *

_ Islamabad, Pakistan, 5792 _

“This is weird,” Rose said. “Right? I'm not the only one who finds this proper weird, right?”

She turned only to find the Doctor gone. Sighing, she raised her eyes to the cloudy sky that threatened rain and tried not to let annoyance roll through her. For someone who complained about people wandering off every time it pleased them, he was equally as bad. Turning on the spot to find him, his height an advantage in such situations, her eyes landed on him holding a small child over a barrel. There was a moment of confusion, unable to understand why the Doctor was attempting to drown a child in broad daylight and why no one was stopping him. He lifted the child up and she relaxed at the sight of an apple caught in the dripping child's mouth.

“Well done,” she heard him say as she got closer. “It took me ages to learn to apple bob properly and you got it on your first try. Up top!”

The child jumped and slapped the Doctor's open palm in a high-five that made both of them grin. A thought struck Rose that the Doctor and Zoe might one day have children together and the idea caused her to miss a step, stumbling into an Apalapucian who helped her right herself. She thanked him with a smile that belied the furious pounding of her heart.

The Doctor and Zoe's child.

The thought of such a reality was so stunning that it was difficult to breathe.

“Hello,” the Doctor said, appearing before her. “Sorry I ambled off but there's apple bobbing, fancy a go?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Blimey.” He leaned in until his nose nearly touched hers. “Are you all right? You've gone really pale.”

“Yeah, no, I'm fine.”

“Did you know that English linguists have been puzzling over the use of _yeah, no_ for quite some time?” He asked, resting his palm against her forehead to check her temperature. “It's used to express agreement with something that's negative. However, you've confused all that by adding on an _I'm fine_ at the end. Now, I'm hardly one to nitpick language usage but that seems to me to mean that you're not all that okay. What's happened?”

Rose pushed his hand away. “I'm fine, it's nothing. Just thought of something that spooked me.”

Would the child look more like the Doctor before her now, or his previous body, or another version she hadn't even seen yet?

Would it have anything of Zoe in it?

Would it even be human?

The Doctor frowned, concerned. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” she said, gesturing around them to change the subject. “This is weird.”

“What's weird about it?” He asked, sticking his hand in the barrel of water and removing an apple that he offered to her. When she shook her head, he bit into it. “It's perfectly normal.”

“It's a time travel conference,” Rose told him, pointing. “Look. There are three of the same people right there.”

“Maybe they're triplets.”

“Doctor.”

“Rose,” he mocked, shifting out of the way when she went to slap his shoulder. “This isn't weird, it's unique. The only one of its kind anywhere in the universe. Today, right now, is absolutely and completely like nothing else in the whole wide universe. It's not weird, it's brilliant.”

Rose rolled her eyes and caught sight of a table that was selling old VHS tapes of the Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley as _authentic 21 st century relics. _“Aren't there meant to be rules against this sort of thing? Reapers aren't goin' to make an appearance, are they?”

“Nah.” The Doctor wiped the juice from his chin. “It's not a fixed point but it is well worn. Sort of like your favourite armchair that shapes itself to you because you use it so often, that's what time's like now. Although, between you and me, it wasn't the best idea you lot've ever had as time is weaker here, more prone to paradoxes.”

“Then why aren't we seein' –” she spread her arms wide and squawked in a passing imitation of the Reapers. “You told me that savin' Dad meant that I'd weakened time. If time's so weak here, why isn't it bein' eaten?”

“First of all, time wasn't being eaten, _honestly._ ” She grinned at his exasperation. “It was being cleansed, purified, if you will. And secondly, a very clever person helped to shore up time around here so that it doesn't do something stupid and rip.”

Rose stared at him. “That very clever person was you, wasn't it?”

“Maybe.”

Another thought, one less destabilising to her mental health, struck her. “Is there another you knockin' about around here?”

Suddenly aware of the danger he had placed himself in, the Doctor panicked. “Maybe.”

“Where's Zoe?” Rose twisted on her heels, searching for her sister through the crowd. “She knows what your other faces look like, doesn't she? ZO–!”

The Doctor clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her back against his chest. Her tongue pressed against his palm in an attempt to free herself and they participated in a small, undignified scuffle that ended with her trying to knock him on the head with his half-eaten apple when he breathed in sharply. Instantly pulling back, afraid that she might have accidentally hurt him, he was as pale as he had accused her of being and was staring past her.

Following his eyeline, she spotted Zoe in the crowd walking arm in arm with a short man who boasted a head of dark hair underneath a wide brimmed hat and an umbrella in the shape of a question mark in his hand.

“Oh _no_ ,” the Doctor breathed. “No, no, no, no, no. How did she even –?”

Rose stared, delight blooming through her chest; Jack and Mickey were going to _hate_ missing this. “Is that –?”

“Look who I've found,” Zoe called out, brimming with delight. “He was at a food stand getting this awful banana concoction and I couldn't resist going to say hi. Isn't this amazing?”

“Hello,” the younger Doctor said, cheerfully. “I feel I've rather been bullied into this. I've attempted explaining the complications of crossing personal time streams to this absolutely charming young woman but she thoroughly ignored me.”

“Oh, it won't be a problem for five minutes, honestly,” Zoe said, bumping her hip against his. “And I didn't hear you complaining about bullying when you were checking out my arse.”

Both Doctors turned red.

“ _Zoe_ ,” her Doctor hissed, scandalised.

“Oh my,” the younger one said, taken aback. “You're rather bold, aren't you?”

Rose melted, hand pressed over her heart. “That's so sweet. Look how innocent he is! If I didn't know about your kids I'd swear blind you've never had sex. Then again, have you even shagged a human yet?”

“ _Rose_!”

“I don't know when this is in your timeline,” she defended herself, laughing. “How'm I supposed to know if you've met Cleo?”

The younger Doctor appeared to move back and forth between utter delight at the future that awaited him and complete scandalisation over how freely they spoke to him.

“Who's Cleo?”

“Cleopatra,” Zoe said. “Of Egypt. Last true pharaoh and all that jazz.”

“Sweet Rassilon,” he breathed, eyes wide. “Don't tell me Cleopatra and I have –” Zoe and Rose leaned in expectantly. “ _That_?”

“Can't even say sex.” Rose sucked her cheeks in disapproval, dragging her eyes over her own mortified Doctor. “How times change, eh?”

“You are both absolutely awful,” the Doctor chastised them. “Here he is minding his own business only to be accosted by a mad woman and her sister.”

Zoe raised a hand. “Which of us is the mad woman?”

“Clearly you, love.”

“Love?” The younger Doctor looked at Zoe with renewed interest. “How interesting.”

“I can show you how interesting if you've got an hour to spare,” she offered, grin widening as her Doctor spluttered and turned red. Colour crept up the neck of the younger Doctor, his finger attempting to loosen his collar that was embroidered with two red question marks: She appreciated the detail to his ridiculous fashion sense. “This is far too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“What in the nine circles of hell is this?” The Doctor demanded. “Rose, will you weigh in here, please?”

“Nope.”

“ _Rose!_ ”

“What d'you want me to say?” Rose asked. “An' are you jealous of yourself?”

Zoe leaned against the younger Doctor, resting her head on his shoulder who placed his head atop of his, and slid her hand down to his, their fingers twining together. He flexed around her hand, surprised at how well they fit.

“Surprisingly, he does get jealous,” Zoe said. “Bit weird to be jealous of yourself though.”

“Oh, don't be so hard on him, my dear,” the younger Doctor said. “We've never been particularly fond of our past selves. We don't like to look back, you see?”

The Doctor blew out his cheeks, exasperated and not enjoying the way he and Zoe were standing on top of each other. “Will you get off –?”

“DOCTOR!”

Both Doctors jumped at the bellow of their name. Zoe went up onto her toes to watch as a young woman in a heavy leather jacket decorated with patches burst out of the crowd, a laser blaster exploding the table of VHS tapes that sent people scattering. Twisting to avoid the rubble, she fell over her own feet and knocked Rose to the ground, landing on top of her with a grunt, blonde ponytail blinding both of them.

“Ow,” Rose groaned.

Zoe's face lit up. “Ace!”

“Sorry, shit, are you okay?” Ace scrambled off Rose and helped her to her feet, bumping into the older Doctor who stared at her and drank in her features with a hunger that he was bad at concealing. Fortunately, Ace was too preoccupied to notice. She staggered back as though drunk, a bruise blooming across her temple and she pointed a finger at her Doctor. “Zygons! They're really not happy with me.”

“Oh, dear,” the younger Doctor said, absently running his thumb over the back of Zoe's knuckles. “You didn't happen to blow anything up, did you? They don't like it when that happens.”

“ _No_ ,” Ace said, petulantly. There was a beat before – “maybe a door.”

“Excellent,” Zoe grinned. “I knew you'd be brilliant and here you are, _brilliant._ ”

Ace paused, momentarily taken aback. “Sorry, who are you?”

“A huge fan is what I am.” She reached out to shake her hand except her Doctor intervened and looped their fingers together so that she had a Doctor on either side of her. His eyes drank Ace in with obvious enthusiasm, hearts throbbing from the unexpected encounter. “I've heard all about you from the Doctor and love your work, particularly the explosive nature of it, but don't mind me. Although –” Zoe leaned in and peered at her, eyes flicking over her face. “You look _very_ familiar to me. And I don't just mean from the pictures I've seen. There's something about you that makes me think we've met before. Have we? Met before, that is.”

“I –” Ace blinked. “No?”

“Huh.”

“Jesus, you're as bad as the bloody Doctor,” Rose complained, turning to Ace. “You said there are Zygons?”

“Yeah,” Ace replied, looking away from Zoe and her eyes blowing wide, arm raised in a point. “There there are. We need to run. _Look_!”

A large number of Zygons shoved their way through the crowd, marching towards them with their suckers flaring in anger, and Zoe pulled a face. Zygons always knew how to ruin a perfectly lovely day. She was beginning to suspect it was built into their DNA.

“Ah, yes, that is a little problematic,” the younger Doctor said and turned to Zoe, giving her hand a squeeze. “Right, well, young lady –”

“Oh, I don't like that,” Zoe said. “Definitely don't call me _young lady_ again.”

“It's been an absolute pleasure to meet you.” He lifted her knuckles to his mouth, placing a kiss that sent a small shiver of want rolling through her. “Though I do suspect I'm about to forget it. One of those complications of crossing my own time stream I told you about.”

“That's a shame,” she said, loosening his red tie a little, fingers grazing over the soft skin of his throat to feel his breath hitch. Behind her, her Doctor coughed pointedly. “But for the best, I suppose. Can't have you dreaming about me for the next few centuries.”

His smile widened. “I'll look forward to meeting you in due course then.”

“You'd better.” Zoe leaned in and pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth, close enough that he as left in no doubt about his future relationship with her, and she felt the heat burn through his skin as he flushed, Rose and Ace pointedly looking the other way. “Bye, Ace. Nice meeting you, even if it was a brief one.”

Ace gave a small, confused wave and took the younger Doctor's hand, the two of them disappearing into the crowd at a run. The Doctor, Rose, and Zoe took a step back out of the way of the Zygons that stormed past them. When the horde had passed, the Doctor turned to Zoe with raised eyebrows.

“You were going to have sex with me,” he accused.

“Absolutely.”

“That would've completely changed the timelines!”

“Nonsense,” she scoffed. “Two of you in the same place at the same time, I know how wibbly-wobbly things get. We'd have had a nice shag that you'd soon forget only to remember around about now. Such a shame you don't get to have that, don't you think?”

Rose rolled her eyes as the Doctor and Zoe started bickering and wandered off into the crowd away from them.

* * *

Jack padded into the living room of their rented apartment wearing nothing more than a loose sarong about his hips. Knees healing nicely and able to hold his weight for long stretches at a time, sex had finally been incorporated back into their daily lives as long as they were careful, which Jack made sure they were to head off Mickey's fussing.

After an initial period of tentativeness and attempting to find the best position, they had made up for lost time. Jack's hair was a mess and his body ached pleasantly from the last two days of fairly strenuous activities that had kept them indoors. Not that it mattered as the skies had opened and rain hammered down onto the beach and the surrounding areas for three days straight; the news reports said that it was going to come to an end tomorrow, at which point they had plans to visit the waterfall the Doctor had mentioned, cheeks pink at whatever memory of him and Zoe was centred around it.

Stifling a yawn, he tried to remember where he had put the coffee beans.

Moving from the hotel to a rented apartment meant that they had to be responsible for their own meals and Mickey had gone shopping on their first day – Jack's knees sparking with pain at the time – and brought back huge bagfuls of food that meant they wouldn't have to go shopping again except for fresh produce. Finding the beans in the cupboard by the fridge, he popped open the golden bag and inhaled the smell of the beans, thinking of Zoe who did the same thing every morning: A small routing that made him think of home and grow nostalgic.

Beans in the grinder, he picked up his phone and checked for messages. The others were clearly off having fun and Jack was quietly pleased they weren't simply skipping ahead as he preferred to keep them all linear – Zoe's experience with missing time made him suspicious when she was out of sync with him for too long, worried that when he next saw the girls they would have aged twenty years.

Swiping open his messages, he read through a stream of consciousness from the Doctor that made Jack suspect he had left the voice-to-text on and got distracted; enjoyed a picture of Rose and Zoe with their cheeks pressed together, sharing a huge milkshake that he was going to print out and put on the fridge; and skimmed over a message from Jackie who was checking in on them. Not having spoken to Jackie since her birthday except via text, he decided to call her instead and smiled when she picked up.

“ _Hello, love_ ,” Jackie's warm voice said into his ear. “ _Not bored of your holiday already, are you?_ ”

“Not yet,” Jack said, pulling some strawberries and cubed melon from the fridge, wondering if he should make Mickey a bacon sandwich to go with the fruit salad. “Although it's pissing it down right now. We stuck inside.”

“ _I'm sure you're right cut up about that,_ ” she said, dryly.

He laughed. “You've caught me.”

“ _How are you feelin'?_ ”

“Better, a lot better,” he said, honestly. “I only have to use the cane right now. We haven't officially retired the wheelchair but I haven't used it in about a week and it's been brilliant. By the time the Doctor comes and picks us up, I should be back to normal.”

“ _That's the best news I've heard in bloody ages_ ,” Jackie said, the sincerity in her voice sending warmth melting through him. “ _I've been worried about you._ ”

“You don't need to do that,” Jack said, deciding to make the bacon sandwich since he fully intended on keeping Mickey in bed all day and it was important to get as much energy as possible. “I always bounce back.”

Jackie huffed. “ _I'm worryin' about you an' there's nothin' you can do to stop it. You're family now an' all, so you'll just have to deal with it._ ”

Thick emotion lodged in his throat. _Family_. It had been decades since he had had family, his mother as lost to him as his father and Gray, and he found it difficult to respond. When he did, his words shook and she was kind enough not to comment on it.

“What about you?” Jack asked. “Rose seems to think you've got a boyfriend.”

“ _Rose needs to mind her own business,_ ” Jackie said, tartly. “ _But she's not far wrong. I've been seein' someone, only a little mind an' it's nothin' too serious. We met down at the laundrette when I was doin' my duvets after Sabrina finally left. He's a nice bloke. Proper nice an' not that pretend nice either. I'm just seein' where it goes._ ”

“Good, that's really good,” he said, pouring oil into the pain and flicking the heat on. “What's his name?”

“ _Why_?” The suspicion in her voice cracked a smile across his face. “ _You goin' to run a background check or somethin'_?”

“It's not the worst idea in the world,” Jack told her. “But it's just so I know who to ask after. If you like, I can ask how your lover's doing?”

She made a sound on the other end. “ _His name's Elton, an' that's enough of that. We haven't even done anythin' yet. We've met up for coffee an' I let him use my washin' machine instead of payin' through the nose at the laundrette._ ”

“Taking it slow, that's nice.”

“ _Yeah, well, I always rush into these things, thought I'd try somethin' different this time_ ,” she said.

“Good for you,” Jack said. “Although, if he breaks your heart, I'll be there in an instant to break his arm.”

Jackie laughed. “ _Thanks, love_.”

The conversation slipped away from Elton and danced around a few different topics – Sabrina and Leia were back in Essex though Sabrina had a job interview in Bristol in two weeks and they would be going down there, stopping in London on the way back; Sarah Jane had popped in for coffee and a chat, the subject of which Jack imagined was the Doctor and Zoe; and she was off out with Bev and Ru that evening for drinks at a nice bar in central London courtesy of the Doctor's bank card. She sounded happy and busy, something that eased a small knot of worry in Jack's chest. He understood why Jackie didn't want to travel with the Doctor but he worried about her back in London by herself even with Sarah Jane and Alistair there in case anything alien happened.

They said their goodbyes as the smell of frying bacon drew a dishevelled Mickey from the bedroom, his long form staggering, heel of one hand rubbing at his tired eyes. Jack set his phone down and moved the bacon in the pan with the spatula, closing his eyes as Mickey plastered himself against his back, mouth kissing the soft curve of his neck in greeting

“Mornin',” he murmured, tone thick with sleep and honey and Jack wondered if monogamy was always so wonderful or if it was simply because it was with Mickey. “Were you talkin' to someone?”

“Jackie.” He cleared his throat and turned his head to give him a proper, if fleeting, kiss. “Having a quick catch up.”

Mickey hummed and reached around him for a cup of coffee. “She all right?”

“Yeah, she's fine, keeping busy and all,” Jack said, keeping her tentative relationship to himself. “There's a fruit salad on the bar and bacon sandwiches are on their way.”

“You're amazing,” he groaned, lightly biting his shoulder before removing himself – and his warmth – to drink his coffee. “Thank you.”

Jack looked down into the pan filled with sizzling back and smiled, contentment spooling through his entire body.

* * *

_ Space Station 36 _ 79- Ω◎

_ Time Unknown _

Rose gasped when she resurfaced, spitting out a mouthful of thick orange liquid; the same liquid that stripped her clothes from her body, dissolving her T-shirt, skirt, and shoes into nothingness, mercifully leaving her skin untouched. From above her on the metal ramparts, the Doctor stared over the edge with wide eyes, stunned she had dived headfirst into an unknown vat of liquid. At his feet, a man lay unconscious and Rose pulled a face: _Too little too late_. Her toes were unable to reach the bottom of the vat forcing her to awkwardly paddle to the side, keeping one arm stretched up out of the liquid. The liquid had gone up her arm to her wrist, narrowly missing the Scrolls of Vangåår that remained dry through what felt like divine intervention more than anything else.

As she grasped hold of the edge of the vat and caught her breath, the Doctor vaulted neatly over the railing and landed on his feet next to the wide container. He looked ridiculous in the stolen thick, dark blue robes of the monastery that had sent assassins after the Holder of the Scrolls of Vangåår – not that he didn't normally look ridiculous it was just that the robes emphasised the general ridiculous nature of him. Straightening up, he plucked the undamaged scrolls from her hand and examined them.

“Nicely done,” the Doctor said, pleased. “The nuns are going to be happy.”

“I'm so pleased,” Rose said, sarcasm dripping from her. She slapped the surface of the liquid and watched it ripple and shiver without a single splash. “What even is this?”

He dipped his finger into it.. “No idea. Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” he said, sniffing his finger and touching it to his tongue. Since he didn't immediately demand she get out of it, she remained where she was, conscious of the fact that she was naked. “Probably shouldn't have jumped into it though. You had no idea what it was. Could've been lava.”

She worked her jaw, irritated at having the obvious pointed out to her. “You said that the Scrolls of the Vanguard –”

“Scrolls of Vangåår.”

“ _Whatever_.” A heavy sigh rolled through her, the thought of her shower on the TARDIS the only thing of any interest to her in that moment. “You said that they were really important to the space nuns, somethin' about world peace. Figured they wouldn't like it if they got wet.”

“You're absolutely right,” the Doctor said, smiling at her. “You know, it's really nice to know that you listen when I speak. Thank you.”

“Piss off.”

He snorted. “Need a hand out?”

“I'm naked,” Rose told him. “This stupid liquid dissolved my clothes.”

“Ah.” He frowned. “Small problem.”

“What's a small problem?” Zoe asked, appearing from the shadows covered in dust from having been tossed into a pile of cobwebs that decorated one corner of the room. “Rose, you're in a vat of liquid.”

She flipped her off with goop-covered fingers.

“Rose is having a small issue with her clothes,” the Doctor said. “As in she is no longer wearing any. The liquid appears to dissolve inorganic items, which really makes it a relief that you threw yourself into it despite the potential danger. These scrolls are hundreds of thousands of years old. Losing them would've been an unspeakable loss to the nunnery.”

“Space nuns, still cool even with the assassins,” Zoe said, twisting her fingers at the Doctor. “Turn your back, love. Rosie, take my hand.”

“I'm still goin' to be naked,” she protested, taking Zoe's hand as the Doctor spun on his heels and faced the other direction, eyes closed for good measure. “An' I'm not walkin' back to the TARDIS like this.”

“There's a sheet in one of the corners,” the Doctor said, pointing. “We can use that to wipe you down and then I'll give you this very fetching robe I stole. And when I say _we'll_ wipe you down, I mean Zoe. I should point out though that modesty is a very human concept. From about the 40th century onwards, modesty goes the way of the Dodo.”

“Yeah, well, I'm from the 21st century an' we care,” Rose said, nearly falling out of the vat, hand on Zoe's shoulder and burning through the material there. “Sorry.”

“It's fine.” Zoe reached out with her foot and prodded the Doctor. “Can you get the sheet, please? She's dripping everywhere. Without looking as well.”

“Right-o,” the Doctor said cheerfully and proceeded to walk directly into a support beam. “ _Ow_.”

* * *

“What's the point of goin' to a party if we're not partyin'?”

Jack pulled back from mouthing a path down the skin of Mickey's neck, the buzz of alcohol and ecstasy in his system slowing him down. Mickey was sober, he always was when Jack tried whatever Earth drug was to hand. Since he wasn't capable of becoming addicted to the pills he took or the drugs he occasionally snorted for a high that normal alcohol couldn't provide, his Time Agency-approved augmentation preventing such things as it filtered out the addictive enzymes and left him with the good ones, he liked to indulge on occasion. And despite assuring him it was unnecessary, Mickey preferred to remain sober and in control when Jack decided to party a little harder than normal.

The pulse of the music from Fiona and Marvin's party sent fine vibrations through the floor and into their feet; laughter filled the air and a glass broke somewhere that sent people into waves of laughter. It was a last-minute invitation extended by their new Australian neighbours who were on the island for only two weeks but determined to make a hedonistic go of it and since neither Jack nor Mickey had anything else to do, they accepted the invitation. Had Mickey known he was walking into an orgy/drug party, he would have refused; he had come close to leaving before catching sight of the look on Jack's face and decided to stay despite the fact he didn't feel particularly comfortable.

As long as he stuck close to Jack he was fine and since Jack wasn't inclined to let him go too far, everything had been more fun than he thought it would be.

“This is a type of party, a private party,” Jack said, rubbing his nose across Mickey's jaw, chest heaving as he pressed his arousal into the edge of Mickey's hip that sent breath stuttering through his chest.“If you like, we can head out there and mingle.”

“I didn't say that,” Mickey protested, looping his fingers through his hair and tugging his mouth closer, licking into him. “Just that we could've done this at ours.”

“Where's the fun in that?” He murmured, pressing himself close. “I want people to know we're together. Let them envy us.”

“You like people looking at you,” Mickey said, a tinge of accusation lacing his words. “You get off on it.”

“I do,” he agreed, cheeks flushed and he licked a path up Mickey's neck. “I like knowing people find pleasure in watching me. Does it bother you?”

“Yes, a little,” Mickey admitted. “But that's my problem, not yours.”

Jack hummed and kissed him again, tongue slipping into Mickey's mouth as his hand slid down his back to grab a firm buttock, pulling him into him. Pressing him hard against the bathroom sink, the sounds he made – the soft, mewling sounds of pleasure that always seemed to take him by surprise – sent Jack's head spinning, and he rucked up the pale blue shirt Mickey wore to splay his fingers across his stomach. Rocking into him, sharp shocks of pleasure ran up his cock and he breathed sharply against Mickey's wet mouth.

Dropping his head back against the mirror, Mickey held onto Jack and moved his hips against his, struggling to breathe.

“D'you miss it?” He asked around a gasp. “The variety? I know we're not exactly doin' what you're used to.”

They hadn't spoken much about their sexual history for the simple fact that there wasn't much to talk about on Mickey's side – certainly not with men – and the idea of hearing about Jack's intimidated him a little. Having briefly met John Hart, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what sort of men Jack had regularly taken to bed.

“I don't miss it,” Jack said, finding him words as pleasure began to make everything hazy, aware that if they didn't stop them walking out of the bathroom with stained shorts was going to be in his immediate future. “It was fun but this is so much more. I wouldn't change this for anything. If you ever want to experiment though, I'm open to it. I've done most things at least once but there's no pressure.”

Mickey swallowed, hand carding through Jack's hair, pulling him closer and changing the angle of his hips. “Not yet but maybe one day.”

Jack nodded and kissed him again, harder and with more purpose. His hands fell off Mickey's body and clutched the edge of the sink, his orgasm rushing through him, body twitching. His skin tingled with the pleasure and he turned a muzzy face into Mickey's, kissing him clumsily, deft fingers slipping open the buttons on his shorts. His knees started to bend, hand already wrapped around Mickey's cock, only to be stopped halfway, firm hands grasping him by his elbows.

“Are you mad?” Mickey demanded, eyes dilated with pleasure, mouth set in a sharp line. “You're not kneeling on this marble bloody floor with your knees.”

Jack blinked. “Good point.”

He turned from him, reassured by the small sound of protest Mickey made, and he pulled free multitudes of towels and one thick dressing gown that he dropped onto the floor and made into a nest. Sinking down onto it, it was uncomfortable but as long as he wasn't down there for long, he was sure he would be fine.

“Get up,” Mickey told him. “I'm not havin' you do your knees in just to give me a blowjob.”

“I won't do them in as long as you're quick,” Jack said, tongue laving a stripe up the side of his length. Mickey grunted, hips twitching. “So you'd better be quick about it.”

Various curse words flew out over his head as Jack swallowed the head of his cock and closed his eyes, bliss passing over him at the heavy weight of it on his tongue; he didn't care if it took all night, he was staying where he was until he was done.

* * *

_ Disney World, 2765 _

A curtain of rain fell over Zoe when she stuck her head out of the Hall of Mirrors, the deluge soaking her through from the shoulders up as she scanned the area for danger. When she pulled herself back inside, Rose was waiting with a towel picked up from the gift shop on their sprint through the building – _never know when you'll need one_ was Jack's motto and, annoyingly, he was often correct. She took the towel emblazoned with the face of Mickey Mouse and scrubbed at her hair, her curls frizzing and rising around her, creating a halo of untamed hair that she often fought to avoid. Rose raised an eyebrow and Zoe stared back at her, daring her to say something.

“Anyone out there?” Rose asked, wisely avoiding the elephant in the room.

“Stormtroopers,” Zoe said. “A whole lot of them. And, seriously, when did Disney buy Star Wars?”

“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Mickey found that out while you were studyin', apparently they buy a whole lot of stuff in like ten years from our time. He said we should buy stock.”

“Do you think that would be abusing our role as time travellers?”

“No idea,” Rose said. “I told Mum to buy some though.”

Zoe flashed her a grin. “Nice.”

She finished drying her hair and shoulders before dropping the sodden towel on the ground. Normally, when running for her life and/or freedom, she tried not to leave signs that she had been there, however the whole building was surrounded. Stormtroopers guarded the entrance while Gaston and the laser pitchfork carrying townsfolk covered the rear; the dark form of Scar and his pride were also visible through the rain, which was the one stroke of good luck they had had. The Doctor must have broken the climate control system and rain was pouring down on them as a torrent, sending deep rivers of water running through the streets of the park. It gave them an advantage as they were used to working in all weather but the characters on Disney World were not.

“Any luck with the screwdriver?”

Before they had been forcibly parted, the Doctor had tossed the sonic screwdriver to them and Rose had caught it. Unfortunately, there was something in the atmosphere that was preventing it from working properly and they had accidentally burnt down Ariel's underwater palace attempting to open a door, discovering that the water on Disney World was _highly_ flammable. Since Rose best understood the screwdriver outside of the Doctor as she often liked to fiddle with it when she was bored, entertaining herself with the various settings from **enhanced banana growth** to **reminder for Jamie's birthday,** she was in charge of getting it to work. A few attempted reboots and a hard whack against the nearest mirror did the trick, and she twirled it between her fingers in triumph.

“Yeah, actually,” Rose said. “It's workin' now.”

“Brill, nice one,” Zoe said. “Think you can find our missing Time Lord?”

“Probably,” she said, tongue stuck between her teeth as she worked the screwdriver. “How much trouble d'you think he's in?”

“Well, since we interrupted what looks to be a corporate takeover with long-implanted spies as characters,” Zoe recapped. “I'd say a little bit more trouble than we'd like but not so much that he'll be killed for it before we get there.”

She waved the screwdriver around in the air and looked as mad as the Doctor normally did, a soft beep freezing her in place. “Aha! We need to go east.”

“That's west.”

“Same difference,” Rose said, grabbing her hand. “C'mon.”

The tall circular turrets of Sleeping Beauty's castle rose up out of the ground and cast a forbidding silhouette against the dark sky, thunder crackling behind it; despite the somewhat uncertain situation, Zoe appreciated how atmospheric their rescue mission was. Forced to swerve swerve off course when Cruella de Vil roared in front of them in her car, the Genie appearing in a flash of blue light with his arms extending, growing in size, sent them spinning away from another path.

Rose pointed the sonic over her shoulder at the Genie. “You're supposed to be a good guy, idiot!”

The Genie cried out as the electrics short-circuited and a small man in a black all-in-one fell out of the sky and landed in the backseat of Cruella's car.

Zoe laughed. “That looked painful.”

“Shit,” Rose cursed as they sprinted towards the draw bridge that had been raised, a huge moat between them and the Doctor, crocodiles snapping within. “Any idea how we're goin' to get across?”

“When I was in France, Reinette and I scaled the walls of the Bastille,” Zoe told her, grabbing a balloon that Rose turned solid with the screwdriver and throwing it at the Seven Dwarfs like a bowling ball, knocking them off their feet. “Think we're going to have to do the same here. Look for some rope.”

“Why the fuck did you an' Reinette break into the Bastille?”

“Aliens were killing children,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Long story. Rope now.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Rose mocked.

They rummaged in the darkness, rain pouring down on them, enemies closing in on all sides before they found a length of thick rope half-consumed by the raging moat. Scar roared close by and Zoe roared back, startling whoever was operating the animatronics for a split second. Hands working quickly, she was able to fashion a harpoon from the items to hand – a length of metal from the security railing that Rose broke off using the screwdriver, pieces of faux wood plastic shattered from a sign asking people not to litter, and a small core of energy pumped into a pebble from the screwdriver that gave them enough power to throw the makeshift harpoon through the air and into the wall.

“Honest to god, I'm surprised that worked,” Zoe said.

“Not so fast.” A snowman appeared before them, launched into their path by a reindeer herder and a Prince Charming. “You're not going anywhere.”

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Rose demanded. “Frosty?”

“I'm Olaf,” the snowman said. “From Frozen.”

“Never heard of it,” Zoe said.

“Never –?” The snowman trailed off, incredulous. “How haven't you heard of Frozen? It's one of Disney's biggest movies.”

“Are you _sure_ you don't mean Frosty?” Rose asked. “Because we've heard of Frosty.”

“Definitely heard of Frosty,” Zoe nodded. “Now there's a snowman that's famous.”

“I'm not Frosty!”

“All right, blimey.” Rose shared a look with Zoe, repositioning herself. “Little sensitive, aren't you?”

“Wouldn't you be?”

“Probably,” she shrugged. “Sorry about this by the way.”

Olaf tipped his head. “Sorry about what?”

Rose pushed him hard and whoever was controlling the snowman yelped as they went rolling down the hill and splashed into the water, water sparking from their suit.

“Shit, I didn't think about the electrics.” She peered through the rain. “Think they're okay?”

“Yeah, I'm sure they're fine,” Zoe lied. “Come on, let's go.”

They grabbed hold of the end of the rope that was stretched from castle to land and they dove into the lake. Whoever was operating the moat caused huge waves to swell up in an attempt to buffer them away from their goal, serving only to make things more difficult for Olaf the unfortunate snowman who every time he got close to the shore found himself swept away again, the reindeer herder attempting to pull him back in.

Rose and Zoe on the other hand were used to working against the odds and pulled themselves along the rope until they were at the wall, palms twisting and breaking from the effort of hauling themselves up the side of the wet building. Reaching the top, Zoe rolled herself over the wall and incapacitated a wardrobe and a teapot from Beauty and the Beast by the time Rose fell over in a pile of limbs that accidentally knocked Captain America down the stairs, shielding bouncing after him.

“Wait,” Zoe frowned. “They own Marvel too?”

Rose staggered to her feet. “God, I can't feel my arms.”

“Going to the gym more than once a year helps.”

“Sounds horrible.”

Having not expected them to breach the castle at all, let alone from the roof, the guards were unprepared for their assault. Rose grabbed a book and clobbered Belle over the head with it, the princess's body dropping like a bag of rocks, and Zoe ducked beneath Cinderella's arms to slam her head first into a wall, glass slipper falling from her delicate foot. She planted her feet in Pocahontas's chest and knocked her back into the fire while Rose kicked a chair into the path of Ariel and hurled a glass at Jasmine, getting her on the boob. Snow White and Mulan stood above a bound and gagged Doctor, a beautiful golden apple raised above his head and a curved sword at his throat.

Zoe snatched up Cinderella's shoe and brandished it. “Put down the apple, Snow, and lower the sword, Mulan, or I'm going to knock you both out with a shoe.”

Rose spun around Zoe and punched Snow White in the stomach, sending her to the ground coughing; she grabbed a handful of Mulan's hair and _yanked_ , the sword clattering to the ground as Mulan cried out. Rose kicked her in the stomach to keep her down, purposefully stepping on Snow White's hand as she checked the room. Ariel moved and Rose picked up the apple and flung it at her, the princess falling back, unconscious.

None of the other princess's moved.

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up and Zoe observed the scene with surprise. “All right then. That's a damned fine way of taking care of things.”

“If any of you thinks about movin',” Rose threatened the others who were nursing their injuries – Jasmine looked particularly mutinous as she rubbed her sore breast. “I'm goin' to clobber you with somethin' else, understood?”

With Rose deftly handling the situation, Zoe set the glass shoe down and hurried to the Doctor, working the gag out of his mouth.

“Hi, hello.” Her hands skimmed over him, checking him for injuries. “You okay?”

“I got kidnapped by Lilo and Stitch,” the Doctor said. “I need a moment to accept how far I've fallen.”

* * *

Mickey laughed against the side of Jack's neck as their feet became tangled on, tripping over each other and only managing to keep their balance through sheer luck and Jack's athleticism. Music played throughout the living room – one of Zoe's cheesy 90s pop playlists that Jack actually liked – and the soft thrum of their day drinking rolled through Mickey like warm water; his head was fogged in a pleasant way and his skin felt alive with energy. Jack was humming along to the music, unusually half a beat behind, and their bodies were pressed together as they swayed on the spot. Jack forwent the usual twists and turns he typically deployed into his dancing for the simple intimacy of holding Mickey close and swaying together in the living room.

“You are my fire,” Jack sang into his ear, fingers skimming down the length of his spine, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. “The one desire.”

“Believe when I say,” Mickey picked up.

“I want it that way,” they sang together.

As the golden afternoon sun slanted over them and the melodies of the Backstreet Boys wrapped around them, Jack kissed him: A gentle brush of lips over his mouth before resting at the corner, eyelashes brushing against Mickey's cheek. Their plan that morning had been to go hiking yet neither of them had found the energy to dress after their shower and turned to mimosas instead, which turned into cocktails, which became being drunk by one o'clock in the afternoon as they played naked Scrabble. It was a perfect day and Jack never wanted it to end, pressing himself closer to Mickey and sighing against his neck as he enjoyed the company, the feeling of complete serenity, and the fact that his knees hadn't hurt for at least a week.

“This is good music,” Jack murmured as Mickey guided them away from the coffee table, fingers tangled together against his chest. “Far better music than I grew up with. It's fun and bubbly.”

“This is the best song ever written,” Mickey told him. “Don't tell Zo I said that though. I don't want to encourage the 90s pop thing.”

Jack's mouth spread into a smile against his jaw. “Don't think she needs much encouragement there.”

“That's true.” Mickey closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the top of Jack's head, the smell of his shampoo lulling him to sleep standing up. “D'you think they dance in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Who?”

“Zoe an' the Doctor.”

“Probably,” Jack said. “She loves dancing and he's always been soft on helping her do the things she loves.”

“Good,” he said, pleased. “She deserves someone who loves her.”

Jack looked up, interested. “Hello. Does this mean you've come around to the idea then?”

“I was never against it,” he said.

“Well, no, but you weren't enthusiastic about it,” Jack told him, tumbling them onto a sofa and Mickey twisted him so that he was lying on his back, still concerned about his knees. Jack spread his legs so that Mickey was able to lie comfortable between them. “Every time I mentioned it, you'd get this look on your face.”

“What look?” Jack mimicked the expression and Mickey laughed. “Sod off. I don't look like that.”

“True,” he agreed. “You're much more handsome.”

“And you're drunk.”

“That –” Jack traced his finger down the bridge of Mickey's nose. “– is true. We should day drink more often. I don't know why more people don't.”

“Not all of us have livers that repair themselves in an hour or two,” Mickey pointed out. “Mine takes a little longer than yours.”

“Bah.” Jack pulled a face. “We could probably get that replaced. Upgrade you and all.”

He snorted. “You sound like a –”

“Cyberman, I heard it,” Jack said with a grimace. “That's not what I meant. I don't actually know what I meant. I probably shouldn't have had that last cocktail. I don't know what you put in it but I can't feel my face.”

Mickey poked his cheek. “Feel that?”

“ _Ow_ , yes.”

“That didn't hurt, you big baby,” he said, shifting until he had Jack squashed between him and the back of the sofa, pulling the soft grey throw down over their bodies. “Nap time now.”

“Afternoon naps,” Jack cooed, cheeks flushed from the alcohol. “Now there's something we can definitely get on board with. God, they're the best thing in the universe. Right after your –”

“Don't get yourself worked up when you're too tired to do anythin' about it,” Mickey said, removing Jack's hand from between his thighs and kissing his fingers.

Jack made a small, mewling sound of complaint but settled down, body curving into Mickey's eyes already drooping with sleep. Mickey yawned and closed his eyes, the alcohol buzzing through his system, creating a feeling that he was riding a rollercoaster, and he fell asleep to the sound of Jack's soft snores blowing out against his chest.

* * *

_ Rome, 80BC _

Soft sheets dragged up the bed and tangled in her fingers as Rose bit her lip, body arching up from the soft mattress. Pleasure prickled through her as teeth grazed against her inner thigh, confident that she wasn't going to regret _this_ encounter as she regretted the one with Drew. The silence from his end was welcomed though somewhat guilt inducing although she had wanted the distance. She had brainstormed a text with Zoe that the Doctor glanced over and gave his seal of approval as _a man_ , both of them keeping any judgement about the ill-advised one-night stand to themselves, before sending it.

Drew had sent back a simple text with an apology for overstepping and a politely bland _good luck_ for the future that sent guilt writhing through her, certain it was going to be horribly awkward the next time she saw him.

At least this time she didn't have to worry about the reasons behind her taking someone to bed as the Doctor hadn't entered into the equation at all when Julius Caesar had stepped up next to her and offered her a glass of dark red wine. She was twenty years old and in the prime of her life. Jimmy had stolen a lot from her when it came to sexual confidence though Mickey had done his best to build her back up. And while she had always been vaguely aware that her crush on the Doctor was equal parts actually fancying him and finding him a safe person to fall in love with since she knew he would never hurt her, hope had been snatched from her when she caught him in a closet with her sister.

With him firmly out of the running, sleeping her way through history seemed like a fine way to enjoy her youth, even if she was certain Zoe wouldn't agree.

_Therapy_ , she heard her sister say in her mind. _That's the best way to fix yourself. Not by shagging any Tom, Dick, and Caesar._

And maybe the Zoe that lived in her mind was right, Rose didn't know. What she did know was that she was single, her friends and sister were happily coupled up, and Julius Caesar had kissed her behind a set of drapes with an intensity that made her slip away with him and disappear into his ornate bedroom.

A night with Caesar might be exactly what she needed and, if it wasn't, she doubted she would regret it since _Julius Caesar_ had his head buried between her thighs, tongue moving against her. She ground her heels down into the mattress, hips rising up in an attempt to chase the pleasure, until his strong arm clamped over her, his iron grip pulling her firmer against his mouth.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she muttered.

Carding her fingers through his hair, she gasped as his tongue pressed into her, eyes flying wide open. Laughter bubbled up her chest at the fact that she, Rose Tyler, was in bed with Julius Caesar himself.

It was a shame no one back home would ever believe her.

One hand left her hip, sweeping over the curve of her ass before it joined his mouth between her legs and she breathed _out_ at the feeling of something filling her. Her mind filled with nothing except the low, rolling build of pleasure that began low in her gut, not caring where Zoe or the Doctor had disappeared to during the party, not caring about anything except the fact that Caesar didn't stop what he was doing.

He was a man focused and she had never experienced anything like it. Jimmy had never done this to her, finding it filthy but expecting her to perform it on him; Mickey was good at it though she hadn't like him doing it since she found it difficult to repay the favour, not that he minded, sweet as he was: Caesar, however, was _excellent_.

He hooked a finger inside her and her hips shot up off the bed, her fingers tightening in his hair, his eyes glancing up as he grinned around her.

“There it is,” he said, dipping back down.

_There what is_ she wanted to ask, unable to speak as her orgasm approached on a freight train and it took barely a minute before it slammed into her. White light swept her vision and the cells in her body exploded into small fireworks of pleasure. She rode out the waves against him, his mouth working over her still, coaxing more and more pleasure from her strained body before she released his hair and flopped back, body shimmering with a thin hue of sweat.

“You are exquisite,” Caesar informed him, wiping his mouth and chin on his sheets and there wasn't enough energy in her body to be embarrassed by the mess she had made of him. “I never want to let you leave when you make sounds like that.”

He crawled up her body, knees on either side of her until he was boxing her in with his strong arms, taut with muscle. He wasn't as handsome as she imagined that morning when the Doctor told them they were going to a party thrown by Caesar and his wife Cornelia – a small part of her felt guilty for sleeping with another woman's husband but not enough to not do it – and Zoe and Rose had dug out their stolas.

Caesar didn't look like the sort of man to trigger the rise of the Roman Empire. He looked like a muscled accountant with a square head and jaw, forehead already creased with lines despite the fact he was only twenty in 80BC. She was reminded of the men she had seen around the estate who boxed and got their faces squashed by covered knuckles: He also reminded her of the Doctor – handsome if one was looking for it, ordinary if one wasn't.

“Did you enjoy that?”

Rose's chest expanded as she drew in a deep breath, fingertips resting against his mouth. “Wasn't it obvious?”

“A man likes to hear his works appreciated,” Caesar replied, catching her fingers and sucking on them. “Or receive critique on areas on which to improve.”

She breathed out. “Needy.”

He laughed and kissed her again, tongue sweeping in and she tasted herself on it. Hooking one leg around his, she pulled him on top of him, relishing the heavy weight of him, and he took her hands and pressed them on either side of her head, her blonde hair splayed out like a cloud around her. Dragging her bottom lip between his teeth, he rolled and pulled her on top of him, hands settled on his hips.

“You look like a woman who enjoys being in control,” Caesar said, tucking his hands behind his head, appearing perfectly at ease with her using him as she saw fit and the sudden burst of _yes, please_ that burned through her took her by surprise. “So control me.”

Taking control during sex wasn't something she was used to. Jimmy refused to consider the idea, one of the first red flags she ignored, and Mickey was happy to do whatever she wanted to make her feel safe again. And Drew – well, she and Drew hadn't even made it to his bed for it to matter who was on top of not. Refusing to allow Jimmy's black memory to poison her when she was with Julius Caesar, she braced her hands on his solid chest and relished the feel of his smooth chest beneath her palms. His eyes watched her as she positioned herself above him, reaching between them to wrap her hand around his cock, dragging her thumb over the head to send a shudder running through him.

“Don't think anyone controls you but you,” Rose said.

He opened his mouth to respond only to groan, eyes closing as she sank down onto him. It was a slow smooth glide until she was pressed against his pubic hair, his fingers flexing and colour spreading over his chest like spilt paint. Rose exhaled and bowed her chin to her chest, relishing the stretch and the sheer oddity of having Julius Caesar inside of her.

“ _Rose_ –” a muscle twitched in his jaw.

Her eyes opened and looked down at him. One of the strongest men in history stared up at her with eyes blown wide with desire, lips parted in a gasp, and colour slashed across his cheeks because of her. Her muscles contracted on him, dragging another groan from him, and she moved, rolling her hips as she found her rhythm. Normally she was concerned about whether the other person was enjoying it – sometimes too anxious to properly enjoy herself – but she let those worries fade as she took what she wanted from Caesar, confident he was going to find his own release.

Catching her rhythm, Caesar bucked up into her with a sharp thrust when she came down on him, his pelvis digging into her clit, and she grabbed him by the elbows and dragged him until she was able to kiss him. His jaw dragged against her collarbone, his hand cupping one breast that he lifted to his mouth; she curled her fingers into his hair and held him to her, sparks of pleasure emanating out from his mouth, refusing to lose her pace, the muscles in his back shifting beneath her other hand.

“God, _yes_.”

She pressed her forehead against the top of his head, eyes squeezed shut, another orgasm within her reach, and Caesar – beautiful, smart Caesar – reached between them and thumbed her clit. A cry wrenched itself from her mouth, orgasm drenching her in a second, more concentrated burst of pleasure, and he was tipping her over, hands hooked under her knees, moving within her, stuttered, warm grunts decorating her body. She had _never_ come more than twice in one night, always too sensitive and pushing Mickey off her before he got it into his head to keep going, and it hurt but in a way that made her crave more.

Stretching one arm above her head, she gripped the pillow and tried to meet his deep, faltering thrusts; a third, weaker orgasm washed over her as he groaned, hips pressing into hers just as the Doctor burst through the door.

“Rose, we need to get going, there's – _AH_!”

The Doctor's face filled with colour at the sight before him: Caesar caught in the throes of his own orgasm and Rose's face muzzy from hers. As quickly as the colour came, it drained from him and he clapped a hand over his eyes with a loud _slap_ before he twisted on the balls of his feet. Misjudging his speed, he turned in a full 360-degree circle, lifted his hand from his eyes, and yelped again. Caesar lay on top of Rose as he caught his breath, nuzzling at her neck and running a thumb over her nipple, most of her naked body kept out of the Doctor's view by his.

Mortification warred with amusement at the Doctor getting a taste of his own medicine. All she needed was –

“What are you doing?” Zoe demanded, appearing in the doorway. “We need to –” her words trailed off and her eyes went wide, mouth dropping open. Rose gave her a small wave. “Jesus _fuck_. Is that Julius Caesar?”

Rose poked Caesar in the shoulder. “Zoe, Caesar; Caesar, my sister, Zoe.”

Caesar lifted his head from Rose's neck and blinked as though finally noticing they were no longer alone. “A pleasure.”

“Hello,” Zoe said, blankly.

“If you don't intend on joining us, perhaps you might leave this chamber so that we can be alone,” Caesar suggested, his buttocks clenching as he shifted within Rose. She sank her teeth into her lip so as to not make a sound. “We're not close to being done.”

“What the hell is going on?” The Doctor demanded, not knowing where to look and choosing to turn a stern gaze onto a point above Rose's head. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Could you –?” Rose patted Caesar's hip and both the Doctor and Zoe turned swiftly away when he left her body and rolled from the bed, padding to the table filled with drink and food. She wrapped the sheets around her. “I'm decent. _Ish_.”

Zoe peeked around, amusement shining from her eyes, flashing her a thumbs up from behind the Doctor's back as the Doctor frowned at her.

“I expect this sort of behaviour from Jack,” he told her. “Or I did before Mickey, but from you, Rose Tyler? I'm disappointed.”

“That's a bit of a double standard, love,” Zoe pointed out. “Rose is free to have sex with whomever she wants.”

“Quite right, _carrissima_ ,” Caesar said, tilting his glass of wine towards her in recognition, eyes sweeping over the Doctor. “Shame on you, sir. Surely you must know that that which divides gender is mere social construct than anything truly moralistic. Why should women not enjoy the pleasures of flesh as much as men?”

“Button it, Caesar,” the Doctor shot back. “She can have all the sex she wants but who knows what diseases you're carrying. Did you even think to use a condom?”

Rose flushed. “Shut up.”

“The TARDIS can really take care of all that,” Zoe pointed out, reasonably. “And she does have a contraceptive jab.”

“Thought Jackie would've been on at you about safe sex,” the Doctor said, ignoring her.

“It's not like I leave the TARDIS carryin' them,” Rose snapped.

Zoe whistled sharply, their eyes snapping to her. In the corner, Caesar popped a grape into his mouth, watching everything unfold with the greatest of interest.

“Doctor, stop picking a fight with her,” she said, his mouth dropping open in offence. “Rose, please put some clothes on. The Cult of Demeter and Persephone have somehow got their hands on the equivalent of a nuclear weapon and we need to stop them before they blow up Rome.”

Rose stared at her. “How –?”

“Best guess is there was a ship passing overhead who had problems with one of their engines that run of nuclear energy and they dumped it,” Zoe shrugged. “It came down to Earth, somehow didn't explode, and some religious nuts got their hands on it. Doesn't really matter.”

“You're rather mad,” Caesar said, conversationally. “I quite like it.”

“Thank you,” Zoe said even as the Doctor scowled at him. “Sorry we can't stay and chat but things to do and all that. I'm sure you know how it is.”

Rose dropped the sheet from around her, the Doctor tripping over himself to avoid looking at her despite the fact that _modesty was an outdated concept_ and she dressed as quickly as she was able, using the sheet to clean between her legs. When she turned around, Caesar was there, taking her into her arms and kissing her so thoroughly that the Doctor made pained noises at the sounds he heard as Zoe covered her ears with her hands.

“Right.” Rose swallowed and stared at him when he released her. “Well...it's been fun.”

“That it has,” Caesar said with a smile. “Enjoy your cult.”

“Enjoy...Rome,” she said, stepping back from him and regaining her breath. Zoe was at her side, fingers linking with her to stop her from tumbling back into bed with Caesar. “And say hi to Cleopatra for me when she turns up.”

His brow creased. “Who?”

“Never mind,” Rose said, hurrying out the door with her sister and a scowling Doctor. “See you around!”

* * *

Jack paused to let a couple he vaguely recognised from around the resort pass through the doors, smiling at their thanks, before he left the glass reception and ambled slowly up the neat path. The TARDIS was arriving that day – a text that morning reminding them to be at the rendezvous in time – and Jack was oddly reluctant to leave. He knew that he and Mickey couldn't keep living the decadent life they had been enjoying for the last six weeks but it was a period of time that Jack was sure he was going to treasure as it was the first decent length of time they had spent with just each other for company. He hadn't had time to be worried over whether or not their relationship would survive such close proximity without the others there to act as a buffer, his attention in the first two weeks entirely focused on his recovery, and by the time the thought crossed his mind, everything was going well.

Spending time alone with Mickey had reinforced Jack's belief that this relationship was it for him.

He didn't know how Mickey felt – though he suspected it was the same – but Jack was comfortable in believing that he was done. The thought of the decades stretching out before them, living side by side together wherever they chose to settle down, sent excitement fizzing through his veins.

“There you are,” Mickey said, relaxed on a bench near the spot the Doctor had sworn blind he would pick them up from. “Check out go okay?”

“They were sorry to see us go,” he said, sitting next to him. “We racked up a bit of a bill. I didn't know the apartment was _that_ expensive when we booked it through them.”

“Jesus, how much was it?” Jack showed him the receipt on the phone and Mickey choked. “How much?!”

“Good job the Doctor paid for it,” he said. “I haven't had money of my own since World War Two. Most of my stuff got blown up with the ship.”

Mickey rubbed his chest. “Where does he even get his money from anyway, do you know?”

“Not a clue,” Jack said. “Personally, I think the TARDIS prints money for him and leaves it in his pockets or keeps his money sticks up to date. It's not like he's going to inflate an economy with what he spends.”

“Maybe just a small one,” Mickey said, thinking of the bill. Jack laughed and traced faint patterns on Mickey's jean-clad thigh, the time of shorts and no clothes at an end. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” He danced his fingers down to his knee and gave it a squeeze. “Just going to be sorry to see the back of this place. I've had a good time.”

“Me too,” Mickey told him. “We should come back again. Or try that place in France Zoe went to.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Of course.”

Jack's smile brightened his face. “It's a date then.”

Mickey leaned in and kissed him, Jack finding his hand and tangling their fingers together as the sound of the TARDIS reached their ears. Aware of the blustery nature of the TARDIS appearing, they each put their feet on their bags to stop them from being buffeted away by the winds. With a smoother materialisation process than when they had last seen her, the TARDIS settled on a patch of ground set away from the bench, her bluer-than-blue shell set nicely against the clear blue of the sea.

A bubble of anticipation rolled up through his chest and the door opened: Rose bounded out, her hair thrown onto the top of her head in a messy bun wearing what looked to be one of Jack's T-shirts loosely tucked into a pair of denim shorts, her feet bare.

“Jack, Mickey!” Jack stood and caught her in his arms when she flung herself at him, laughing delightedly in his ear and dragging Mickey into the embrace. “Oh my god, look at you! You look so healthy. Doctor, Zoe, hurry up!”

“We're coming, we're coming,” the Doctor complained. “If you hadn't sprinted off before I finished landing, we wouldn't – Jack, blimey, you look great!”

“Doesn't he?” Mickey asked, proudly, lifting Zoe off her feet in a hug. “Doesn't even have any pain any more. We went for a hike yesterday an' everythin', not even a twinge.”

The Doctor drew Jack into a hug that spoke of his relief. Not wanting to be left out, Rose joined them and pulled Zoe and Mickey into the embrace. Jack found himself surrounded by the people he loved most, his nose jammed into the Doctor's neck with an arm around Zoe, Rose wriggling in between them as Mickey rested his chin on his shoulder, sharing his joy.

“I missed you idiots,” Jack said.

“We missed you too,” Zoe said, beaming up at him. “Four weeks was all we could handle before we jumped forward a bit. Well, that and the fact that Rose and the Doctor keep sniping at each other sort of gave us an incentive.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”

“Rose shagged Julius Caesar and it's a whole thing,” she said. “How was your holiday?”

“Wait, what?” Mickey asked, ignoring her question, eyes fixed on Rose. “Julius Caesar as in that Roman guy. Caesarion's dad?”

“I love the fact you only know him as Caesarion's dad,” the Doctor said with a chuckle. “And the one in the same. She couldn't have chosen a worst time for it either. We had a bit of a situation with a religious cult getting hold of nuclear weapons and this one here –” he rubbed his knuckles over the top of Rose's head, getting a jab in the ribs for his effort. “– was occupied with Caesar.”

“He's just sore because he walked in on us,” Rose said. “An' as I told him, now he knows what it feels like so maybe he'll stop besmirchin' my sister in public.”

“There was only one besmirch!”

“It was enough for me,” she told him.

“And how was I to know you were having sex with him?” The Doctor demanded. “It's not like you put a tie on the door or something. Oh, no, you left it wide open.”

“It – was – _shut_.”

“It wasn't locked though, was it?”

“You're supposed to knock before you enter a room.”

“There was a nuclear weapon in play!”

“As you can see,” Zoe said to an entertained Jack and Mickey as the Doctor and Rose descended into another argument with arms flailing in expansive gestures to get their points across and multiple rolling of eyes. “We've had a few adventures of our own. I've got lunch ready if you're hungry. Despite what these two are doing right now, we do actually want to hear all about your holiday.”

The Doctor covered Rose's mouth with his hand, her eyes flaring wide in anger. “And I want to get check in the medical bay as soon as possible, make sure everything's hunky-dory and all, and will you please stop licking my hand!”

Zoe's nose wrinkled. “Yeah, you might want to stop licking it. We were doing stuff earlier and I'm not sure he's had a chance to wash them.”

Rose pushed his hand away with a cry of disgust, spitting onto the ground.

“She's joking,” the Doctor said, swiftly. “I've washed my hands, of course I have.”

Jack leaned into Mickey, looping an arm around his waist, and laughed.

It was good to be home.


	44. Chapter 44

The Doctor lounged on the bed and flipped through one of Zoe's neurobiology journals, tipping it one side to read the notes she had written in small print that brought a smile to her face as the sound of 90s pop filled the air. According to her notes, it seemed that she disagreed with the authors conclusion drawn from what she described as _questionable sources,_ etching a small stick figure in the corner that was puking onto the author's name to hammer home her disagreement.

Rolling over to her bedside table, he unearthed a pen from the mess that was her drawer – a phone charger was tangled around stray tampons that bumped into a colourful collection of hairbands nestled on British coins – and added to the illustration. Zoe made the effort to try and keep her research out of the bedroom but she tended to drift about the TARDIS with relevant books and journals in her hands, leaving them in the oddest of places that he wasn't surprised the majority ended up in their bedroom. Not that he minded. He liked flicking through her work to see how she was progressing with a potential cure or, at least, a deeper understanding of what had been done to Zoe Heriot.

The way her mind worked was splayed across the lined pages of notebooks picked up from WHSmith and he felt like it was a peek into the mind of the woman he loved. He was fascinated with how she approached problems as she had had no official scientific training, certainly nothing like the rigorous process he had endured on Gallifrey, and he was curious as to how she got from A to B. Scratching the nib of the pen behind his ear, accidentally drawing blue marks over his skin, he hummed along in time to the Spice Girls when he heard a clatter and an exasperated swear fly from the bathroom.

“You all right in there?” The Doctor slipped the lid onto the biro and set it down, rolling onto his back so that he was able to see into the bathroom, catching small, upside-down glimpses of her as she picked up what her elbow had knocked to the floor. “Need a hand?”

“It's this stupid top,” Zoe complained, setting everything back where they belong. “I don't have any bras that go with it. And don't talk to me about strapless ones, I hate them. It always feels like I'm half naked even when I'm not.”

“Having never worn a bra, I'll take your word for it,” he replied. “I've worn a dress a couple of times but that's not really strange on Gallifrey, not like with you lot.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, humans have an odd fascination with what's in each other's underwear,” she said in a tone of voice that let him know she wasn't interested in hearing his thoughts on the matter again. She huffed and attempted to right her appearance. “God, why am I even bothering with this?”

“Honestly, I can't actually believe you're about to do it,” the Doctor said. “Did you lose a bet or something?”

Her head popped around the corner, hair exploding around her. Having forgotten to braid it back the night before after washing it, distracted by the Doctor's mouth moving down her body, it bordered on unmanageable. He rather liked the chaotic mess it created yet wisely kept his mouth shut when she had struggled with sorting it out that morning, giving up and twisting it into a bun that had left it kinky.

“ _No_.” Her eyes swept over him, narrowing slightly as though suspecting that he was up to something. Deciding that he was simply lying there to be in her company, she stepped out of the bathroom in a crop top and wide-legged trousers that rested on her waist. “Rose just me asked if I wanted to go and I said yes. I'm pretty sure I only said yes because I say no to it all the time and she had this look on her face like she wasn't expecting me to agree to it and I just wanted to prove her wrong.”

“I don't get the two of you sometimes,” he said.

She ignored him even even as she reached down and scratched the top of his head. “And I really don't want to be the boring one all the time.”

The Doctor flopped over onto his stomach, face in his hands, bumping his head up into her touch. “You're not boring.”

“Sometimes I feel it.” Her fingers carded through his hair and twisted thick strands up to give a gentle, pleasing tug.. “And I know that I live on a spaceship with a super old alien boyfriend and I travel through time on a regular basis, which is definitely not boring, but Rose does all of that too.”

“She doesn't have a super old alien boyfriend that we know of though,” he pointed out. “Also, I'm not loving the use of _super old_ as an adjective here. How about mature?”

“You're 870 years older than I am,” Zoe said. “And that's me being generous since you're so old you can't remember your own age.”

“Hey!” His eyes slid up to her, mouth turned down. “I'll have you know 900 years old is practically a teenager amongst my lot.”

“Is it though?”

He dropped his hands from his face and caught her by the back of her legs. Giving her knees a tug, she toppled with a startled yelp, bouncing off the mattress. He twisted his body around and avoided her flailing limbs to wrap himself around her like a limpet, his long legs pressed over hers and his arms holding hers against her chest. Deliberately pressing her hips back, she wriggled against him and laughed when he stuck his face in her neck. Not expecting to encounter perfume as she didn't wear it, the scent went up his nostrils and made his brain ache as he sneezed it out.

“You're wearing perfume,” he grumbled.

“To cover up the smell of sweat when I'm dancing,” she said, twisting away from him when he wiped his face in her hair. “Got to think ahead with these things.”

He hummed and splayed his hand across her bare stomach. “Why do you think you're boring?”

“Because Rose called me boring the other day, you heard her.”

He snorted. “Because you wouldn't eat that fire chili thing that gave Jack trouble breathing. That's not boring that's sensible.”

“Bah.”

“Rose loves you just as you are,” the Doctor told her. “And you don't need to go out and prove yourself to her in whatever twisted notion you've got in your head this week. Hell, last week you made yourself sick eating that entire cake to prove a point to her.”

“She said it wasn't possible,” Zoe argued. “And no one suggests that _Matilda_ isn't a realistic film on my watch.”

“There's magic in it, love.”

“Says the man who loves Harry Potter.”

“And it was an extremely large chocolate cake and you're very tiny in comparison,” he continued. “I'm surprised you didn't put yourself into a diabetic coma. And I don't know why I'm going on about this. You two were exactly the same when I first met you so I suppose this is a nice return to normality. At least you're not ganging up on me this time.”

“We never ganged up on you, you big baby,” she scoffed. “But I will admit that the chocolate cake was larger than I expected. I did it though.”

“You spent the night throwing up,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, but Rose doesn't know that, does she?”

“Tonight's going to be the chocolate cake incident all over again,” the Doctor said with a sigh. “You in a nightclub...”

He trailed off with a solemn shake of his head, and she poked him in the stomach in retaliation, drawing a small _oof_ from him.

“When I was little,” Zoe began, looping his tie around her fingers to play with it. “I used to watch Rose get dressed up for her nights out. She and Shareen would take over the bedroom with their music and make-up, drinking WKD Blues or Lambrini and I wanted to join them so much. I used to think that when we were grown and had our own lives, we'd meet up every Friday for a night out on the town and be like the women from all those TV shows who have cosmos and complain about work and men.”

He drew small circles on the bare skin of her stomach. “Yeah?”

“But she met Jimmy and when she came home she wasn't much in the mood for more than the pub and then she met you,” she said with a sigh, stretching her toes to touch his ankles. “And then we were both travelling with you and, honestly, life was like so busy that we didn't need to do any of that other stuff. But when we met Jack, it was like watching her and Shareen all over again. Like I was the little sister on the outside looking in except this time I was welcome but I felt intimidated, I guess.”

He hooked his chin over her shoulder. “So you think going out with her's going to help you feel like you're connecting?”

“I don't think it can hurt, right?” She asked, rubbing her cheek against his. “And part of me's still that thirteen-year-old with a mouthful of braces who thought Rose was the coolest person ever.”

The Doctor smiled. “She is pretty cool.”

“I don't really want to go but I also do, you know?” Zoe played with the bones of his wrist, pressing lightly against his pulse point to feel the thrum of his life. “Although, I wouldn't mind just staying in with you. We could put our jammies on and snuggle.”

“I do enjoy snuggling,” he said, kissing the curve of her shoulder. “But you're going to go and have a nice time. Just, don't take this the wrong way –”

“Oh boy.”

“Do you even know what to do in a nightclub?”

“ _Yes_!”

“From personal experience?”

“No, obviously,” Zoe said, eyes rolling. “I had to Google it. I mean, I've definitely been to a nightclub before on business and stuff so I'm not fully unaware of what takes place in them but I wanted to know things to avoid. It's a good job Jack's going to be there as it seems date rape drugs are a pretty common issue. Like way more normalised than Rose and Shareen ever told me.”

“Don't leave your drink unattended and get whatever you're drinking in a bottle,” the Doctor told her. “And that doesn't mean you should walk around drinking a bottle of wine through a straw because I think people get arrested for that.”

“Really?”

“It might just be frowned upon,” he conceded. “Part of me wants to come with you if only to see what's going to happen.”

Zoe hummed and turned her face into his, nose rubbing against the underside of his jaw, bathing in the late night smell of him: warm and settled. “Sorry, girl's night only.”

“Jack's going.”

“Jack qualifies,” she said. “And he's useful to have around to keep any unwanted male attention from us. For some reason, we get hit on less when he's around. Probably because everyone's too busy hitting on him now that I think about it.”

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. “I should hope all male attention towards you tonight is going to be unwanted.”

“Poor jealous baby,” Zoe mocked, touching her fingers to his lips. “Worried I'm going to trade you in for someone with three heads and a nicer ship?”

He huffed. “You'd never betray the TARDIS like that.”

“That's true. She's my favourite.” The lights flickered through the room with delight, and Zoe laughed. “Anyway, Mickey's not going either. I think he's still exhausted from the holiday and's looking forward to putting his feet up. You two can have a boys' night in: Watch football, have a few beers, talk about whatever it is men talk about when they're alone.”

“If they're anything like me and Jack, then it'll be ship maintenance, tofu recipes, and the plurality of 21st century humans,” the Doctor replied. “Might be nice to spend some one-on-one time with Mickey. I think he actually likes me now.”

“Only stopped you being a complete dick to him to make that happen,” she said, dryly. “Who'd have thought?”

The Doctor lightly bit her neck, her body squirming away from him as she laughed when there was a perfunctory knock on the door before it flew open with a _bang!_ and Jack and Rose tumbled in. One of the disadvantages of everyone knowing that he and Zoe were together was that his once-private bedroom was no longer private. He wasn't sure they necessarily needed to be in his room to clamber over each other and fill the air with chatter but he also didn't mind it; though, admittedly, it was a little disconcerting to step out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist, to find one or all of them gathered on the bed _gossiping_.

Rose pointed a bulging bag of make-up towards him like a sword. “Let go of my sister. We need to get her ready.”

“I'm ready _ish_ ,” Zoe said as the Doctor planted a final kiss against her cheek and rolled away at the exact moment Mickey loped through the door, hands tucked into the pockets of his soft sleep trousers, looking as though he had been dragged out of bed to participate against his will. “Just need to do my make-up and hair.”

“Nope, no, absolutely not.” Jack pulled her to her feet and turned her in a complete circle. “You're not wearing that.”

“Why not?” She didn't think she looked too bad. “What's wrong with it?”

“We're going to a nightclub not a church.”

“I would never wear this to church,” she said. “First of all, Reinette wouldn't have let me out the house looking like this; and secondly, what sorts of churches have you been to?”

“The fun kind, apparently,” Jack said. “And you look as gorgeous as ever but we're _upping_ the levels tonight. We're taking gorgeous to sexy and you wearing those trousers isn't going to cut it.”

“It's easier to do what he says,” Rose said, setting up the make-up on the bureau in the corner that Zoe and the Doctor generally used as storage for whatever piles of books they were reading through. “He always vetoes my outfits unless he chooses them.”

“Controlling,” the Doctor noted.

Jack spared him an unimpressed look as he delved into her wardrobe in search of something appropriate, reaching out with his mind to ask the TARDIS to help. Behind him, Mickey searched for a place to sit and ended up pinching a strap of Zoe's bra between his thumb and forefinger so that he had space to sit on the bed. He dropped it onto a chair and wiped his hand against his thigh, wishing he was in bed where sleep beckoned him. Rose had joked that it looked like he needed a holiday from his holiday and she wasn't exactly wrong: The thought of a night on the TARDIS where Jack was occupied and no one wanted him for anything was heaven to him.

“Why are all your clothes here so normal?” Jack asked, muffled, from the wardrobe. “What happened to that nice red dress you wore to Jackie's party? And the one from New Year's?”

“Back in the main wardrobe,” Zoe said, sitting opposite Rose and squirting a small circle of light moisturise onto the back of her hand that she dabbed onto her sister's skin and smoothed out. “If I'm going somewhere fancy I just mine it for things to wear. Everything in there is what I've bought myself: Jeans, T-shirts, a few dresses, the day-to-day stuff.”

“No underwear though.”

“Who keeps their underwear in a wardrobe?” She asked. “And you're not choosing my underwear. I'm putting my foot down there.”

The Doctor lay back on the bed, ankles crossed and fingers looped together over his stomach. “Can I –?”

“Nope.”

“Damn.”

“Can we stop discussin' Zo's underwear, please?” Mickey asked, lifting his legs onto the bed and resting against the headboard, eyes heavy. “Some of us don't need to hear that.”

“You're the only person who doesn't want to hear about it,” Jack said, emerging from the wardrobe triumphant. He held a short red dress with thin straps between his two index fingers, the Doctor's eyebrows rising in surprise. “ _This_ is what I'm talking about.”

“I've never seen that dress before,” the Doctor said, pushing himself onto his elbows and looking to Zoe who spared the briefest glance at the dress before focusing on accurately contouring Rose's face. “I'm feeling a little cheated right now. When, where, why, who?”

“Forgot I had it,” she said, adjusting the light to make sure that she didn't accidentally make Rose look like a clown as she blended. “And I might not even fit into it any more. I bought it in my third year at UNI to go on a date.”

“A date?” Rose's eyes shifted to hers, curiosity slipping across her features. “With whom?”

“Hey, you used whom correctly!” Zoe tapped her on the nose with the contour brush and Rose batted her hand away. “And it was with someone called Jessica. We knew each other from around campus and I tried dipping my toe into dating but it didn't really go anywhere. Not worth mentioning.”

Jack set the dress on the bed and disappeared back into the wardrobe for shoes. “Do you even know how to date?”

“Are you going to be mean to me all night?” Zoe asked, sweeping a pale pink blush across Rose's cheek bones, using her pinky to smooth it into her skin. “If so, let me know so I can ignore you now.”

“I wasn't saying it to be mean.” A shoe flew out of the wardrobe and the Doctor caught it before it hit Mickey. “I actually want to know. First there was Frelin and you paid for his services –”

“Worth every single penny,” she said, mildly regretting that Jack knew that piece of information after Rose let it slip in their all-night catch-up session after weeks apart. “I highly recommend him.”

“Noted for if Mickey and I decided to break away from monogamy,” Jack said, stepping out with the other shoe. “But it's not like you dated him, or Reinette for that matter. And you definitely didn't date the Doctor before jumping into bed with him.”

“She didn't jump,” the Doctor said in her defence. “It was more of a slow slide over a period of four years from her perspective.”

“Please stop talkin',” Mickey grumbled, eyes shut.

“I know how to date,” Zoe said, blending together colours on the back of her head, adding glitter a small sprinkling of glitter, before sweeping a slender brush through it and applying it to Rose's eyelids. “Go for dinner, listen to them when they speak, be nice and respectful, and see where the evening takes you. It's not that hard.”

“You're missing so much nuance,” Jack said with a roll of his eyes. “Thank God you've got the Doctor. He's about as useless as you are.”

“Hey!” The Doctor frowned at him. “How am I useless?”

“Have you taken Zoe on a date yet?”

“Yes,” he said. “We went dancing in Egypt, isn't that right, love?”

“It was lovely.” Looking away from Rose, she smiled brightly at the Doctor, warmth fizzing through her at the memory fo that night. “Archaeology, dancing, and a little bit of alcohol. I loved it.”

“That was just before Sarah Jane, right?” Rose asked. “That was ages ago.”

“Stop talking or you'll make me smudge my work,” Zoe told her. “And it wasn't that long ago.”

“About four months,” Jack said, pointing at the Doctor. “There needs to be more dating happening. Mickey and I make sure we have dates every few days, isn't that right, honey?” Mickey didn't open his eyes and simply raised his thumbs in agreement. “See, _dating_.”

“Right, you're done.” Zoe leaned back from Rose who stood from the chair and pressed her painted lips against a tissue to blot the colour. “Busybody, you're in the hot seat.” Jack whooped and dropped himself into the still-warm seat, mouth opening. “I know, I know: Big, bright, and beautiful with lots of glitter.”

His smile sent ripples of affection through her. “You know me so well.”

It was easier to keep Jack silent when she was applying make-up to his perfect skin, her hands moving swiftly and easily over him. Having done his make-up so often over the year they had known each other that she moved almost on autopilot as she smoothed, contoured, blended, and sent glitter dancing over his skin and down his neck. When she was finished, she took his face between her hands to examine her work, warm love for him pulsing through her and she bent over and pressed her lips to his forehead.

“You're good to go.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, hand squeezing her hip. “It's your turn, and I still need to do your hair. I don't know what's going on with it today but it's going to take some time.”

As Jack and Rose fussed over Zoe, the Doctor removed a packet of playing cards from his pocket to keep himself entertained and out of the way. Generally, it wasn't appreciated when he got in the way during _beauty time_ unless he let them sit him in a chair and do his hair and make-up as well. And since the last time he let them do that had ended with polaroid pictures of him in Jack's possession – pictures he still hadn't got back – he wasn't overly eager to let them loose on him again.

Shuffling the cards in a rapid _tac-tac-tac-tac-tac_ sound, he tried to remember the disappearing card trick Peri had taught him on a beach in Cuba. The memory swept over him without any warning and the gentle lap of the ocean against the beach filled his ears, the rough grains of sand rubbing against his calves as he lay back on his coat – multicoloured then – with the setting sun warming him into a faint doze. It was still difficult then for him and Peri, the trauma of his regeneration lingering in both of their bones, their friendship off balanced and never truly able to recover from the shock of his change, but that day had been a small respite in the undercurrent of tension that ran between them.

She had been tipsy, a flush in her cheeks from the daiquiris she had drunk, and he remembered laughing as she tried to recite the Pledge of Allegiance for reasons he no longer recalled, her words tangling in her mouth and falling messily between them.

“ _You're drunk,_ ” he had accused, laughing.

“ _Oh, yeah, can a drunk person do this?_ ”

The way she made the playing card disappear had startled him, which sent her into a fit of laughter when she caught the look on his face, before she offered to teach him. They spent hours under the setting sun and then the bright moon playing magic with the cards before trooping back to the TARDIS, hope lodged in his chest that maybe they would be all right and the worse was behind them only for the morning to arrive and the tension to still be there.

Sliding the card over his palm, he disappeared it and enjoyed being able to think of Peri without guilt crawling up his throat.

“Done.” Jack dusted off his hands and the Doctor glanced up as Zoe got out of the chair and tugged on the hem of her dress. “Not bad at all.”

“Makes it sound like you were workin' from nothin',” Rose quipped.

Zoe turned and the Doctor's breath caught in his throat. She was always exquisitely, painfully beautiful in his eyes and he enjoyed the various ways he got to see: Early morning Zoe with her dishevelled hair and pillow-creased skin; normal Zoe in trousers and a T-shirt; naked Zoe was a particular favourite of his. Yet, there was something about seeing her dressed up for a night out with her hair perfectly styled and make-up enhancing her natural beauty that made his mouth dry out.

The dress was shorter than she normally wore, which made him suspect it had been a spur-of-the-moment purchase soon regretted, but it had the advantage of allowing his eyes drag up her legs, over her slender waist and up to her face.

“You look wonderful,” the Doctor said, taking care not to let his voice grow too husky as there were some things he didn't want to share with the others. “Sure you don't want to stay in tonight?”

Rose stepped in front of her, eyes narrowed, and his mouth curved.

“Don't you be tryin' to flirt her into stayin' here,” she warned. “She's comin' out with me an' that's that.”

He gave her the small, mock salute he had picked up from Jack. “Yes, boss.”

“Boss.” Rose puffed up as she considered the title. “I like the sound of that.”

Jack bent down to kiss Mickey's forehead, thumb moving over his temple gently, murmuring something to him that no one else heard before straightening.

“Right, we're off,” he said to the Doctor. “Don't go anywhere fun without us. Don't get into trouble. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Wait, no. Don't do anything Zoe wouldn't do. Hold on, that still doesn't work. Don't do anything a semi-adventurous nun wouldn't do.”

“How specific.”

“Got to be with you.” Jack smacked a kiss to his cheek and took Rose's hand. “You've got thirty seconds to say goodbye to Zoe. Make them count.”

The Doctor waited until they were gone before jumping off the bed and sweeping Zoe into his arms, mouth finding hers in an attempt to do his level best and kiss the lipstick from her. Her body shook with laughter, hands curled around his shoulders for balance, as he licked into her mouth. Laughter turned to a soft, pleased sigh that pressed her closer into him, one hand dropping to trace the curve of her ass, fingers brushing over the hem of her dress.

Zoe caught his hand. “We don't have time for that.”

“Shame,” he murmured into her mouth. “Please wear this dress for me later. I'll make it worth your while.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. “You always do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, turning her mouth from his though that didn't deter him as he trailed kisses along her jaw and onto her neck, relishing the way her fingers jumped when he hit a particularly sensitive spot. “We don't have time for this; we've only got thirty seconds.”

“Fourteen now.”

He tilted his head and kissed her again, pulling her close. It was hot, wet, and absolutely filthy – nothing they should be doing when Jack was likely to burst back in to get her – but he made every second count.

“You're the worst,” Zoe panted when he released her, colour spread across her cheeks and the heady _want_ in her eyes. “Getting me all fired up like this as I'm about to go out.”

“Might keep you from staying out too late,” the Doctor said. “I get lonely.”

“Try porn.”

His nose wrinkled. “No, thank you. Honestly, you humans and your propensity to record every bit of your lives is baffling.”

“If you're about to tell me the high and mighty Time Lords didn't have porn, I'm about to call you a liar,” she said.

He opened his mouth only to close it again upon remembering the holograms the Master had shown him late one night that had sent confused arousal through him, too young to fully understand what he was looking at.

“I've got to go,” Zoe said as Jack sauntered his way back down the corridor, singing out for Zoe to _come out, come out_. She slipped her phone from the pocket that all her dresses and skirts possessed and tapped at the screen, his phone beeping. “Maybe that'll help.”

“Have a good night,” the Doctor said, curling his fingers against the small of her back when she rose up and kissed him, the door opening to reveal Jack who stood with his hands on his hips. “Look after her, captain.”

“I always do,” he said. “Now, come on, Zo. We've got a schedule to keep.”

“A schedule?” She repeated, flashing the Doctor a bemused look over her shoulder as her friend pulled her from the room. “What's a schedule got to do with clubbing?”

“Oh, my sweet summer child –”

The Doctor listened to their voices grow distant before dipping his hand into his pocket and removing his phone. Tapping his index finger against the message alert, a picture popped onto the screen that sent all the blood in his body rushing south, dizziness and disbelief consuming him.

“Dirty picture,” he breathed, eyes wide. “She sent me a dirty picture.”

Mickey snored from the bed.

* * *

Sanlitun was different to how the Doctor remembered it. The area had undergone massive regeneration and restructuring since he was last there in 1952, the craving for _bàn_ _shuāngcuì_ – cold pig's ears in sauce – hitting him hard after his unexpected, and unnecessarily violent, regeneration in San Francisco.

He had been minding his own business, letting his regenerative juices bubble beneath his skin as he attempted to finish his book, when the sudden and all-consuming craving for a food he had never eaten before slammed into him with a vengeance. Twelve portions of the dish and a restaurant fascinated by the sight of a _gwáilóu_ scarfing down food people who looked like him tended to avoid, the craving was satisfied and he ambled back to the TARDIS content.

He wasn't looking for _bàn_ _shuāngcuì_ that night; he was more for something to fill his time and stomach while Zoe enjoyed her night out.

Any expectation of spending time with Mickey was sharply curtailed when, slowly recovering from the shock of Zoe sending him a naked picture of herself, he realised that his friend was fast asleep on the bed and snoring into Zoe's pillow. The Doctor didn't know what Jack had done to him to leave exhaustion clinging to him – and he was certain he didn't want to know either – but he didn't have the hearts the wake him up just so that he had someone to spend time with. Instead, he drew a throw over him and turned off the light, leaving Mickey to sleep as he tried to occupy his time.

Checking on Humphrey, the small, computer-generated monkey that was currently living in Zoe's garden as he attempted to work out how and why her telomerase had lengthened and to see if the process was replicable without the Chameleon Arch – and therefore reversible –, had taken up an hour and half of his time. Another thirty minutes was consumed by appeasing the frogs who did not appreciate the new interloper in what had, until three weeks ago, been their territory and theirs alone. It took another hour to clean up the mess Humphrey had made of Zoe's flower beds.

As Zoe was already doubtful enough about Humphrey's existence, bothered by how realistic it was, he didn't want to give her any more reason to question the necessary experiment. It would be at least another week before he started seeing results that he could compile and make sense of, a clearer picture of what he had done to Zoe soon to be displayed before him, and he rapped Humphrey lightly on the head with a warning not to tear anything else up.

Leaving the monkey behind to thoroughly ignore his instructions, the Doctor had pottered about the TARDIS before deciding that enough was enough and he was able to go and get dinner by himself without company to keep him entertained.

He wanted company, of course he did. Too long alone with his thoughts and he generally started loathing himself, but he didn't _need_ company.

Ducking under a string of lights, Chinese New Year having been celebrated the night before, he found a restaurant that looked less busy than anywhere else on the street, two large blue penguins standing guard outside. Poking one and verifying it was plastic, he stepped into the restaurant and breathed in the smell of authentic Beijing food.

The takeaways he occasionally had in London never measured up to the real deal, and his eyes swept over the menu board, eager to try something of everything. He wished Zoe was with him as her appetite generally helped him get through the food he typically over ordered, forgetting that his stomach wasn't an unending pit that he could simply shovel food into.

A thousand years and he still hadn't figured out the correct portion sizes: Somewhere and somewhen, his father was shaking his head in disapproval without knowing why.

“Hi there.” A cheerful-looking server smiled at him from behind the front desk, her back to the restaurant that was lit with paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. “Looking for a table?”

“Depends,” the Doctor said, rocking back on his heels. “How's the food?”

“Have you ever had Chinese food before?” Her eyes tracked over him and he knew what she saw – a tall, white man who looked more at home on a country estate in Britain than in a restaurant in China with unusually perfect Mandarin – and hesitated. “Authentic food, I mean.”

“Once or twice,” he said. “Is that a requirement?”

“Most Westerners find authentic cuisine a little... _flavoursome_ the first time they try it,” she admitted with an air of amused politeness. “If that doesn't bother you –”

“It doesn't.”

“Then the food's great,” she said. “The chef's new and her speciality is sea food. I'd recommend anything from that part of the menu.”

“In that case, table for one, please.”

A smile spread over her face and she stepped back from the podium and smoothed her hands over the front of her uniform, a modern, Western take on the _qipao_. The restaurant was cast in an atmospheric lighting that bordered on the romantic: Dark wood furnishings and traditional Chinese artwork added to the old-world feel of the interior, a direct contrast to the modern hustle and bustle of the street outside. He had landed them in 2002 as Jack and Rose felt it was best not to fling Zoe in at the deep end with the nightclubs they usually went to. He thought that was a wise idea as while she had walked through Rayal and enjoyed a drink or two at Roxx's, those were two very different activities to the sort of licentiousness that Jack was attracted to.

A nice, normal, human nightclub was perfect for Zoe.

And as long as she avoided picking a fight with someone, the night was going to go well for her.

“Here you go,” the waitress with the English name _Betty_ pinned onto the breast of her uniform said, handing him a slim menu. “Would you like something to drink while you have a look?”

“Just a beer, thanks, whatever you have,” he said, flipping open the menu to the seafood section, closing his eyes, and pointing. “And I'll have the sea cucumber with the quail eggs, the braised fish, and the egg and shrimp pancake, please. Actually, make that two of the egg and shrimp. I'm a bit peckish.”

Thin lines of amusement appeared around Betty's eyes as she jotted his order down. “Coming right over, sir.”

The Doctor watched her leave and turned a folded paper napkin into the shape of a swan, his fingers restless with not having anything to do. Looking around the restaurant for something or someone to distract himself with, he saw couples enjoying their dinner, the majority of them tourists with the rest being businessmen who were in Beijing for a night before flying back to wherever home was. He amused himself by picking out the various nationalities: there was a British couple in the corner, the rise and fall of Leeds jarring in a Beijing restaurant; a set of French parents were attempting to get their teenagers to try different dishes with little success; and an American couple were notably so due to the American flag plastered across their fanny packs they had hooked onto the side of their chairs, digging into the fried pig's ears with delight.

The temptation to go and join another table for company pulsed within him, held at bay only by the thought of Zoe telling him that not everyone wanted their dinner crashed by a Time Lord. Humans had bizarre rules for social interactions that he still didn't understand even after centuries of knowing them: On Gallifrey it would be stranger not to join strangers eating than it was to do so as eating was an activity that was meant to be shared with others.

If someone was eating alone, then it was the responsibility of others to draw them into their group and make them welcome; humans, however, thought nothing of eating alone and some even preferred it.

_Strange creatures_ , he thought, fondly.

Removing his phone from his pocket, he checked to see if there were any messages that he could respond to, delighted to find a message from Doris asking if he and Zoe were free for dinner the next time they were in London. Aware that the British liked to trade off with social invitations, he sent a swift message back inviting her and Alistair to the TARDIS for dinner instead, figuring he was able to put together a suitable meal for the four of them – more if the others wanted to join them.

It was only after he sent the message that he was struck by the thought he should have asked Zoe if she was willing to have dinner with his friends first before scheduling her time for her.

“Bollocks,” he swore.

Not willing to send her a message that might be construed as him checking up on her or him being unable to spend an evening alone, he flicked over to his photo album as Betty brought his beer over to him. Skimming over the addition of a naked Zoe as he didn't dare look at it in public, he went through his photos from the last six weeks and determined that there was a significant absence of Jack and Mickey from them. He had loved spending time with just Rose and Zoe, the nostalgia making them all a little giddy at the beginning, but the TARDIS wasn't complete without Jack and Mickey on it.

Thumbing through the pictures, he was painfully aware that he was attempting to stave boredom off. Unlike Zoe who was able to spend hours looking at her phone because everything was up-to-date and she used it more often than she used her laptop, there was only so long his phone could hold his attention for before he had to admit defeat. Setting it face down on the table, he leaned back in his seat and took hold of his beer, hating that he was alone.

The fact that he had three friends and a Zoe should have meant that he didn't have to suffer through dinner by himself yet they all had surprisingly active social lives.

He knew that was a good thing and didn't begrudge them it but they were more proactive about seeking stimulation and entertainment _off_ of the TARDIS than his other friends had been. Then again, it wasn't as though the dynamic that currently existed was one he had experienced on the TARDIS before. It felt more like family than anything else and family didn't need to spend all their time together, content to go off and do other things before reuniting in the evening.

It reminded him a little of how it was with Susan before Ian and Barbara stumbled into the TARDIS and sent him headlong down the path of a life of human friendships.

Susan used to wander off.

Something would catch her eye and she would be gone, reappearing minutes later but sometimes absent for days at a time. Stories tripped from her tongue when she found him again, falling into step with him as though she was never gone, and he hadn't thought to be concerned about it. She was a child, _yes_ , but she was a Time Lord child; it was why he hadn't felt overly guilty about leaving her behind with David, knowing she needed that time with him, her duty to her eccentric grandfather the only thing holding her back.

Had he been able to spare her the pain of losing him while helping her learn the lessons she needed to mature and grow into herself, he would have. Though,, as she said herself when he next saw her on Gallifrey with her son getting to know his new home and his new culture, she wouldn't have changed anything as loving David had given her Alex.

Susan had always been much wiser than he was and his hearts sang with pain as he thought of her.

Shaking his head, the Doctor drank down half of his beer and remembered why it was never a good idea for him to be left to his own devices for too long: Loneliness tended to creep in and turn him maudlin.

The food mercifully arrived as he was attempting to recite the first chapter of Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier from memory. The copy he had got Zoe for her twenty-fifth birthday was currently resting on her bedside table as she read it again, his fingers flicking through it while he waited for her, and he happily diverted his attention to the food. Cracking his chopsticks apart, they slipped into place easily and he clacked them together, eyes sweeping over the food as he considered where to start.

Pinching a piece of sea cucumber between his chopsticks, he placed it on his mouth at the exact moment a man slid into the seat opposite him.

“Hello, Doctor.”

The Doctor removed his chopsticks and chewed, annoyed that he wasn't able to enjoy the flavours bursting across his tongue, his attention caught by the man who was clearly out of time. Even if a Vortex Manipulator didn't sit on his wrist, his clothing gave him away: 52nd century judging by the way the fibres were woven together and the sharp, militaristic cut of the shoulders. Dressed in varying shades of green, he looked at the Doctor from across the table, his own beer held in his hand.

“Do I know you?” The Doctor asked, lowering but not releasing his chopsticks.

“Not yet,” he said. “But we have people in common. One of them you're very closely acquainted with: Zoe Tyler.”

Her name settled between his hearts like a heavy warning. Something pricked at the back of his mind and the Doctor sharpened his focus on the man, taking in the details of him from the golden blonde hair to the bright blue eyes and onto the square jaw that bordered on being too heavy for his features: Definitely someone the Doctor imagined toiling away in the City of London before decamping to Cornwall for a weekend of surfing.

The curiosity, anger, and small hint of amusement at the audaciousness of approaching him was carried along on the tide of awareness that _this_ was Zoe's mystery man.

“So you're the one that's been following her through time.” The Doctor set the chopsticks down and sat back, the general hum of the restaurant fading to white noise in the face of a glimpse of Zoe's future. “And now you're here talking to me. Either you're incomprehensibly stupid or you're in need of help. Which is it?”

“Neither,” he said, eyes passing methodically over him, lingering on his chest in a way that felt clinical rather than anything else. Once he had finished his passover, content with letting the Doctor wait for him to keep speaking in a manner that rankled, he met the Doctor's eyes again and allowed a small smile to shadow his lips. “I keep getting the time wrong. It's frustrating.”

“That's what happens when you travel by Vortex Manipulator,” the Doctor said. “Short hops at best are what those are built for. Considering how far and wide you've travelled on it, I'm amazed you've not been turned inside out.”

“I'm made of stronger stuff than most,” he said, simply. “Still, it's a bother.”

“You could always stop,” the Doctor suggested. “Find a new line of work. I hear farming is quite restorative to the soul. You should give it a try.”

“I'll pass, thank you.” A sharp smile cut across the man's face, shadows dripping over him. “Besides, what I do isn't work.”

“A new hobby then.”

“Definitely not a hobby, either,” he said. “Finding the right Zoe Tyler is a personal matter.”

“What did she do?” The Doctor asked. “Sleep with your sister and not call her back?”

The man laughed and there was a bright burst of familiarity that took the Doctor aback, recognition scrabbling at the back of his mind only to fade when he reached for it, frustration winding itself around his bones.

“I don't have a sister,” he said, dimples pressing into his cheeks. “And you think I'd follow her through time because of a one-night stand?”

“I don't know,” the Doctor replied. “People do all sorts of things when they think someone they love's been dishonoured or hurt. And I don't know anything about you except for your creepy stalker tendencies, which, I'll be honest, don't exactly paint you in the best light. What's your name?”

“Would you also like my home address?”

“That would help.”

He laughed though there was no warmth to it. “You can call me Ryga for now.”

“Ryga.” The Doctor turned the name over in his mouth. “What does it mean?”

He raised his eyebrows and took a slow sip of his beer, deliberately making the Doctor wait for his answer.

“Do you always overthink things?” Ryga asked when he was done. “Because sometimes a name is just a name.”

“I tend to find people like to be clever with their names,” he said. “They like to layer meaning upon meaning on them because putting the truth under the noses of the people they're deceiving amuses them. And you seem to be the type of person who'd enjoy that.”

“Like the Doctor?”

“Excuse me?”

“Rumour has it you chose your name,” Ryga said, stretching his legs beneath the table and relaxing into his seat: To anyone watching, they looked like two old friends sharing a meal. “I wonder what it says about the person who chooses to call himself the Doctor, what sort of ego that implies. Do you think you can heal the universe?” The derisive scoff that fell from him went straight through the Doctor's bones. “Physician, heal thyself.”

“It means no more than I was a child when I chose it,” the Doctor lied, fascinated by the level of knowledge the man possessed about him as most who had heard of the Time Lords weren't familiar with their naming customs. “And as fascinating as this is, you haven't answered my question.”

“Which one? You've asked me a few.”

“Why are you following Zoe?” The Doctor said. “Why are you interested in her?”

Ryga's shoulders rolled in a lazy shrug. “My own reasons.”

“Are you going to share them with me, or do I have to guess?”

His smile spread, light dancing across the surface of his eyes. “Want to play twenty questions?”

“Not particularly,” the Doctor said, sharpness spiking the edges of his words. “I want you to answer my question. I want to know why you're stalking my friend through time.”

“ _Friend_.” Ryga's entire face changed as good-natured amusement was wiped clean and sour anger poisoned his handsome features. “She's not really your friend though, is she? Zoe Tyler and the Doctor _friends._ Please. You think I'm new to this? You think I don't know what the two of you get up to in the ship of yours. She's not your friend. Not unless you make a habit of fucking all those who travel with you.” Surprise rippled through the Doctor and Ryga gestured to the waitress, tone shifting into genial politeness. “Could we get two more beers, please?”

Betty nodded and slipped away, her brief appearance long enough for the Doctor to wrestle his surprise under control. “What could you possibly know about my relationship with Zoe?”

“I know enough to know that it's not going to end happily,” Ryga said. “How could it? You're the Last of the Time Lords, and she's – well – _not_. A God dabbling with a human. How exactly does that work?”

“You're not the first person to tell me that,” he said, remembering Margaret Blaine sitting on the floor of the Zero Room, taunting him over his love for Zoe. “Nor to call me a god.”

Ryga inclined his head. “You're right. You're not a God. Or, if you are, you're one of the fucked up ones. Mind if I have a pancake? Manipulator travel always leaves me hungry and that pancake looks really good.”

The Doctor pushed the plate towards him and watched as Ryga rolled it up and bit into it, small lines of tension disappearing from his face. Blue eyes danced over him as he chewed, hand spreading out in a magnanimous gesture.

“Don't not eat on my account,” he said. “Dig in. You're probably hungry. Where have you just come from? No, wait, don't tell me, let me guess.” Ryga examined him closely as he methodically ate the pancake with the mannerisms of someone who had once been starved – chewing every bite and not letting any crumbs leave his mouth. “Considering I didn't see Martha in the nightclub with the others, I'm going to say this is very early for you. You haven't even done Canary Wharf yet, have you?”

“You clearly know I haven't,” the Doctor said. “So stop showing off your knowledge of future events. It's tiresome.”

“All right, I think I know where you are,” he said, leaning back with a laugh that sucked all the warmth from the room, enjoyment painted across his face. “You've got no idea what's coming for you. This is wonderful. You're walking into the future without a single clue of what's to come and, you know what? I love it.”

“No one knows what the future holds,” the Doctor told him. “Not even time travellers.”

“I do,” he said. “At least when it comes to you and Zoe. Know thy enemy and all that.”

“And we're your enemies?”

“Well, she is,” Ryga admitted. “But the two of you are sort of a package deal. Don't get me wrong, I don't like you but that's more of a general dislike than outright hatred.”

“I'm so pleased,” he said, dryly.

“And I'd kill you given half the chance but we both know that wouldn't hold,” Ryga continued. “Time Lords are tricky to kill even before you factor in regeneration. But, no, I wouldn't kill you now, not when I know what's coming.”

Curiosity poked and prodded at the Doctor who had never been able to ignore the bright shininess of knowledge he didn't possess.

“And what's that then?” He asked, hating himself for giving Ryga the satisfaction of asking, and anger began to build itself up in his chest brick by brick. “This thing that's coming?”

Ryga drew a pattern in the condensation from his glass, smearing it across the surface of the table, eyes never leaving the Doctor's. “Doomsday.”

“Sounds dramatic,” he said.

Ryga snorted and reached for the origami swam, unfolding it to dry his fingers. The Doctor observed him openly – no sense in concealing his intentions when Ryga was doing the same to him – and didn't like what he saw. Handsome in a blandly generic way, he was like a thousand men with blonde hair and blue eyes that drew the attention of some people but were often skimmed over in passing. It was his aura that fascinated the Doctor as there was something around him that pulsated with unnaturalness; a thing that pushed against his Time Senses and made him itch.

Picking up his beer, he attempted to wash the itch from the back of his throat.

“It's all right,” Ryga said, easily. “Most people feel like this around me.”

“Annoyed?”

“Discomforted,” he said. “It was offensive at first the way people wouldn't look me in the eyes – you don't realise how much you miss eye contact until it's gone – but I'm used to it now. I promise I won't think less of you if you look away.”

The Doctor let his gaze rest on him. “Do you think I'm afraid of you?”

“I think you're afraid of what I can do to Zoe,” he said, honestly. “And you're right to be. She and I have unfinished business but I'm not stupid enough to tear apart the universe by killing her out of turn. I can wait until I meet up with the her I need. In the meantime, it's fun to know that she's losing sleep over me.”

“She's not,” the Doctor told him. “She barely thinks of you.”

“Liar.” He rolled his left ankle beneath the table as Betty returned with two glasses of beer balanced on a tray that shook lightly as she felt the atmosphere between the two men, happy to leave as soon as possible. “What is it humans from the 21st century say, churn?”

“Cheers,” the Doctor corrected, not touching his glass. “You want to kill her?”

“Torture, kill, little bit of both,” he said. “Anything that makes her scream really. Death is so _final_ and dull.”

A thought struck him and his shoulders rolled in a silent laugh as though he had said something funny.

“And you think telling me this is a wise idea?” The Doctor asked, unamused. “If you know anything about me – anything at all – you know I don't take threats to the people I care about lightly. And I'm finding I don't take them at all well when they're directed at Zoe.”

“Look at that.” Ryga slapped the table, eyes crinkling and dimples appearing as a wash of delight doused him. “I've taught you something new about yourself. Isn't that fun?” As quickly as the cheer appeared, it disappeared to be replaced with a cool, penetrating stare. “I've always been curious about you. Because Time Lords were an odd bunch, weren't they? And then there's you, the exact opposite of what your people were. What is it Brother Lassar said about the Time Lords? _Peaceful to the point of indolence_.”

Ice rolled down the Doctor's spine. “That was a private conversation. How do you know about that?”

“You've been out in the universe a long time, Doctor,” he said. “You think you're not being watched? There are people out there who would pay good money to see the Last of the Time Lords dead – properly dead and not that weird regeneration thing you do. You think they don't talk to each other from time to time?”

“Their lives that boring, are they?” He asked, never having given the matter any thought. “I hope they enjoy my supermarket trips and food choices.”

“Zoe should probably drink less coffee,” Ryga replied, and the Doctor's gut twisted at the confirmation that someone _had_ been watching them. “And what are those things Rose likes? She makes you get her a pack every time you pass Marks and Spencer.” The Doctor stared at him, blankly. “You know, they come in a green and pink plastic bag: Small pink things shaped like an animal.”

“Percy Pig?”

“I don't know the name,” he said with a shrug. “What are they?”

“They're sweets,” the Doctor said. “Raspberry flavour, I think.”

Ryga flipped over the napkin and removed a standard HB pencil from his pocket, writing the word _Percy Pig_ onto the back of it.

“21st century stuff confuses me but Rose always seems happy with them,” he said, and the Doctor wanted to rip her name from his mouth. “Next time I'm London, I'll pick a pack up and try it myself.”

Uncharacteristically lost for words, the Doctor wasn't sure what to make of Zoe's mystery man who was much saner yet so much more dangerous than either of them had initially thought.

When she first told him about the man haunting her temporal footsteps, his first theory was that it was a future friend looking for help or – and he had never told her this – their son popping back in time for assistance as it wasn't necessarily a given that any children they had would have Zoe's skin colour. Now, faced with the man who called himself Ryga, he realised his optimism had blinded him to a danger that was coming for Zoe. Anyone who possessed a casual confidence in his belief that he was able to approach a Time Lord and speak as he was doing _and_ leave unharmed unsettled the Doctor.

People who tended to threaten him or those he cared about carried a nervous fear beneath whatever veneer they plastered over the top of it in an attempt to make him believe that they were in charge. Even the Daleks feared him and they were the Daleks. Yet, Ryga wasn't frightened of him in the slightest and the Doctor couldn't figure out why.

“Who are you?” He demanded again. “And why do you want to hurt Zoe?”

“You'll find out,” Ryga said, sipping his beer. “And when you do, I want you to know that it'll be your fault what happens to her.”

“Nothing's going to happen to her,” he said. “I won't let it.”

A smile pulled across Ryga's face.

“Say it again and it might just come true.” Anger stretched taut in the Doctor's chest, and he held onto the thin shreds of his patience and calm as Ryga stared at him. “The way you take humans into the TARDIS and give them the universe, is it any wonder some of them turn out like Zoe? You take them and you warp them into something else. Although, some of them are lucky, aren't they? Some of them get to die before you fuck them up too badly. Imagine what Adric would've –”

“ _Don't_.” The word snapped out like a whip, silencing Ryga. “Be very careful with what you say next.”

Ryga moved his fingers lightly over the rim of his beer glass. “Everywhere you go there's death and destruction except where it might be most useful. Willing to let your own planet burn with everyone on it but not willing to destroy the Daleks when you had the chance. Is it any wonder then that she saw your past and took on board what you were teaching her with enthusiasm?”

“Zoe's not like me,” the Doctor said, wanting the conversation to end but also wanting to reach across the table and throttle him. “She's good and kind and nothing like me.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Ryga asked, a cruel lilt to his voice. “Do you try and fool yourself into thinking that she's this perfect woman who you can fuck your guilt into?”

“Mind your tongue,” he snapped, grabbing the edges of his anger and pulling them back, jaw tight with tension. “And no one's perfect.”

“There's someone we can agree on,” Ryga said, lazily, lifting one finger from his glass to point at the Doctor. “See, the thing is _you_ think that humans have this unerring ability to be good and great. You look at them and you see potential and optimism and all that crap, but the truth of the matter is, Doctor, you look close enough and you can see the truth. You see that they'll fight each other for tiny patches of land on a world that they're mining of all its natural resources. I mean, what do they have from her time? A hundred years? Two, maybe, before they completely fuck the planet up. They take and they take and they kill and they kill. Really, the universe would be better off if they were nipped in the bud right now. Just –”

He snapped his fingers.

“You say this as though you aren't human,” the Doctor said, fingers curled against his thigh, pressing his knuckles into his muscle to keep him calm. “But you lot have a pretty distinctive smell, even from the outer colonies like you are. Although,” he sniffed, allowing himself to analyse the scents in the air: the ozone burst of manipulator travel, the medicinal layer of soap, and then, buried deep, _humanity_ that was mixed with a sour stench of time as though it had gone off in the fridge. “There is something off about you.”

He twisted his arm around so that the Doctor saw a scar on his forearm, thick and knotted from healing. “Bio-dampener. I don't want you knowing too much about me. Not yet, anyway. Wouldn't want to mess up the timelines, right?”

“Yet stalking Zoe through time is perfectly fine?”

“It is when she killed my partner.”

The honesty of the response took the Doctor by surprise even as he refused to believe the truth of it. Despite recent events, he knew in his bones that Zoe wasn't a murderer; whatever Ryga believed was the case, the Doctor was certain he was wrong.

“When you say partner,” he began. “Is that a work partner or a sexual partner?”

The muscles around Ryga's mouth twitched _down._ “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Then both.”

That information filed itself away in his mind, and he took a slow, steady sip of his beer, eyes fixed on Ryga who watched him, waiting.

“You're wrong,” the Doctor said, setting his beer down. “Zoe didn't kill your partner.”

Anger spread beneath Ryga's smooth skin and warmed it from beneath, sharpening the edges of his cheekbones and emphasising the cut of his jaw. He turned his head away to draw a hand over his mouth, fingertips dragging over his lips, and the straight line of his nose sent familiarity searing through the Doctor again: _Where do I know you from_?

“Just like that?” Ryga asked, finally, fury simmering in his eyes. “You're willing to give her the benefit of the doubt without knowing a damn thing about it?”

“Yes.”

His chest expanded with a breath. “Why?”

“I know who she is,” the Doctor said, simply. “I know that she's not a murderer. So whatever information you think you have –”

Ryga slammed his hands flat on the table, fingers curling against the wood, and there was a strong _crack_ in his calm facade. True anger burnt inside him, flames stoked by passion and love, and the Doctor imagined he might look much the same if someone took Zoe from him.

“I _saw_ her,” he hissed, white flecks of spittle settling on the table. “I saw her do it.”

There was a heavy pause as the Doctor took in the flared nostrils and parted lips, colour slashed across his cheeks.

“No,” he decided. “You didn't.”

Ryga drew his hands back to his thighs, fingers knotting in his trousers, resisting the urge to lunge across the table and attack. It was fascinating to watch him wrestle his emotions under control, regret at losing his temper already making itself known, and the Doctor waited; he had got what he wanted from that small, furious interlude. The knowledge that Ryga wasn't as impervious to hurt as he pretended was useful information that went next to the fact his partner was dead.

“It was on his retinal cameras,” he said, the words dragged from his mouth and spat onto the table between them. “Her face, her body. She stood over him with blood on her hands as he died.”

“And what about before?” The Doctor asked. “Before your partner saw her standing above him in his last moments, what came before that? What did the cameras show you?”

A beat and a swift, rapid _blink_.

“She killed him,” he said. “I know she did.”

“You didn't answer my question,” the Doctor told him, slipping his hand into his pocket. “And, right now, you're drawing a pretty damning conclusion from not a lot of evidence.”

“Everything I know about her, everything anyone knows about her, is that she's –” his eyes sharpened, lines on his face tightening. “Take your hand off the sonic screwdriver, Doctor, or I'll explode it in your pocket. It won't kill you but it'll hurt like hell.”

The Doctor removed his hand from his pocket and placed it on the table next to his phone.

“There are any number of reasons why she was the one captured in the frame,” he said, not caring to hear what other people thought of Zoe, certain it would only anger him and he was struggling to keep his calm as it was. “And they're easy enough to tamper with if you know how. She didn't do it.”

“Your girlfriend is a monster.” Ryga leaned far enough across the table that the Doctor smelt the beer on his breath and saw the micro-thin layer of technology in his eyes that was recording their meeting. _Interesting_ , he thought. “She thinks she can play at being a Time Lord and not face the consequences.”

“And you imagine yourself to be the consequences,” the Doctor said, eyes lingering on his bone structure, positive he had seen it on another person before. “Judge, jury, and executioner?”

“Yes.”

“You seem to know a bit about me,” he said, pushing away the almost recognition to focus. “Enough to know I'm a Time Lord and my relationship with Zoe and Rose's taste in sweets. Certainly enough to track me down as well by the looks of it.”

“I didn't track you,” Ryga said. “I tracked _her_ but I'm too early again. She's with Rose and Javic dancing it up in a nightclub as though she isn't covered in blood.”

“Careful,” the Doctor warned, taking note of how he used Jack's birth name: So far, only time agents had used it and with the Vortex Manipulator around his wrist, he wouldn't be surprised to learn he was a former agent. “I've been patient with you so far because I want to know what you want with her but that patience is now at an end. You will leave her alone. Now and always.”

“I won't,” he said. “I'm not going to stop until she's dead.”

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. “Are you stupid? You have to know telling me this means nothing's going to end well for you.”

“Maybe I want to give you something to worry about while you're gone,” Ryga said, grinning. “I quite like the idea of the Oncoming Storm knotting himself up with worry and not being able to do a damn thing about it. There's sort of a poetic justice in that, isn't there?”

“Am I going somewhere?”

“Aren't you always?” Ryga shot back. “Never staying in one place too long, always leaving the people you love behind. It started with Susan, didn't it? You left her and –”

The Doctor's hand shot out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Without realising he was doing it, he _yanked_ him across the table and sent their drinks and his food smashing to the floor. The American couple twisted around, eyes wide with surprise, and the French teenagers looked up, interest settling over their faces for the first time that night; across the restaurant, Betty froze, pen hovering above her pad in mid order, and silence drenched the room. The Doctor heard the rushing thunder of his hearts in his ears, grip tightening on the shirt as he drew Ryga until they were nose to nose.

The memory of Susan dying, regenerating and regenerating until there was nothing but twisted flesh and curved bone left, played itself out behind his eyes.

“Mention my granddaughter again and it'll be the last thing you do,” the Doctor threatened, air crackling with his rage.

Instead of feeling frightened, Ryga laughed.

“Look at the things that make you tick,” he breathed, eyes bright with fascination, head tilting as he examined him more closely.. “I threaten to kill your girlfriend and all you show is mild annoyance; I make one small mention of your granddaughter and you're ready to rip my throat out. Isn't that something?”

Furious with himself for losing his temper, the Doctor shoved him back into his seat with enough force for the wood to crack. Ryga rolled his neck and there was a heated silence that pulled between them and was only broken when Betty approached the table cautiously, her manager making ushering motions at her as he stayed behind the bar at a safe distance. Taking care to clear his face of his anger, he tore his eyes from Ryga and levelled an apologetic smile at Betty.

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said, sincerely, regretting that his behaviour had frightened her. “We just had a small disagreement, everything's fine. I'll pay for the mess, please don't worry about it.”

“I –” Betty looked between him and Ryga before nodding. “Okay.”

Ryga shook the spilt beer from his arm and rubbed the Vortex Manipulator dry against his thigh.

“Tell me who you are,” the Doctor said again.

Blue eyes flicked up to him. “No.”

“I'll find out.”

“I bet you will,” Ryga said. “But in time?”

The Doctor set his jaw. “If you're as much of a threat as you say you are to Zoe, I could kill you right now.”

“And go back to the TARDIS and touch her with those hands of yours?” He clucked his tongue. “You wouldn't. The one man in all the universe drenched in so much blood wouldn't be able to live with himself for taking a life in a bar like a common criminal. No. That's not you. You're not Zoe after all.”

He stood up and the Doctor immediately catalogued every physical aspect about him – 1.91 metres; a small injury to his left ankle that looked temporary rather than permanent; a circular scar on the inside of his forearm beneath his elbow where the Doctor suspected a tracker either was or had been. He took those details and filed them away in less than a second, loosening his fist on the table, watching as Ryga tapped something into his Vortex Manipulator.

“I would say it's been a pleasure, Doctor, but we both know that's a lie,” he said, meeting his eyes once more. “Still, when I saw you alone, I couldn't pass up the chance to say hello.”

“And record my reactions for whoever you're taking those retinal cams back to,” the Doctor said, thrilling Ryga with his observation. “Tell whoever you work for that if anyone comes after Zoe or any member of my family, they'll find out exactly who I am.”

“They'll get the message.” Ryga tapped near his right eye and activated the Vortex Manipulator, a small hum of power making the Americans look up, confused, searching for the source. “And since we're passing messages back and forth, tell Zoe I'll be seeing her sooner than she thinks.”

With a wink, he disappeared in a crackle of energy and the Doctor stared at the space he had occupied, a dark frown woven into his features.

* * *

“Fuck.”

Keys clattered to the ground and Zoe stumbled back from the TARDIS, squinting in the broken darkness for them. With a groan, she bent down and patted her hand along the floor before curling around them and holding them close to her face as she tried to find the TARDIS key. Using the handle to heave herself up, she leaned heavily against the door and yawned, key scraping along the side of the gold lock as she misjudged her aim, a huffed swear tumbling from her, too tired to do battle with the ship.

“Can you just let me in, please?” Zoe asked, forehead resting against the surface. “I'm tired and a little bit drunk.”

The TARDIS sent laughter rolling through her mind before the door clicked open. Murmuring her thanks, she stepped inside and let the cool warmth pass over her. Until that moment she hadn't been aware of how cold the night was, her bare skin chilled, and she hurriedly shut the door on Beijing and rubbed her hands over her arms as she toed out of her shoes, leaving them on the ramp. Despite wearing flats, her feet ached and she hurried across the grating to the smooth, cool flatness of the corridor, trying not to make too much noise despite the fact there was sound proofing all throughout the TARDIS unless there was an emergency or she was being contrary.

The latter happened far more frequently than the former.

Zoe made her way along the corridor, the promise of tea in the kitchen moving her forward at a fast pace, half-surprised by the fact the Doctor wasn't pottering about in the console room waiting for her to –

“Hello.”

She jumped and slammed her back into the wall, hand pressed over her chest as she stared at the Doctor who held a cup of tea in his hands and a startled expression on his face.

“You scared me!”

“I see that,” he said, mouth curling up an inch. “Sorry.”

She pointed at him, breathless. “Bell. For your birthday, I'm getting you a bell.”

“You don't know when my birthday is,” the Doctor reminded her. “As a matter of fact, I'm not entirely sure when it is anymore either. I've completely lost track of the Gallifreyan calendar. Not that it matters since there is no Gallifrey any more but c'est la vie and all that.”

Zoe blinked. “What?”

“Never mind,” he said. “You're home earlier than expected. Were you not enjoying yourself?”

“No, I was having a great time,” she said, rubbing her chest as she eased away from the wall. “But Rose went off with a bloke and Jack got arrested, so I decided to come back since there wasn't much point being there without them.”

“Jack's arrested?” He ignored the bit about Rose, her sudden desire to sleep with anything male and vaguely attractive not an issue he wanted to delve into. “What for?”

“Fighting.” Reaching out, she took the tea from his hands and sipped it. “After Rose left he caught someone trying to slip a roofie into a woman's drink and he went all in. Said not to worry about bailing him out, he'll sort it.”

“Surprised you didn't get arrested too,” the Doctor said. “That sort of fighting is right up your alley.”

“I was helping the woman get it out her system,” Zoe replied, smiling up at him. “Made her throw up in the bathroom and then got her back to her hotel room. By the time I came back, Jack was being stuck in the back of a police van with a few others who took advantage of the fight to, well, fight.”

“Sounds like a normal night out then,” he mused. “He's sure he doesn't want us to come and get him?”

“Said he wanted a word with the police on how to stop this happening again,” she told him. “You know what he's like.”

“All right, fair enough.” Part of him pitied the police that had to deal with Jack and the other was amused by the thought of Jack trying to change social and cultural behaviour in one night: He did love him for trying. “If he's not back by the time Rose is tomorrow, I'll go fetch him though. And you're telling Mickey his boyfriend got himself arrested.”

“Deal.” She eyed him over the top of his mug as she took another long drink of his tea, taking note of the slight tension running through him. “Are you okay? You look like a mad scientist right now.”

The Doctor flattened his dishevelled hair with the flat of his palm. “I am a mad scientist.”

“Eccentric more than mad.” Cold from the night and desirous to be pressed up against him, she stepped into his space and his body shifted to make room her her, hand sweeping over her hip in welcome. “What's wrong, love?”

“I –” the truth caught in his throat and he was tempted to not tell her and spoil her mood but their last argument occasionally throbbed through him; she deserved the truth from him even if it was something she didn't want to hear. “How drunk are you right now?”

Zoe considered the question. “Drunk enough that everything feels light and slightly numb but not so drunk that I'm going to have an awful hangover in the morning. Why?”

“Because I need to tell you something.” Curving a hand around her elbow, he gave her a small tug. “Come with me. You're going to want to sit down to hear this.”

Dread filled Zoe. Good news was never delivered when a person was sitting down; it was always flung at a person in delight, sooner rather than later, and the careful hedging the Doctor was doing sobered her quicker than anything in the med bay could have done.

Tightening her fingers around his favourite mug, she padded silently alongside him until he nudged open the door to his office where he had clearly been working, a laptop closed on the desk and streams of notes sprawled across pages of a notebook. Releasing her elbow, he cleared space for her to sit on his dusty sofa and she sat lightly on it, pressing the balls of her toes into the soft Gallifreyan rug beneath her feet, nervousness creeping through her.

For the last few months, he had been working hard on her telomerase data and the look on his face told her that she wasn't going to like the news he had to tell her. Bracing herself for bad news – _you're going to die, you're about to grow an extra head, how fond are you of your skin because you're about to lose it_ – she almost missed him speak.

“I met your mystery man tonight.”

Zoe stared at him. “I'm sorry, you what?”

“He stopped by while I was having dinner out,” the Doctor explained, brushing the seat on the opposite sofa clean and sitting, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers linked loosely together. “He said his name was Ryga.”

“That's a shit name,” Zoe said, instantly. “Who the hell names their kid Ryga? Isn't that the capital of Lithuania or something?”

“Latvia,” he said. “And I'm pretty sure that's not his real name.”

“Right, yeah, that makes sense.” She shifted and set the mug of tea down, running her tea-warmed hand over her thigh to tug the hem of her dress down. “What did he want then?”

“I'm not entirely sure,” the Doctor admitted, eyes lingering on her hand before he looked up to meet her eyes. “It was pretty clear he was seizing an opportunity to speak to me while he had the chance but I don't know what he wanted from the meeting other than to get information back to who he works for.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's not working alone,” he said, gesturing at his eyes. “He had retinal cams over his irises, and he made it clear that there's a group of people out there that really don't like me. He's either working for them or with them, I'm not sure. Either way, he was recording our conversation for them to analyse later.”

“That's...” there was a fine tremble in her hand that made him want to reach for her. “Are you okay? He didn't hurt you, did he?”

“No, love, he didn't hurt me,” the Doctor said, warmed by her worry for him. “Whoever he is, he's definitely related to the Time Agency in some way. His Vortex Manipulator for one –”

“You can get those on the black market for a hefty price,” Zoe told him. “Roxx has a couple in stock but she doesn't sell to just anyone. She's a bit of a snob when it comes to who can access time travel so she might know if someone's recently bought a Manipulator. I'll ask her.”

“That might be a useful list to have regardless,” he replied. “But there's another reason I think he's a Time Agent. He called Jack _Javic_.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Yeah, that's – not many people call him that except Time Agents. But why's he after me then? If he escaped the data purge we sent through the system, why is he following me and not Jack?”

The Doctor paused. “You're not going to like it.”

“I'm not expecting to.”

“He is operating under the belief that you... _killed –_ ” a flinch ripped through her and guilt settled in his chest. “– his partner: Both work and sexual partner if that makes a difference to you. Now I don't believe it for a second. From what he described, there's a lot that hasn't been verified but that doesn't really matter considering he believes it.”

“Right.” The normal shine in her voice was dull and flat, her eyes losing their focused as she turned her gaze inward, posture softening into a slump. “Well, it definitely sounds like something I would do.”

“Zoe –”

“What else did he say?”

He breathed, hating everything about the conversation. “He knew a lot about us. I mean a lot of stuff. He's been tailing us for a while, long enough to know that Rose likes those Percy Pig sweets from M&S.”

“That's creepy.”

“And he knew details about my conversation with our old friend Mr Finch.”

“That's a lot of work for one person,” Zoe said, rubbing her finger over a faint bruise he had left on her knee the night before when a thought struck her, panicking slicing through her. “ _Mum_. If they're watching us then they're watching Mum.”

“I've already called Alistair,” he soothed. “He's going to put a secret detail on her so she doesn't know they're there. And after what happened with Jack, I placed a few things in the flat and in her purse so that I can track her if necessary. I didn't tell you because I know you wouldn't like it but I'm not going to take a risk with her life.”

The tension bled from her and she nodded. “Okay. That's – _okay_. Thank you.”

“You don't have to thank me for that,” the Doctor said, softly.

“I do,” Zoe replied, passing a hand over her face; she leaned back and rested her head against the top of the sofa, lying at an awkward angle, legs splayed as she though. “What was he like this Ryga?”

The Doctor blew out his cheeks, struggling to find the right way to describe him. “Confident.”

“Confident?”

“You know what people get like when they know who I am,” he said. “They tend to overcompensate with casualness or dial up the threats. He did neither. He was... _comfortable_. He wasn't afraid of me at all. Not even when –” he hesitated, eyes flicking from hers. “Not even when I gave him cause to be.”

“That's disturbing,” Zoe said with a frown. “The Daleks are terrified of you and they're the Daleks. What's this guy got that he doesn't even hesitate?”

“I don't know,” the Doctor confessed, the not knowing frustrating him. “And that bothers me. He's human, I know that much, but he's definitely had something done to him because he smells wrong. It's like time's soured around him.”

Her eyebrows went up. “You can smell time?”

“A little bit, yeah,” he said, knee bouncing. “I don't pay much attention to it because it's just a smell I grew up with, sort of like your mum's perfume, but I know when it's wrong and it's wrong with him. I suppose it could be his Vortex Manipulator twisting time around him: Those things shouldn't be used for long-term travel. Who knows what effect they have on people at that point.”

She hummed to let him know she heard him, mind taking her down another path. “You never said what he wanted from me. If I killed – _will kill_ – his partner, then I assume hashing it out like gentlemen is out of the question, right?”

“I'm not going to let him hurt you,” the Doctor said, his fierceness sparking the air around them. “He can believe what he likes about what he thinks you've down but he's not laying a finger on you. Not while I'm alive.

Zoe's eyes flicked over him. “He threatened to kill me then.”

“Amongst other things, yes.”

“Doctor.” Pushing herself upright, she stepped out of her seat and slid into his lap. His arms looped around her and pulled her closer, the press of her body and the familiarity of her weight a balm to his frayed edges. Slowly, she passed the fingers of one hand through his hair and drew his forehead to rest against her shoulder where he _breathed._ “Whatever is coming will come. We'll face it when it does.”

“You're too calm,” he complained into her skin.

A small laugh rolled through her.

“Only one of us can be not calm at a time, yeah?” Bowing her head, she pressed her lips to his scalp and lingered there. “Once you feel better then I'll panic and have my moment but, until then, I've got you.”

The Doctor shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut against the jut of Zoe's collarbone. Holding her in his arms reassured him that she was safe – right then, in that moment, she was safe – except he wasn't able to always keep her safe. His track record with her was poor and Ryga believed that the Doctor wasn't always going to be there to protect her; he knew that Jack, Mickey, Rose, and Jackie would never let any harm befall Zoe if there was an opportunity to stop it but he didn't trust anyone but himself with her safety. The desire to keep her locked in the TARDIS made his body shake, and she pressed her fingers against his scalp and murmured soothingly into his hair.

“I can't lose you,” he whispered.

“You won't,” Zoe said, making a promise they both knew she couldn't keep: If Ryga didn't kill her then Time would steal her from him bit by bit. “Doctor, you won't.”

“This man...” he lifted his head and looked at her, her thumb brushing beneath his eyes to smooth the tiredness away. “I don't frighten easily but there's something about him that makes me afraid. I don't like how confident he was in approaching me. And I don't like the fact there's something about him that I recognise. I've seen him before, or bits of him in someone else. When you've seen him, did you feel he was familiar?”

“I haven't really seen him up close before,” she said. “Just Scotland and Kutlib but he was gone before I started paying attention; every other time I've seen him from a distance.” With a nervous twitch of her fingers, she readjusted his collar. “You don't think...I know you say that everyone's dead and I believe that but this seems like something he might do from the stories you've told me so...do you think Ryga might be the Master?”

“No.” The answer was so swift she felt like a fool for entertaining the idea. “There's no bio-dampener in the world that would stop me from recognising another Time Lord, especially the Master.”

She swallowed and nodded. “What about kids? Did the Master have any children?”

“Yes, three, but they were on Gallifrey when it burned,” the Doctor said. “His daughter, Akilam, helped me steal the Moment before she left to try and destroy the sky trenches over the Citadel. I didn't see her again after that. And I don't believe they'd do anything like this. We always got on very well.”

“Oh.” She rested her mouth against his forehead: It had been a foolish notion anyway, one she didn't know why it had come to mind. “Then I don't know who he could be. If he's a Time Agent, why's he not going after Jack? If he's one of your enemies, why not you? I can't think of anyone I've pissed off enough that they'd track me through time. Well, maybe Sharaz Jek but this is excessive for just a beating.”

“You're thinking linearly,” the Doctor told her. “Whatever caused the chain of events to lead Ryga back in time to you hasn't happened yet. Remember, cause doesn't always equal effect.”

“So at some point in my future I'm going to kill Ryga's partner and trigger everything that's happening now,” Zoe said, a headache beginning to brew behind her left eye. “If I don't do it, will I create a paradox?”

“Nothing the TARDIS can't handle but it's not like that,” he said. “If you work towards not doing this thing you're supposed to have done, you may accidentally do the thing. Time finds a way of making things happen even when they're not fixed points. It's frustrating that way.”

“So we just wait?” She asked. “That's what we're supposed to do, just sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop?”

“We take precautions,” he said. “We be more careful than we are now, and we tell the others about it so they can be on the lookout. But even if we killed Ryga the next time we see him, it won't change what's already happened.”

Zoe cleared her throat and pressed closer to him. “Okay. I – I'm actually a bit scared right now, so do you mind if I panic for a bit? I know it's your turn but I need a moment.”

“You go right ahead,” the Doctor said, bottling away his fear to draw her against his chest, hooking his hand behind her knees to curl her legs against him. “I've got you.”


	45. Chapter 45

Zoe touched the edge of her finger to her lip and fixed her red lipstick, using the Doctor's absence as an opportunity to get it right. His wandering hands and mouth that burned a path up her neck that morning had made it difficult to apply though it had segued into ten well-spent minutes of gripping the bathroom sink as he pressed into her from behind. The thought of how his breath had caught in his chest, eyes wide and dark as he watched her in the mirror, Gallifreyan tumbling from his tongue in a knotted gasp that sent arousal blooming through her, sent colour sweeping through her skin. It was almost embarrassing how her body responded to him – the mere thought of the sounds he made and the sweet pass of his hands over her skin was enough to make her forget herself – and she covertly glanced at Rose to make sure her sister wasn't paying any attention to her.

Weight pressed into the toes of her pink sandals, Rose was too busy spreading her arms wide and twirling on the spot to notice anything wrong with Zoe: The pink skirt of her dress flew out around her stockinged legs, layers and layers of sheer white crinoline puffing it up. There was a lightness to her that cast a smile over Zoe's lips, a comfort that came from watching Rose be Rose, and she was disappointed when the pink heel came down with a loud _clack_ when Rose noticed Zoe watching her.

Her finger – painted pink to match her outfit – pointed a warning. “Shut up.”

“Did I say anything?” Zoe dropped her mirror into her jacket's pocket, her own heels snapping against the ground as she joined Rose off to the side of the TARDIS. “You look really nice though. The 50s are a surprisingly good look on you.”

“Right?” Rose moved her hips moved back and forth to shake the volume of her skirt out, the crinkling sound it made reminded Zoe of hours of dress fittings in France. “Why don't we dress like this any more? Jeans an' a T-shirt are so _bleh_ next to this.”

“Wear that on the estate and see what happens,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Step back. I want to send a picture to Mum. She'll get a kick out of this.”

Hands flapping at her to wait, Rose attempted to find the best position to pose in. She settled for standing in front of the TARDIS door as though she had just stepped out and Zoe happened to be there waiting for her with a camera. Sunlight poking through the clouds warmed her freshly dyed hair and threw a glow around her, jealousy briefly pricking at Zoe for how beautiful her sister was. Focusing on the screen, she snapped two pictures in quick succession, and Rose bounded towards her to plaster herself against Zoe's back to look at them, snatching the phone from her hands to add a subtle filter to it.

“There, done.”

“I'm the photographer, thank you.” Zoe took back her phone with a sniff and sent the picture to the Tyler family group chat that consisted of Jackie telling them to call and streams of gossip from the estate. “I hate how photogenic you are.”

“Can't help lookin' this good, little sis,” Rose said with a confidence born from being friends with Jack. “Just genetics.”

“Piss off,” she said, sweetly.

“Besides, you don't look half bad in pictures; I'd take one of you right now but Mum might lose her shit seein' you dressed like that.” Rose's eyes tracked over, faintly judgemental in a way that only a sister managed to be. “You're goin' to start a bloody riot. Can you even breathe properly?”

Zoe slid her phone away and tucked her hands into her pockets, spreading the jacket wide so that Rose was able to see her properly. “Course I can. I'm not an idiot.”

She snorted. “Debatable.”

“Shut up.”

“'s not like you to dress so –” Rose curled her tongue in an attempt to find a non-offensive descriptor. “ _Tightly_.”

Conscious of that fact – and the fact that she was dressed far differently than she preferred – she glanced away. “Well, it's not everyday we get to see Elvis live, is it?”

“D'you want to shag him or somethin'?” Rose asked. “Because I'm not sure it's legal to be out dressed like that.”

“Why would I want to shag Elvis?” She questioned, nose crinkling. “He's absolutely not my type.”

Rose's elbow pressed against her arm, gently prodding. “What's goin' on?”

A sigh latched itself onto her next breath and she wondered whether honesty was truly the best policy as it had been a trying week since their night in Beijing: At least, it had been difficult for her having to navigate the Doctor's moods that changed from hour to hour.

After Rose eventually found her way back to the TARDIS sometime before lunch with a hangover that throbbed and with faint regrets clinging to her – _he didn't even go down on me_ was one of the complaints Zoe suffered through later that day – and Jack strolled in with a cheery whistle following his night in jail, the Doctor gathered them in the kitchen and relayed his encounter with Zoe's mystery man. The news had sobered Rose up quickly and set Jack's face into stern lines, thumb rubbing over Mickey's knuckles as they sat side by side. In an attempt not to overly frighten them, the Doctor had softened a few parts of the encounter – namely with regard to the doomsday that was coming for them – but told them the truth as he knew it, including that Ryga wanted Zoe dead for murdering his partner.

It had been gratifying the way they immediately dismissed that as a possibility, warming her even as she remembered Lumic, something she had told no one but the Doctor. Though there was little they could do – little any of them could do until Ryga made another move – it was comforting to have the family aware of everything, even if Zoe hadn't enjoyed the phone call with Jackie where she looped her in on what was happening.

The sound of her mother's weary sigh down the phone had replayed itself on repeat and given her a few restless nights.

And without an immediate threat to deal with, life on the TARDIS returned to normal. A few trips here and there, one embarrassing tumble down a sand dune for Mickey, two nights spent in a town that was being haunted by ghosts but turned out to be the local Women's Institute having a bit of fun, and a family day out on an ocean safari on Neiahl. Ryga slowly drifted to the back of Zoe's mind, occasionally startling her when he popped to the fore, but he never left the Doctor's.

Ever since his interrupted dinner, he had been in an odd, almost manic, mood.

He alternated between calm acceptance that they would deal with what was to come, languidly confident in his ability to face whatever Ryga bought them, and a sharp, painful desperation that verged on clingy when it came to letting Zoe out of his sights. She missed it at first, his subtle attempts to keep her by his side – lazy mornings where he pinned her to the mattress with laughter and kisses and always _one more_ when she tried to get up – before his efforts became less subtle and more like anvils. She sympathised with his fear because she understood it – the burn of his absence for four years in her life was still sore – but there were only so many times she could go to make a cup of coffee with him treading on her heels and rattling away about some inconsequential at a hundred miles an hour before she snapped.

Before hurting his feelings by demanding space, Zoe made the executive decision to take them to a live Elvis Presley concert. He loved Elvis's music, enjoyed 1950s New York, and the others were always up for something new, especially when it allowed them to dress authentically.

In a further attempt to make the trip extra special, Zoe had decided to wear an outfit that reminded her of Sandy from the end of _Grease_ when she saw it in the wardrobe. As Rose said, it was _tight_ and had taken Jack's steady hands to help her get into the strapless black jumpsuit that, once on, was mercifully easy enough to move in. The sight of her reflection in the mirror made her pause, the material looking as though it had been painted on, and even Jack was surprised by it before gleefully encouraging her to wear it out, finding her a pair of sharp red heels that put her eye to eye with him.

At least the leather jacket she wore over the top granted her a small aspect of modesty while the need for a drink clawing through her.

Had the Doctor not reacted as he did – every muscle in his body turning slack with surprise when she stepped casually into the kitchen, Mickey choking on his coffee at the sight of her and Rose's mouth dropping open – she would have felt ridiculous. Looking at her as though he had never seen her before, telltale signs of arousal turning his cheeks pink and his mouth dry, gave her the courage to leave the TARDIS dressed far differently than normal.

“It's for the Doctor,” Zoe said, finally, not meeting Rose's eyes. “Thought it might cheer him up a bit.”

Rose's eyelashes fluttered against her skin, trying her hardest not to think about _why_ Zoe dressed like she was might work in lifting the Doctor's mood: Disgust, jealousy, and a sprinkling of bitterness warred inside her in the half of a second it took her to blink. Pushing those feelings away with a ruthlessness that worked for her, she looked at a point past Zoe's shoulder.

“Has it?”

“Maybe.”

“Gross.”

“You asked.”

“An' now I regret it,” Rose said, rubbing her chest, mouth twisted as her eyes swept over her sister again. “If I didn't know it was you, I definitely wouldn't recognise you. Should probably take a picture an' send it to Shareen. She'd never believe it.”

“Don't you dare,” Zoe said, swiftly. “I'm not about to be wank bank material for Deano, Chaz, and Dave, ta muchly.”

“Yeah, think that boat's sailed,” she said, Zoe's forehead twitching with a question. “New Year's Eve. You were wearin' that red dress with all your back on display? Thought Little Dave was goin' to blow his load right there when he saw you.”

“Please stop.” Zoe remembered the awkwardness of Little Dave asking her out years before – only months for him – and twitched her jacket over her stomach. “I don't want to think about it.”

Rose snorted and twisted her head back to the TARDIS, annoyance beginning to settle around her eyes and mouth. “Honestly, what is takin' them so long?”

“Boys and their toys,” Zoe shrugged. “Reckon we might be waiting a while. The last thing I head from them was Mickey cooing over a motorbike the Doctor's got stashed in there. God knows why though. If that man's ever been on a motorbike _without_ falling off, I'll be surprised.”

Fingers brushing back her hair as it caught in the breeze rolling down the street, Rose considered the idea. “That cute professor phase he went through. I can see him ridin' a motorbike then.”

“Really?” Zoe asked, head tilting in thought. “I don't know. Maybe if Ace was driving I could see it but I think he was more likely to do it before with the face we first met. Couldn't you see him on a bike then?”

Rose hummed and thought of her leather-wearing Doctor with his big ears and leather jacket: It was months since his regeneration and she occasionally missed his old face with its elasticity and familiarity. His new one was lovely and very pleasant to look at but there was the soft hint of something mournful whenever she thought of the face she first met. She didn't know how Zoe reconciled herself between the two faces, although Rose imagined it was less of a problem for her considering how enthusiastic she had been about bedding the younger Doctor at the time travellers' conference.

“I s'pose,” she said, quickly realising the silence was stretching too long and Zoe was looking at her with a question in her eyes. “He was definitely less clumsy then. Or maybe we just never saw him fall over stuff.”

The Doctor had tripped over a chair that morning, limbs flailing as he took Jack down with him, Rose skipping out of the way lest she was also felled by the tumbling Time Lord.

“He does walk into things more than he used to,” Zoe agreed. “It's a good job he's got that superior biology or I'd be afraid of a concussion.”

Rose removed a piece of gum from her pocket and offered Zoe a stick. “D'you think he'll always been white?”

“What, when he regenerates?”

“Yeah.” She folded the gum into her mouth and chewed. “Like, d'you think Time Lords can choose what they look like?”

“Some could,” Zoe said, unwrapping her own gum and carefully placing the rubbish in her pocket, rolling her eyes when Rose's hand slipped in to discard her own pieces. “He had this friend who could choose her own appearance whenever she regenerated. She once went through like four of five different bodies before settling on one she liked and apparently, or so the Doctor says, she nicked that face from someone else.”

“Weird.”

“So I think it depends on the Time Lord,” she told her. “Romana was special, even by Time Lord standards, but he says he's never been able to control it. Bit of a lottery all told, I reckon.”

“That's kind of shit, isn't it?” Rose said. “What if he gets two heads?”

Zoe shrugged. “More of him to kiss.”

“What if he's two foot tall?”

“I'll get him a foot stall.”

“What if –” Rose rocked on her heels as she considered her options. “What if he turns into a woman?”

“Please,” Zoe scoffed, rolling her eyes derisively at her. “I might actually prefer that.”

Rose laughed. “Is that even possible?”

“Yeah, course,” she said. “The Corsair used to alternate between male and female. When I met her, she was a woman but I think during the War he was a man.”

Rose puffed out a sigh, head shaking. “Sometimes I forget he's so _alien._ ”

“We live on his space ship, doofus.”

“Shut up,” she grinned, elbowing her. “I'm so used to him now but every now an' then it hits me that he's an alien, y'know? If he ever turns up as a _she_ , I think I'll need a minute to deal with that.” She snapped her gum between her teeth. “Although, if he ends up looking like number eight again, that wouldn't be too bad. He was very pretty. All that hair. Those curls could have given yours a run for your money.”

Following the meeting with his younger self and Ace at the time travellers' conference – Jack exactly as jealous as Rose had hoped he would be – Zoe dug out old photographs of the Doctor and shown them to her. The Doctor had taken Rose's ribbing with good humour, pleased that she was smiling, laughing, and joking; he had been less thrilled when Jack demanded to see the same pictures and had grumbled his way through the sexually charged remarks and fashion critique Jack laid at his feet.

Mickey, however, had taken one look at all of his faces and shook his head. “ _Mate...you're fuckin' weird_.”

Zoe laughed. “Not a chance. Mine are definitely better. He was gorgeous then though, wasn't he? Kind of made me think of Mr de Winter from _Rebecca_. That's what I always imagined him to look like.”

“I was thinkin' more Heathcliff.”

“I could definitely see him running across the moors yelling for Cathy.”

“Zoe! Zoe!” Rose's theatrics pushing her away from the TARDIS and into her sister who caught her with a laugh and a stumble. “Never leave me! Come back to me!” Zoe slipped her arms around her waist and lifted Rose from her feet, spinning her in circles, making her scream in surprise, laughter tripping out of her. “Put me down!”

“Heathcliff is _not_ someone I want the Doctor to take relationship advice from,” Zoe said, dashing after her when Rose tried to escape, fingers tapping her shoulder – _tag, you're it_. “I'd rather skip the jealousy, bitterness, and all-consuming rage, thanks.”

“What about Mr. Rochester?” Rose lunged for her but Zoe danced out of the way. “Does he have a wife locked away in the TARDIS somewhere?”

“If he's got someone locked up then I've got bigger problems than my relationship,” she said. “If anything, I think he's more like Mr Darcy.”

“He's not that socially awkward.”

“Not any more,” Zoe said, yelping when Rose poked the meat of her thigh, hand slapping down to catch hers. “Remember when we first met him and how he didn't do domestics?”

Rose tipped her head back and laughed. “I'd almost forgotten! God, we couldn't get him to sit down for dinner with Mum an' now they _text_. Or they did before you got caught started shaggin' him.”

“Bah,” Zoe said, waving her words away. “They'll get back to texting eventually. I hope. She actually asked about him when I spoke to her last night. She was all _an' how's himself?_ I mean, I don't think she really cared because I could hear her flipping through the TV channels but it's definitely progress.”

“Next thing you know, she'll actually say his name again.”

“Here's hoping,” she said, jumping back from the door as a horn blasted a warning.

Engines revving, the Doctor and Jack exited the TARDIS out on matching scooters that gleamed in the daylight – a far cry from the dusty, rusted machines the Doctor had shown her that morning – and pulled to a stop, feet touching the ground to keep them steady. Despite the Doctor tending to draw her eye more frequently than anyone else, Zoe found herself staring at Jack in appreciation. Predictably, he had embraced the theme of the day and looked like a 1950s greaser with dark jeans folded up at the bottom over scuffed boots with a white T-shirt stretched across his chest beneath a leather jacket. Both she and Rose let their gazes settle on him, watching as he lifted his aviator shades into his slicked back hair, looking handsome in a way that only he was able to manage.

A pointed cough pulled Zoe's attention from Jack to the Doctor who lifted an eyebrow at her. Grin stretching across her face at getting caught openly ogling their friend, she tossed the Doctor a wink. It wasn't that he didn't also look handsome with his hair styled into a quiff – unfortunately not wearing a similar outfit to Jack's because _I need my pockets, love_ – it was just that, every now and then, Jack shone.

With a loud roar that made Rose wince and lift her hands over her ears, Mickey rolled out of the TARDIS on the back of a motorbike. Zoe knew next to nothing about cars and motorbikes, only what she had picked up from Mickey over the years as he used to babysit her in the mechanics while Jackie worked the occasional job and Rose was busy, and the only thing she thought when she saw the motorbike was _big._

Dressed similarly to Jack, Mickey looked at them with a huge smile on his face, kickstand dropping to the ground.

“This is brilliant!”

Rose lowered her hands as the engine cut out and laughed. “D'you even know how to drive that thing?”

“Course I do, babe,” Mickey said, sliding his sunglasses to the top of his head. “Used to take them out of the garage when one was in, for testin' purposes, course.”

“Of course,” Zoe grinned. “I think it suits you. It's very –” she gestured vaguely with her hand. “Motorbike-y.”

“Many talents you have, Zoe Tyler, but motorbikes are not one of them.” The Doctor swung himself off his scooter and stretched his long body out, tucking a helmet under his arm. “That's a Kawasaki Ninja H2R with an added booster pad so, actually, Micks, don't press the blue button, flames will come out of it.”

“Amazing,” Mickey said, immediately examining the button.

“Be honest,” Zoe said, sliding up to the Doctor and linking their fingers together. “Who was the bike for?”

“Me.”

“I said be honest.”

“Ace.” She snorted. “She liked bikes. Couldn't take it with her when she left because that baby is from 2015. Should probably drop it off to her at some point. We're close enough now that it won't make a difference.” He looked down at her, eyes lingering on the swell of her breasts before he met her eyes. “You look fantastic, by the way. Have I mentioned that yet?”

“Once or twice every few seconds,” Jack said from where he was bent over fixing his hair in the scooter's mirror. “And that's not including the time you tried to pull her off into a private room and Mickey had to intervene.”

Forgoing embarrassment entirely, the Doctor grinned. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“No, no, I'm not criticising.” Jack's grin turned wolfish. “Zoe looks fantastic right now. Sure you two don't want to stay behind while we go off and see Elvis?”

The Doctor perked up. “Is that a possibility?”

“ _No_ ,” Zoe said, his shoulders deflating. “I'm dressed and ready to go and we're doing this because you love Elvis. You can undress me later.”

His hand slipped low on her back, mouth by her ear. “Is that a promise?”

“Geroff.”

Pointedly ignoring the flirtation behind her, Rose looked around at street the Doctor had clumsily parked the TARDIS on: Parking in the middle of the road was never advisable but he also didn't particularly care.

“Y'know,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I thought we'd be goin' for the Vegas era with white flares an' the chest hair an' all that. Not this. It's all a bit...I dunno, _drab._ ”

“Drab?” The Doctor repeated, and she recognised the tone of voice that meant a lecture was coming, her brain tuning out before his next breath. “This isn't drab. This is New York in the 1950s. They're getting over the war and heading straight into global prominence with art, music, culture, politics. This is the place to be right now and there's nothing drab about it.”

Rose yawned. “Uh-huh.”

“And as for Elvis,” he continued. “Well, you want to see Elvis when he was still called the Pelvis, you go to the fifties. This is before burgers and back when he still had a waist. Nah, 1950s, this is the time to be.”

She levelled an amused look at him. “If you say so.”

“I do say so!” His arm, draped over Zoe's shoulders, lifted to point at the scooters. “What's more, you get to see the fifties and Elvis in style.”

“Not sure those can be described as _in style_ ,” Rose said.

The Doctor's mouth popped open, offended, before an appalling American accent fell from his mouth that made Zoe recoil and Jack bark with laughter, Mickey shaking his head. “You going my way, doll?”

“I will pay you good money to never speak like that again,” Zoe told him. “I much prefer your Scottish accent.”

“Well, I know that,” he said, leaning in to kiss her before hopping onto the back of his scooter. “Come on then, Rose. Since Zoe doesn't appreciate me, hop on.”

“Right-o, daddy-o,” Rose said, her accent significantly better than his. “Straight from the fridge, man.”

His face lit up. “You speak the lingo!”

“Mum,” Zoe explained as Rose hitched her skirt up her knees and swung onto the back of the scooter. She plucked a helmet from Jack's hand and squashed it down over her her, clipping it beneath her chin. “We'd watch Cliff Richard movies every Bank Holiday Monday. Got a stack of CDs knocking about somewhere that she whips out when she's feeling nostalgic.”

“I knew your mother would be a Cliff fan.” He handed Rose a helmet before looking across to Mickey. “You all right there, Mickety-Mick? Haven't set yourself on fire yet?”

“Not yet,” he said, cheerfully. “Reckon we can go somewhere to really open the engine up on this one?”

The Doctor considered that as he turned the engine on, scooter thrumming between his legs as Rose tucked her skirt beneath her thighs to stop it catching.

“There's a great road on Drana actually, underwater but it runs the length of a continent and back again,” he said. “It was built for tourists but it accidentally turned into a biking road. If we go early enough you might be able to get the road to yourself.”

“Has everyone forgotten I was nearly killed on Drana?” Jack asked, Zoe's arms around his middle, chin tucked against his shoulder. “Or are we just forgetting that?”

“Drana's too nice to strike it off the list because you were nearly drowned,” the Doctor said. “Sorry, old chap.”

“I might just run away with your girlfriend for that,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Zoe. “What do you say, gorgeous? You, me, and the open road? And Mickey too, of course. Not leaving him behind.”

“Good luck keeping her caffeinated then, it's a full time job,” the Doctor said, Rose laughing against his back. “All right then, enough jibber-jabber. Elvis isn't just going to wait around for us. Follow me, gang – team – fam. _Dammit_.”

“One day,” Jack said, amused, as the Doctor drove off with Mickey following them, the line of his back showing his eagerness at hurtling down the road at full speed. “He's going to settle on what he wants to call us.”

Zoe pressed her cold nose against his cheek. “And one day he's going to get us to the right place.”

“What?”

“We're not in New York.”

Jack looked around them, scanning the buildings, and she watched as his face fell, disappointment heavy in his voice. “This is London, isn't it?”

The wind caught her laugh as Jack revved the engine of the scooter to catch up with the others who disappeared out of sight around a corner, Mickey clearly enjoying himself. From her seat, Zoe watched the back streets of London pass them by, not entirely sure of what area they were in but certain it wasn't Peckham. Red brick houses, neatly cared for even though poverty clung to the edges of the area, lined the streets on either side of them and she cast her eyes over the fashion of the people walking along the pavement. It seemed that they were at least in the right decade and judging by the amount of bunting strung overhead, something exciting was about to happen.

Her grip on Jack tightened, the smell of his soap lodging itself in her nose, as the few people who were out and about watched them trundle past; Jack was a cautious driver when he had a passenger and they were barely doing twenty miles an hour down the cobbled street which gave the residents plenty of time to stare. Their eyes lingered on Jack with open interest before their expressions immediately clouded into disgust and disapproval at the sight of her.

It was difficult to tell if the disgust was simply down to the way she was dressed or the colour of her skin.

She was willing to bet it was a combination of both.

“Right, you two,” the Doctor said when they caught up with them at a junction. “I've got good news and bad news.”

“We're in London,” Jack said.

He blinked, taken aback. “Yep.”

“1953 is my guess.” Zoe eased back from Jack's body, enjoying the look of stupefaction on the Doctor's face. “Queen Elizabeth's II coronation, to be exact.”

“How do you know that?” The Doctor demanded. “Did you check your phone?”

“Nope.” Her mouth twitched. “You really want to know?”

“ _Yes_.”

“You sure?”

“Zo-e.” The drawn out whine of her name had Mickey coughing a laugh into the handlebars. “Tell me.”

“All right, she said, but brace yourself.”

He placed his hands on his thighs and sat a little straighter, jostling Rose at his back. “Consider me braced.”

“Okay, well, judging by low-level poverty that we see around us and the few shops that are still boarded up, we're in a post-war economy,” Zoe said, slipping into the tone she had used when teaching the children at her makeshift school in France. “But there are cars on the street which means either World War One or World War Two. However, the number of cars tell me that this is post the Second World War. I thought maybe VE Day but there's a distinct lack of soldiers in uniform on the street and _that_ tells me the war's been over for a while but rationing is still in effect.”

His mouth opened only to shut again when she held up a finger, forestalling his question.

“I know that because that woman over there –” she pointed their attention to a middle-aged woman hurrying down the street to the bus stop in a grey coat and brown shoes. “– dropped her book and was panicked as she picked it up. I totally get panic when a book falls to the ground but the way she dropped into a crouch let's me know that it's really important to her, that and the way she's clutching her bag as though afraid she's going to lose what little money she has in there tells me it's most likely her ration book. All of that puts us somewhere after 1945 but before 1954 when rationing ended. And what was the biggest thing celebrated during that period with an excessive amount of bunting? The queen's coronation in 1953.”

Mickey blinked, stunned. “Blimey.”

“You complete an' utter nerd,” Rose said, taken aback.

Jack arched back to face her. “You are so attractive when you're spitting out facts.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. “You're wrong.”

“I don't know, Doc,” Mickey said. “Seems legit to me.”

“She's forgetting something,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, am I?”

“1947, Elizabeth and Philip's marriage,” the Doctor reminded her. “The first truly big celebration after the war. Bunting out, crowds everywhere, a joyous occasion for a war-torn populace and all that.”

“You make a good point,” Zoe agreed. “However, if I may make a counter point?”

He inclined his head graciously, enjoying himself. “You may.”

“TV aerials.” She nodded to the metal satellites screwed into the side of buildings. “Very few houses had TVs in 1947 but there was a huge rise in sales for the coronation because Philip pushed to have the event televised. It was the first major TV event of the 20th century. Therefore, Doctor, the man that I love: 1953, check it.”

Unable to keep the grin from his face, Mickey slid his eyes towards the Doctor. “Is she right?”

The Doctor reached into his pocket and removed his screwdriver. Eyes on Zoe, he slid his thumb up the side, the tip turning blue and buzzing, before his eyes flicked down. His mouth twitched. “Yes.”

Rose whooped and punched the air. “That's my sister!”

“How does it feel to take second place to your girlfriend?” Jack asked, leaning back into Zoe who had her arm around his chest, pleased with herself.

“Thrilling,” the Doctor admitted, eyes holding Zoe's. “Jack's right, you've never been more attractive than right now.”

“That's not what you said the other night when I wore that thing I found,” she said, colour exploding through his face at the reminder. Rose and Mickey's faces twisted while Jack peered at her curiously. “No, I'm not telling you.”

“Honestly, the two of you with your flirting,” he complained. “It feels like I'm only getting half the story. Either tell me everything or stop teasing me.”

“Don't you enjoy being teased?” Zoe asked, sweetly, rubbing her chin against his shoulder.

“Nope, sorry, can't do that,” Jack said, pulling away from her. “It's like having my sister hit on me. I can hear the stories but I can't be dealing with that. Red line right there. Cauliflower. Cauliflower.”

Rose's eyebrows lifted. “Cauliflower?”

“His safe word,” Mickey told them.

“Why –?”

“Do you say cauliflower in the heat of the moment a lot?” Jack asked and Rose tipped her head to one side, conceding the point. He spun to face Zoe who remained perched on the scooter, bemused. “Stop flirting with me.”

“That wasn't flirting,” she said. “That was more... _teasing_.”

“I'm sorry, this is where I have to draw the line,” he told her. “I want to hear all about your sexcapades in as much detail as you can but having you _tease_ me makes me want to break out in hives. God, I never thought I'd see the day I'd be telling a gorgeous woman to stop it but here I am. Mickey, quick, take my temperature.”

Mickey snorted. “Drama queen.”

“It's really hard not to take offence right now,” Zoe said, lips forming a pout as she frowned. “I once saw you be receptive to a pig's flirtations.”

The Doctor sighed. “He wasn't a pig. He was a Goajen and they just happen to look like Earth pigs on their hindquarters.”

Jack reached out and took her face in his hands, skin warm and soft against her cheeks that he slowly squished until she resembled a fish.

“I love you very much,” he told her, seriously. “And you're one of the most beautiful people I know but having you flirt with me feels incestuous.”

Her mouth moved and he eased the pressure. “What about Rose?”

“That's different.”

“How?”

“Just is,” he said. “Besides, I've already kissed Rose so that boat's well and truly sailed.”

“I'm sorry, you what?!” Zoe pushed his hands away and gaped at him, turning wide eyes onto her sister who looked supremely interested in the bunting overhead. “You snogged Jack? When?”

“At the Scottish place you went to with Queen Vic,” Mickey said, shrugging when she looked at him. “Jack told me.”

Her eyes fell onto the Doctor. “Did you know about this?”

“I suspected,” he said, awkwardly. “I knew I walked in on something but I really didn't want to know what.”

“And I'm the last to know?” Zoe asked, annoyed. “Really?”

“Oh no,” Rose said, sarcasm dripping from her. “I wonder what that's like.”

“Shut up.” Her eyes rolled before looking with Rose's, curious. “How was it? Was it good? I bet it was good.”

Releasing her face, he shook his head and ambled away from her, half listening to the back and forth between her and Rose about his kissing abilities. Mickey refused to be drawn into the discussion, preferring a dignified and aloof silence whenever they turned to him for verification, and Jack smiled up at the bunting. _Idiots_ , he was friends with idiots. Pleased with the friendly bickering that, not too long ago had taken a sharp, painful edge, he watched the small British flags flap in the breeze, shivering on the string that stretched them from one building to another.

“I don't get it,” he said, interrupting the sisters. “Why put out tiny flags. What's the point? Are people going to forget what country they're in?”

“It's buntin',” Rose told him. “An' it doesn't always have the flag on it. We used to have parties with them as kids in all sorts of different colours before Mickey nearly killed himself one year by runnin' into it.”

“They'd stretched it across the doorway,” Mickey shrugged. “It was goin' to grab a kid sooner or later.”

“But why?” Jack asked, frowning at the bunting. “It's just – what even is it? Paper? Plastic?”

“Looks like laminated paper to me,” the Doctor said. “And it's best not to ask too many questions about why these lot do things. I've been at it for centuries and still don't have any clue about the whys and wherefores.” Forgetting Rose was behind him, he leaned back only to straighten quickly when she squawked and batted at his shoulders. “Oops, sorry. Lost in thought for a moment there. I wonder why the old girl brought us here. I think there may be shenanigans afoot.”

“When aren't there?” Mickey asked. “Everywhere we go there are shenanigans.”

“I know.” His smile turned wide and toothy. “It's wonderful, isn't it?”

Rose knuckled his shoulder. “Where are we goin' then?”

“No idea,” he said. “But follow me!”

The Doctor sped off – as much as the scooter allowed him to – leaving Jack scrambling to get back on his scooter, unceremoniously shoving Zoe back who yelped, Mickey rolling past them with a grin on his face. Winding down smaller and smaller streets, Zoe was beginning to think that, yet again, he had no idea where he was going or what he was doing before they pulled out of a sharp corner and emerged onto a residential street that boasted a small handful of shops.

Tucked away on the corner was a butcher's with a small line outside that was five doors down from a newsagents where the owner was chasing two young, shoeless children out with a broom opposite a hair salon that reminded Zoe she needed to get her hair cut soon. London felt so much quieter and smaller than she was used to, cosy in a way it wasn't normally. Arms looped around Jack, she let them fall back when he brought them to a smooth stop along the pavement: Swinging her leg off the back, heel hitting the ground firmly, she pulled her helmet off and –

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Her body turned towards the vitriol, eyebrows lifting as a woman with milk-white skin and a sour expression on her round face glared at her. Zoe's eyes dragged over her, unimpressed, mouth lifting upwards as she saw the reason for her displeasure: Her husband stood at her side, suit a little too big for him, mouth slack as he stared at her unblinkingly.

“Parading around here like a tart,” the woman hissed. “We don't want –”

“Oi, fuck off!” Rose snapped from the behind the Doctor whose face was clouding over in anger. Fortunately for the woman, Rose climbed off the back of the scooter and stepped forward, pointing at her husband. “It's your husband who's trippin' over his tongue. Might want to get a muzzle for him before you let him out in public again, yeah?”

She gasped, free hand fluttering to her chest. “How dare you talk to me like that? Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Someone's who's unsatisfied in bed judgin' from him,” Rose shot back, huffing a laugh at the look on her face as Jack choked on his laughter. “Oh, I'm sorry, d'you not like bein' spoken to like this? Maybe you should've thought twice before callin' my sister a tart then. Fuck off out of here an' take the droolin' dog with you.”

Anger and mortification rolled over her expression leaving them with no doubt that no one had ever spoken to her like that before. Grabbing her husband's hand, they were treated to the entertaining sight of her attempting to drag a gawping man down the street before her loud snap of _Francis!_ brought him back to himself, the excuses beginning before they reached the corner.

“Bitch,” Rose spat. “You all right?”

“Not the first time that's happened, probably won't be the last,” Zoe said. “Thanks.”

Mickey stepped off his bike. “Want me to throw a brick through their window?”

“What, like last time?” Rose asked. “Haven't you had enough trouble with the police?”

“Last time?” Jack repeated. “What happened last time?”

“There were these thugs hanging around the estate when I was thirteen or fourteen,” Zoe explained, smiling when the Doctor took her hand, squeezing her fingers lightly and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I was coming home from school late and they were causing trouble by crowding me and spewing this vile sexual stuff at me when Mickey and Shareen came out of nowhere and scared them off. Micks found out where they lived though and went around with, who was it again? Rex and Deano?”

“An' Little Dave,” he said. “Tossed a few bricks through their windows, warned them off comin' round the estate again. They showed up once after that but a group of us got together an' scared them off.”

“That's awful,” the Doctor said. “You were only a child.”

She shrugged. “It's London, innit?”

“Don't go all London on me,” he said. “You know what that accent does to me.”

“Remind you of my teens?”

“Yes, it's weird because I've seen you naked since then.”

“An' there we go for too much information,” Rose sighed. “I think I preferred it when you two were keepin' it secret.”

“I don't,” Jack said, head appearing between them. “Tell me more, preferably in detail, please.”

“You just said Zoe's like your sister,” the Doctor said, hand in Jack's face, pushing him away. “And now you want to hear about her sex life?”

“I can hear about it but I can't participate in it,” he said, stumbling back into Mickey who kept him upright. “There's a difference.”

The small altercation hadn't drawn too much attention to them, at least not more than was their fair share given their means of transport and style of clothing. Moving along the street, eyes peeled for anything unusual, they attempted to look as discreet as their appearances loud. Sometimes Zoe thought the TARDIS enjoyed dumping them in the middle of a time and place when they were clearly not dressed appropriately just to entertain herself. It seemed like the sort of mischievous nonsense the ship enjoyed.

A sudden pull of her hand forced her to double step quickly to avoid falling over as the Doctor dragged her along in his wake, taking long strides towards a dusty van stacked with TV sets. A small grey-haired man slid a large banknote into his overalls and shook hands with his customer in front of the sign painted on the side of the van: **Magpie's Electricals**.

“There you go, sir,” Mr Magpie said with a smile, brushing his hands off down the front of his overalls. “All wired up for the great occasion. You enjoy yourself now.”

The Doctor slipped around the side of the van and looped an arm around Zoe to keep her on her feet, Jack, Rose, and Mickey crowding Magpie from the other side. Alarm passed across his face, fingers twitching around his neck; Zoe considered the effect all five of them at once had on people and sympathised.

“The great occasion?” The Doctor asked, cheerfully. “That's the Coronation then, yeah?”

Magpie eyed him, skin turning pink when he took in Zoe, eyes skittering determinedly away from her. “Any other great occasion I should know about?”

“The Korean War ends, Eisenhower becomes president in the States, the polio vaccine,” he rattled off. “Plenty of great occasions to be looking forward to, but I suppose you mean British ones, eh?”

“Are you mad?”

“Yes,” Mickey and Jack said in unison.

“Oi!”

“You can't be surprised by that,” Rose told him.

He pulled a face at her and Magpie shifted, uncomfortable. “I don't know much about what you're saying but it's the queen's coronation. We've been planning it ever since the old king died – God rest his soul – and it's what we do best, innit? Bit of pomp and circumstance, get everyone involved.”

“You British do enjoy a good elbows' up,” Jack nodded, leaning against the van, one ankle lightly crossed over the other.

Amusement curled Mickey's mouth up. “Knees' up, mate. _Knees_ _,_ not elbow.”

“Same difference.”

“He's...American,” Zoe explained after a beat. “Still getting used to slang here.”

Magpie raised his eyebrows, nodding at her with a pointedness that bordered on rude. “And what are you?”

“French,” she lied.

The Doctor coughed once to hide his amusement before Rose caught his attention, gesturing at the houses around them. He looked only to fail to see what it was that she felt was important. Her toes tapped against the ground and he considered that she was sending him morse code before she pointed, whites of her eyes flashing on a roll.

“The TV aerials,” she said. “Look at 'em, it looks like everyone's got one. I remember our nan tellin' us that tellies were so rare they all had to pile into one house to watch it.”

“Not around here, love,” Magpie told her, patting his open door. “Magpie's Marvellous Tellies, only five quid a pop.”

“That's cheap,” Mickey noted, peering into the back of the van. “Good quality sets too. How you gettin' away floggin' them at that price?”

“Supply and demand,” he explained with a shrug. “The more people want them, the more money I make. Don't matter if I sell 'em cheaper, I'll still be earning plenty.”

“That's very patriotic of you,” Jack said, removing a small nail file from his emergency beauty kit and rubbing it across the top of his middle finger to smooth the line out. He looked up at Mickey and smiled. “Think we should buy one, darling?”

Mickey smiled back at him. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“Right, well.” Magpie awkwardly fumbled with the door, cheeks burnished red. “That's me done. Unless you want to buy one that is?”

“Not us,” Zoe said. “We're just passing through. Good luck with business.”

Eyes turned to the ground, he managed to shut the van doors without any of them moving out of his way to make it easier and nervously edged past Jack and Mickey. Rose slipped a new piece of gum into her mouth and chewed, watching him with open amusement. Only when the van's engines rumbled to life and black fumes spat from the exhaust did they step up onto the pavement, watching Magpie trundle away in his van.

“Racist, homophobic, or uncomfortable?” Rose asked.

“Probably just uncomfortable,” Zoe said. “The five of us were crowding him a bit there. Surprised the TV's are going so cheap though. What's £5 in our money?”

“About £100,” the Doctor replied. “Which is more or less the average weekly salary around him but it's still cheaper than they should be. Most TVs go for about £80 round about now and that's nearly £2000 in your money.”

“Huh.” She looked up at him. “Why do you have that information in your head?”

“Susan wanted a TV when we first arrived on Earth,” he said. “I wasn't about to buy one for her without doing the research.”

Rose popped her gum. “When you say _buy_?”

“I mean liberate.”

“An' when you say _liberate_?”

“He absolutely means steal,” Jack grinned. “Doctor. Shame on you.”

“You can't be _that_ surprised,” he said. “I did steal the TARDIS.”

“I'm not sure I like Zoe knockin' about with a thief,” Mickey said, arms folded across his chest as Zoe snorted. “You might be a bad influence on her.”

“Unlikely with this one,” the Doctor said, kissing the top of her head. “Now, enough chinwagging. I'm beginning to think Mrs Moore was right, we do enjoy a good gossip. It gets us distracted half the time.”

“Distracted from what?” Rose asked. “We don't know what's goin' on yet. For all we know, the TARDIS is just havin' fun with us.”

“That is something she'd do,” Jack agreed. “She's taken us on all sorts of adventures before that don't always mean something bad. Remember that time she took us to Yiop and we discovered those peach tart things? That wasn't bad.”

“Was that before or after the tsunami?” Zoe asked.

“Yes, yes, the TARDIS is a naughty girl –” every one of them grimaced at that and the Doctor pulled a face. “Please don't tell her I said that, I'll never live it down.”

“I'd like to forget you said that,” Mickey complained, scrubbing at his ear. “Can we please get back on topic an' not your weird relationship with your ship?”

“It's not –” the Doctor sighed. “Fine. We're in 1953.”

“Yeah, we know that,” Rose said. “Thanks to Zoe.”

His sliced his eyes towards her with an annoyance that only lifted when she popped her gum at him, amusement dancing across his face.

“Then you'll also know that this is a brilliant year,” he continued. “One of the best actually. You've got technicolour coming in, Everest being climbed, Ian Fleming publishing the first James Bond novel.” His voice suddenly took on a very English and very posh accent. “And the nation throws off the shadows of war and looks forward to a happier, brighter future.”

The scream that tore through the air made them jump. Zoe startled so badly that she tripped and grabbed hold of the Doctor's coat, throttling him as she tried to stay on her feet, his arm reaching out to yank her up.

“That wasn't my fault,” he said, quickly, as Jack's turned a judgemental face in his direction. “Jinxes aren't real. That was just a just a coincidence.”

“Amazing how so many coincidences happen around you, isn't it?”

“That doesn't look good,” Mickey commented, watching as the door to a house further down the burst open and two men in black suits bundled a person hidden beneath a blanket out of the it and into a waiting black car. “Really not good.”

“No, please,” a woman screamed, racing from the house with tears on her face and a floured apron around her waist. “Someone help me, please! Ted – _TED_! Leave him alone, please, he's my husband! _Please_.”

Leaving the steadying curve of the Doctor's arm, Zoe ran down the pavement towards the disturbance, her heels slowing her down just enough for Jack to overtake her. She knew better than to wear heels out of the TARDIS when anything could happen and yet she never learned from his mistakes. Putting her foot down in a small crack along the pavement, her knee buckled and she tumbled, reaching out to grab hold of a teenage boy – no more than fifteen or sixteen – who had hurried out of a neighbouring house to see what the disturbance was. He cried out in surprise at having Zoe throw herself at him, his reactions swift enough to keep her from falling over.

“Hey.” Jack placed himself between the police officer and the car. “What's going on?”

“Police business,” the detective said, voice clipped as he attempted to move Jack physically from his path only to fail when Jack centred his weight. “Get out of the way, sir.”

Jack stared back at him. “Where are you taking him?”

A baton lashed out and clipped against Jack's side, the pain spasming out, and a hand shoved him out of the way and into Mickey who slipped beneath him to soften his fall, frightened that his knees would revert to their damaged state if they hit the tarmac.

“Oi!” Rose slapped her hands against the side of the black car. “That's police brutality!”

“Rose, get back,” the Doctor called a warning, reaching for her and snagging the back of her denim jacket to pull her out of the way as the car doors slammed shut and the engine revved. “Attacking someone like that, bloody cowardly thing to do.”

Jack coughed up a lungful of exhaust fumes. “I've got London in my mouth.”

Rose offered him a stick of gum.

“That was strange,” Zoe said, looking to the teenager who she had her arm hooked around. Straightening up, she released him. “Hello.”

Skin staining with colour, the boy kept his eyes firmly on her face. “Ma'am.”

“You're polite, I like that,” she said. “Who was it they took? Do you know him?”

“Must be Mr Gallagher,” he replied, rubbing his arm where she had been plastered against him, the sound of the car screeching around a corner. “It's happening all over the place. They're turning into monsters.”

The Doctor leaned forward. “Monsters, you say?”

“Tommy!” The boy jumped as his father appeared in the doorway, dark eyes glaring out at them, expression only darkening at the sight of Zoe and Mickey near his property. “Not one word. Get inside now!”

“Sorry,” Tommy apologised, chin dipping to his chest, tension running through him. “I'd better do as he says. Good luck.”

Zoe watched him go, a crease of concern pressing between her eyes before she met his father's furious expression evenly. A shiver of satisfaction ran through her as uncertainty settled in his jowls, a small hesitation in his fingers before the door shut on them. Turning away, she found Jack at her side, sat upon the scooter that he had doubled back to fetch, helmet in his hand extended towards her.

“Hop on, Zo, we're going for a ride.”

“A car chase?” She asked, putting the helmet on. “They're already gone though.”

“Gone from sight not from hearing,” he said, swinging his leg over and revving the engine. “Now, come on.”

“Don't let them get away,” the Doctor called after them, dragging the others back to their bikes. “And hurry!”

It was quickly apparent to her that the scooters had been tinkered with. The lack of surprise she felt made her smile, the thought of the Doctor sitting on the floor of his garage surrounded by bits of scooter as he attempted to make it go faster was something she enjoyed. Holding onto Jack tighter, her fingers curling against the flat strength of his stomach, they rounded a corner a little too fast. Bodies dipping towards the ground, her trust in Jack was absolute, they rapidly closed the distance between them and the black car.

Stomach fizzing with the excitement of a car chase, she relished the adrenaline rushing through her and wondered if Mickey would teach her how to ride a motorbike when they were on Drana. He had offered to teach her to drive once, just after Rose came back into their lives with the Doctor and before she moved onto the TARDIS, but she had been so busy with studying for her A-Levels that she had turned him down. She hoped the invitation was still on the table as the thought of the two of them racing each other on Drana sent thrills through her.

Jack suddenly applied the breaks, her body shifting forwards into his, a small _oof_ leaving her as they stopped on a road that led to a dead end.

“What?” He stared ahead of them, disappointed. “Where did they go?”

A man behind a fruit and veg market stall looked at them, disapproval clinging to him in a way that set Zoe's teeth on edge.

“Is this the right street?” She twisted around to look behind her. “Did we miss another turning?”

“No, this is the right one,” he said. “They've just disappeared.”

“Not possible,” she replied. “That car had to go somewhere unless it's an alien car. Cloaking device?”

Jack stared at the fruit vendor, smile playing across his mouth. “Sometimes I forget that the old tricks I learnt are brand new in this time.”

She frowned. “What do you –?”

The roar of Mickey's motorbike cut her off as the others caught up with them, the strap of the Doctor's helmet knocking against the soft skin of his throat, Rose's arms around his waist.

“You lost them?” He complained. “How the hell did you lose them?”

“Surprised they didn't turn back and arrest you for reckless driving,” Rose said, poking him in the side. “Have you actually passed your test?”

“No.”

She rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

“Men in black? Vanishing police cars?” He listed as Jack waited patiently for a break in the Doctor's ramblings, grinning when he met Mickey's eyes. “This is Churchill's England not Stalin's Russia.”

Rose worked her jaw, the strap too tight under her chin. “Monsters, that boy said. Maybe we should go and ask the neighbours.”

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at her. “That's what I like about you, the domestic approach.”

“Thank you.” Pride suffused over her face that froze when a thought struck her. “Hold on, was that an insult?”

Before Rose clobbered the Doctor over the head with his own helmet, Jack cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. “If you're both finished then I can tell you that we haven't lost them.”

The Doctor held Rose at bay with an elbow. “Oh?”

He pointed. “The market stall. It's a clever trick in the here and now but it's been done to death by my time. You have a location that you make look normal and active but it's really just a front for the secret base behind it.”

The Doctor's face widened in a grin. “Ooo, very nice.”

“Before we start poking around here,” Zoe cautioned when he made to clamber off his scooter, eager to stick his nose in where it might be chopped off. “Why don't we find out about these _monsters_ first and see what we're dealing with. I don't really want to walk into something without knowing a bit about it first. It's like Jack always says, check the corners and doors before entering a room.”

Mickey leaned back against his bike. “Sometimes I hear him say that in his sleep: _corners an' doors, corners an' doors_. It's a little weird.”

“Do I really?” Jack asked. “What else do I say?”

“ _I want another pear_ was from last night,” he said. Zoe pressed her forehead against Jack's shoulder, laughing quietly. “You were pretty insistent about it. You kind of just chanted _pear, pear, pear_ for a bit an' then stopped.”

“Zoe talks in her sleep sometimes too,” the Doctor told them. “Normally in French and generally to do with baking.”

She blinked in surprise. “I do?”

“Only when you're really tired,” he said with a nod. “Remember that apple bread we had last week?”

Rose sighed blissfully. “That was so tasty.”

“Got it from a recipe Zoe was muttering about,” he said. “We should record the pair of you and see what other gems you have for us.”

“Jack's stuff gets a little...R-rated,” Mickey admitted.

“Does it now?” Jack turned the scooter so that he was facing Mickey. “What _exactly_ do I say?”

“Don't we have monsters to investigate?” Zoe asked quickly, thoroughly uncomfortable with the idea of learning details of Jack's fantasies that she was sure were far more detailed and involved than anything she had ever heard of before. “Disappearing people? Other nefarious things.”

“Thirty years old and still can't talk about sex.” Jack patted her knee. “You're a cornucopia of intricacies, aren't you?”

“You wanted to say prudish then,” she noted. “And I can talk about sex, I just don't want to talk about Mickey and sex. There's a big difference.”

“Sex,” the Doctor repeated, mouth wrapping around the word. “Funny little word, isn't it. _Sex_. It doesn't even sound like a word any more. Sex. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. Sex. _”_

Rose closed her eyes behind him and gathered her patience to her chest. “Zoe's right. We need to go an' investigate.”

“Agreed,” he said before, unable to help himself, he uttered one last – “ _sex_.”

The sun was beginning to lower itself below the horizon when they arrived back on the street that the man had been taken from, pinks and oranges spreading across the sky as an inky blackness crept in. Zoe zipped her jacket up to keep the chill out and lingered on the pavement as the boys fussed over the scooters and motorbike, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip to refrain from telling them to hurry up; at her side, Rose hugged herself as the temperature of the day oozed away.

Slowly beginning to lose her patience with their fussing over machinery – and she never understood why bikes and ships captured people's attention so much – she cleared her throat; the Doctor's head popped up and blinked at her.

“Hello.”

_Idiot_ she thought, fondly.

“Why don't we split up?” Zoe suggested, the Doctor sticking his hands in his pockets and loping towards her. “Rose and I can take this side of the street, you three can take the others.”

“Er –” Jack said in the way that she recognised as a prelude to him saying something she wasn't going to like. “Might be better if we have male-female teams for this one.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“It's the 1950s in Britain,” he pointed out. “You're both women and you're also black, which is also why Mickey shouldn't be knocking on doors without me or the Doctor.”

Zoe gasped and held her arms out in front of her, examining her hands as though seeing her skin colour for the first time. “I'm _black_. Am I really? I never knew. Rosie, how could you not tell me this?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jack waved his hand at her. “Point still stands that a black woman dressed like you isn't going to get the same answers as a white man who looks like me.”

She shook her head with a sigh. “It's like we're in the fucking dark ages. Fine. Me and you then. Rose and the Doctor can do their... _thing_ and Mickey can keep an eye on them. Sorry, Micks, but you've pulled babysitting duty tonight.”

“Dammit,” he muttered, hands in his pocket.

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor interrupted. “Our thing?”

“You do have a thing,” Mickey told them. “Always have. Bit of a double act an' everythin'.”

Rose's tongue pressed against her teeth when she smiled up at him. He bumped hips with her before dipping his hand into his pocket. “Here, take the psychic paper. You two'll probably need it more than we will. A black woman and an American are going to need all the help.”

Jack slipped it into his pocket. “Why am I always an American?”

“You sound it,” the Doctor said before shooing them away. “Go, investigate. Rendezvous when we're done.” He caught Zoe by the arm and tugged her to him, kissing her quickly. “Stay safe.”

“You too,” she said. “Mickey, keep an eye on them.”

Mickey gave her a small salute and shared a fleeting kiss with Jack before hopping off the pavement and waiting for Rose and the Doctor to join him before setting off across the street to a row of houses with lace curtains and carefully pruned plants.

Jack offered his arm to Zoe. “Shall we?”

“Such a gentleman,” she smiled, taking it as he led them down the pavement to a house she recognised. “This is Tommy's place, isn't it?

“Figured it was a good place to start,” he said, pausing outside the gate. “He seemed the talkative type.”

“The dad didn't.”

“I'm sure you can handle him.”

She grinned and plucked the psychic paper from his pocket, eyes sparkling. “Go on then, who do you want to be this time? FBI agents? MI5? London's secret police?”

He snorted. “How about Scotland yard?”

“Don't rightly think Tommy's dad would be too bothered about police officers,” she considered, peering at the house. “You see those medals on his chest earlier? Military man. Definitely fought in World War Two. Probably something of a patriot.”

“Representatives of Her Majesty the Queen?” Jack suggested, adopting a flawlessly posh English accent, startling her.

“Nice!”

“Accents,” he shrugged, pleased. “One of my best classes at the Agency. Excellent in bed too.”

“Tell me about it,” she said without thinking. “The Doctor's Scottish accent really gets me –” she cut herself off with a blush, looking away from his knowing grin. “Never mind. C'mon.”

She felt Jack's grin on the back of her head as she made up the path to the front door and rang the doorbell, falling back to stand next to him. Shadows passed across the glass of the door, bodies moving, before it opened and Tommy's father stood there filling the door frame. Recognition sent displeasure sweeping across his face.

“You again,” he snarled. “We don't need your sort around here.”

Zoe inclined her head as though curious. “My sort being?”

“A harlot,” he said, sharply. “And a fuzzy to boot.”

“Haven't heard _fuzzy_ in ages,” she said, eyes sweeping over him. “Let me guess, you served with soldiers from Africa when you were off defending King and country.”

He sniffed. “What of it?”

“Just that your racism lacks imagination,” Zoe replied, flipping open the psychic paper and enjoying how his face blanched as read the information she projected onto it. “As you can see, we represent Queen Elizabeth II and this great country. We're just here to make sure that everything's in order ahead of Her Majesty's big day. I'm Agent Scully, this is Agent Mulder. You don't mind if we come in, do you?”

The lines of anger and curl of racism drained from him as his entire attitude changed on a dime. He turned obsequious, half bowing to them as he stepped back from the door to let them in, chest expanding with pride at being selected by the queen's representatives. Not trusting a man who was openly racist to not change his mind and attack once Zoe got going, her mouth sure to run away from her, Jack stayed on top of her and touched her thigh to let her know he was right behind her.

  
“What a lovely home,” Zoe said when she stepped into the living room where Tommy and his mother were sat in nervous silence. “I love the décor, Mrs...?”

“Connolly,” Rita said, hands smoothing down the front of her dress, fingers twisting nervously in her skirt. “Please, do come in.”

Her eyes darted nervously towards her husband, shoulders hunched in on herself even as she tried to stand straight.

“Now then, Rita, I can handle this,” Mr Connolly said, shoulders rolling back. “This gentleman's a proper representative. Don't mind the wife, she rattles on a bit. Handsome bloke like you, I'm sure you know how it is.”

“My boyfriend's more of the quiet type,” Jack replied, fascinated at how quickly a man was able to change colour: Puce, he decided, was not a good look on the man. “But we don't mind a bit of talking. And it's lovely to meet you, Mrs Connolly. I'm Jack, this is Zoe. We're from the palace.”

A blush stained Rita's cheeks in the face of Jack's smile. “Oh, my.”

“And I'm not the one in charge, that's my partner here,” he said, deliberately catching Mr Connolly's eyes. “She's my boss.”

Connolly's face dropped, jowls wobbling. “Really?”

“Really, really.”

“If he works hard though, he'll get a promotion to be sure,” Zoe said, pointing at the bunting that was piled in one corner. “Is there a reason that's not up?”

Mr Connolly hesitated. Every part of him wanted to throw them out of his house: a black woman and a gay man were everything he stood against, the sordidness and illegality of their lives and their inability to ever be equal to him caused bile to gather in his stomach. Yet, they were representatives of the palace and his patriotism stayed his hand. Anger boiled up within him at the difficult situation he found himself in and he turned to his wife, eyes flashing, ignoring the small hitch of breath that caught in her throat – she was stupid for being frightened of him as he only hurt her when she needed it – and nodded sharply.

“I told you, Rita, didn't I tell you?” The fact that she had been planning to hang the bunting that morning and he had told her not to be silly, no one was coming around until tomorrow, slipped his mind completely. “Get them up, quickly now. For queen and country. _Hurry_.”

“I'm sorry,” Rita whispered, a delicate tremble rolling through her. “I'll do –”

“Get it done,” Connolly snapped, making her jump. “Do it now.”

“Just a moment,” Jack said, pleasant enough to other people's ears but Zoe knew what he sounded like when he was swallowing back his anger. “Why don't you hang them instead of getting your wife to do it? Is there something wrong with your hands?”

Bewilderment passed over his face, and Zoe _almost_ felt sorry for him. The world was changing around him yet he was trying desperately to cling onto a past that was becoming rapidly outdated.

“Well, it's housework, innit?”

“So?”

“That's the woman's job.”

Jack wondered if he was ever get used to the gender politics in the 20th and 21st century. The books that Sarah Jane had recommended to him when they had had lunch the day after Jackie's birthday party, K9 bumping into their feet in the restaurant and making a group of small children laugh, were helping him to understand the development of LGBTQ+ rights in the 21st century. With that came a discussion of gender and the archaicness of it all was dizzying to Jack.

Three thousand years stretched between his time and the 21st century and he had to remind himself to make allowances for that but, sometimes, he wanted to scream.but it was all so archaic and backwards that Jack sometimes wanted to scream.

Even Zoe, who by all standards was more liberal and understanding than most because of her unique history of living in different sections of time, stumbled occasionally when it came to understanding and talking about gender. And if someone as intelligent and compassionate as Zoe was unable to understand it effortlessly then someone with a narrow-minded outlook such as Mr Connolly had no chance of changing his stripes without a lot of pain, suffering, and loss along the way. However, the difference was that Zoe – and Rose and Mickey and Jackie – wanted to change and be better, they wanted to understand.

He doubted Mr Connolly would consider it worth the effort.

Rubbing the lines from his forehead, Jack sighed. “You live here, don't you?”

“Course I do.”

“Then pitch in and decorate _your_ house,” he said, temper fraying on the edges of his words. “You don't think the queen goes around stringing up her own bunting, does she? No, of course she doesn't. She's got men to do that for her so, if you don't mind, get to it. Chip-chip.”

Zoe passed a hand over her mouth and murmured, “chop-chop.”

“Chop-chop,” he corrected.

There was a beat of hesitation where Jack wondered if Connolly was going to push back against being given orders in his own house – everyone Jack knew certainly would have – before he swallowed back his pride and nodded.

“Right. Yes, sir. You'll be proud of us, sir.” Connolly snapped to action, fumbling with the puddles of bunting as Rita watched him in silent amazement, Tommy blinked as though unable to believe his eyes. “We'll have Union Jacks left, right and centre.”

Zoe's sympathy for a man struggling to live without the structure of war was outweighed by the fact that he was a racist so she interrupted. “Union Jacks?”

Connolly looked at her with an uncertainty that was clearly more to do with Jack than Zoe. “Yes, that's right, isn't it?”

“That's the Union Flag,” she told him, politely. “It's the Union Jack only when it's flown at sea. You should know this, Mr Connolly. Patriot that you are.”

“Oh.” He blinked, colour creeping into his cheeks, embarrassed, and looked down at his hands. _Okay,_ Zoe thought, _enough now_. “Oh, I'm sorry, I do apologise.”

“Easy mistake to make.”

She turned from him in a clear dismissal that she knew would rankle, sitting on the sofa with a stunned Mrs Connolly and Tommy. She imagined that not many people spoke back to Mr Connolly and got away with it.

  
Jack sat next to her, leaning a little too close so as to murmur into her ear, “Union Flag?”

“Mum dated a sailor for half a minute when I was ten,” she whispered before turning her most charming smile onto Rita and Tommy, making herself comfortable by tucking her feet neatly to one side, hands folded in her lap. “Anyway, as we were saying, we're Zoe and Jack. Now, I know we met earlier – apologies for falling all over you and all that – but we didn't get your name. Who are you?”

He was able to meet her eyes this time, helped along by the fact that she was sitting, her jacket was zipped up, and she had just put his father in his place. “Tommy.”

“Tommy,” she repeated, patting the space on the sofa between her and Jack encouragingly. “Lovely name Tommy. Short for Thomas, is it?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “You can call me Zoe. Ma'am makes me feel like I'm an adult.”

He ducked his head, hiding his laugh in a way that she recognised – hand over his mouth, a slight shame to it; clearly the Connollys wasn't a house where laughter was given free rein. Patting his arm kindly, she heaped her charm onto Rita Connolly whose hands were clasped in her lap, eyes sliding over to her husband every few seconds as though unable to believe what he was seeing.

“You've a truly lovely home, Mrs Connolly,” she complimented. “I like what you've done with the space.”

“Thank – thank you,” Rita said, quietly. “It's my mother's home really. I –” Mr Connolly knocked his elbow into the wall heavily and she blanched, fingers flying to her pearls. “I mean, thank you. Th-thank you, it's very kind of you to say so.”

“I like your TV,” Jack said. “I don't have one myself but it's something else, isn't it?”

Tommy's face brightened with a smile. “I think it's brilliant.”

Zoe doubted he was given the opportunity to smile much with his father in the house and imagined his childhood when Mr Connolly was at war was a nicer, kinder time. Giving him a small wink, he blushed and looked down at his knees as she used the reflective surface of the TV screen to check on Mr Connolly and saw that he was absently trying to string the bunting as he listened in. Deciding that time was of the essence with a powder keg like him in the room, she switched tracks and jumped away from small talk.

“We know something's wrong,” Zoe said. “Whatever happened on the street with your neighbour clearly isn't right. If you tell us then we can help you. We've dealt with far stranger things before.”

“Not like this,” Tommy whispered, eyes flying wide, not having meant to speak. His body ran tight with tension. “I mean, this is – no one knows what it is.”

“Maybe not yet,” Jack said, leaning forward. “But Zoe's right, we've dealt with some very strange things in our time. Things that you can't even imagine. So, whatever this is, we can help you. It's what we do.”

Rita chewed on her bottom lip, dry flakes of skin cracking beneath her teeth. “Can you help her?”

“Help who?” Zoe asked.

She opened his mouth but it was Connolly who spoke first, cracking later than either Zoe or Jack expected.

“Hold on just one minute.” The bunting fell into an angry pile at his feet, angry colour splotching his cheek, and Zoe felt rather than heard Jack sigh at her back. “Queen and country's one thing, but this is my house! I won't have this.” Rita flinched when he strode forward, and Jack rose to his feet, positioning himself between Connolly and his wife, confident that Zoe was able to handle him if he threw a punch. “Now you listen here, Agent Mulder. You may work for the queen but what goes on under my roof is my business!”

“Mr Connolly,” Jack said with more patience than he deserved. “A lot of people are being taken under cover to –”

“I am talking,” he roared, spittle flecking Jack's cheek. “And I –”

“Be quiet!” Jack shouted back, the strength of his voice startling Connolly into silence. Zoe stared in amazement as she had never once heard Jack raise his voice in anger; he barely even shouted when they were in danger, preferring to whistle and conduct a series of complicated hand gestures that no one ever understood. “Listen to me and listen to me carefully. Something bad is happening here, you've seen it yourself. People are being taken out of their homes by police and locked away somewhere that's hidden. None of that is normal no matter what you've told yourself so that you can stop being afraid. There's trouble on this street and that trouble will come into this house, just like it came to your neighbours, if you don't let us help. So I'm asking you, _politely_ , to tell us what's going on before it's too late!”

_Thump._

_Thump._

_Thump._

Zoe and Jack looked up at the ceiling, startled.

“Well, that's terrifying,” Zoe said. “What on earth's that?”

“She won't stop,” Mr Connolly said, anger draining from him, his face lined with exhaustion. “She never stops. It's constant. That thump-thump thumping. Every night. Every day. Thump-thump- _thump_.”

“Who?” Jack asked. “Who is she?”

“My gran,” Tommy said, quietly. “We started hearing stories all round the place about people who've changed. Families keeping it secret because they were scared. Then the police started finding out about them but we don't know how, no one does. They just turn up, come to the door, and take them, any time of the day or night.”

Jack considered the information. “When did this start happening?”

“About a month ago,” Rita whispered, pale beneath her powdered make up and overhead light. “It's got worse in the last week though. More and more people...it keeps happening.”

“What keeps happening?” Zoe pressed. “Why do the police come and take these people?”

“It's...it's their faces...” Tommy said, struggling. “They don't have faces.”

Zoe and Jack stared at him.

“They don't have –” Jack began, shaking his head. “Show us. Please.”

Hesitant, Tommy looked to his mother who nodded her permission when her husband remained quiet, _defeated._

Stepping around his father, Tommy took Zoe's extended hand and led her and Jack up the stairs into a darkened hallway to a locked door. He knocked gently against the wooden pane before taking the key from Rita who hung back in the shadows, nervous and afraid, and unlocked the door. The room was dark and there was a sweet smell within – like fruit rotting in a bowl – and Zoe and Jack stepped inside. In front of a window, framed by the moonlight, was an old woman in her nightgown. Tommy turned a lamp on and, like a moth detecting light, she turned.

Zoe sucked in a startled breath and Jack's fingers brushed against hers in surprise.

Her face was gone: No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Nothing had been pulled out or carved off as her face was a smooth stretch of skin over bone leaving a blank, empty, and utterly terrifying canvas.

“My god,” Zoe breathed, reaching into her pocket to remove her glasses. She slipped them on over her nose and her vision righted itself as she stepped up close to the woman. “Jack, there's nothing there. There's not even a mark.”

“It's just completely gone,” Jack said, hand reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone, activating a scan that he ran over the woman's face. “There's not even an electrical impulse. It looks like an almost complete neural shutdown. She's still alive but it's like her brain's been wiped clean.”

“Let me see that,” she said, taking the phone. “Even with memory wipes, there's still something there. Like a path that's been swept clean but reclaimed by nature. There's always something left behind.”

“Not here.”

“What're we going to do?” Tommy asked, worriedly. “We can't even feed her.”

Below them, there was a loud, thundering pound against the front door and shouted voices. They heard Connolly's slow, heavy footsteps move from the living room except he was too late, the impatience of those at the door leading them to kick it open, shattering it from his hinges and making Rita scream.

“Company,” Jack noted, spinning to face Tommy. “Tell us everything and tell us quickly. What was she doing before this happened? Where was she? Did she eat anything? Speak to anyone? Do anything unusual?”

“I – er –” Tommy panicked, his mind going blank. “I can't think! I'm sorry. She – she doesn't leave the house. She was just –”

Dark suited men, similar though not the same as the ones earlier, stormed the room. Jack shifted and jumped in front of Zoe and the old woman, mouth opening to stop them, when a fist slammed into his jaw and he hit the ground. Lunging forwards, Zoe caught the man's arm on its backwards swing and she twisted it behind his back, shoving him face first into a wall only to be grabbed around the waist and unceremoniously flung out of the way, bouncing off the stale bed, knocking over a full glass of tepid water that soaked into the carpet.

Above her head, Tommy and Rita were arguing with the men who grabbed the woman and threw a blanket over the top of her, following them down the stairs as they argued and protested, begging for her to be given back to them. Pulling herself back to her feet, Zoe staggered to Jack and helped him up, up onto her knees and checked on Jack who was shaking the punch off, looking groggy and annoyed, blood swelling like a tear droplet on his split lip.

“You okay?”

“That was a better right hook than I thought it'd be,” he groaned, stretching his jaw out and smearing the blood over his cheek. “ _Ow_.”

  
“Come on,” she said and, once she was sure he was fine, sprinted down the stairs as fast as her shoes allowed her and past a sobbing Rita outside the house who was begging the men not to hurt her mother, Tommy holding her in his arms, horrified. “Jack, come on!”

She forced herself past Mr Connolly who was standing by the door yelling at his wife and son to get back inside, neighbours peeking out from behind their curtains, some venturing to step out onto their front porches. At the end of the street, framed by the street lamp, the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey were watching the events unfold with interest.

“But, Dad,” Tommy protested, pale in the starlight. “They took her!”

“Don't fight it, son,” he said, shaking his head. “Just don't fight it.”

“Jack,” Zoe yelled, grabbing hold of their scooter. “Come – on!”

Jack hurtled out of the house and nearly tripped over Rita before he jumped onto the scooter in front of her. She grabbed hold of him as he gunned the acceleration, the wind whipping at her as they gave chase, helmets forgotten in the rush. Twisting through the streets, following the same path as earlier, they were still not quick enough to stop the market stalls from being dragged across the door. The sight of covered fruit and vegetables might have made Zoe laugh under other circumstances but she didn't have time as Jack doubled back, engine humming, and parked the scooter on another street.

Taking her hand he led them between houses and startled a cat that hissed at them before skittering behind some bins. Casting their gazes about for security cameras – unlikely given the time – they crept across the street and ducked down behind the market stall.

“The Doctor may have a sonic screwdriver,” Jack said, removing a small toolkit from his pocket. “But I have an _actual_ screwdriver.”

“That's not as impressive as you think it is,” she whispered.

Slipping in through the grating that Jack pried apart, they found themselves in a shadowed warehouse where the temperature plunged. Keeping close to the corner, they watched as the two men from the Connollys' house locked a wire cage with what looked like mannequins inside. Considering that Zoe's last experience with mannequins had been the night they came alive in London, startling her on the way back from college when she paused to look in a shop window at a coat she couldn't afford, she eyed them warily.

“C'mon,” Jack murmured. “Quickly.”

Pulling her shoes off to move silently, they closed the distance as the men disappeared into the office for what she assumed was a cup of tea and a biscuit. Standing at Jack's back as he picked the lock, the cold soaked into her feet and forced her to shift her weight back and forth between them until they were inside. Quickly pulling her shoes back on, she removed her phone and activated the flashlight, taking a step back into Jack at the sight of the faceless people standing there silently, their fists clenching rhythmically at their sides.

“This is strange,” Zoe whispered to Jack, flicking open her scanner and moving carefully between the bodies to get their information. “Same readings but there's no pattern to it. Different genders, different ages, and different health, but there's nothing linking them together.”

“Not biologically anyway,” Jack said, peering into the blank faces and touching his fingers to their cheeks. “But there's always something to link victims together. _Always_.”

“You sure about that?”

“At least in my experience,” he said. “Could be something they ate, somewhere they went. There has to be a connection.”

“We need to find out who these people are then,” Zoe said. “And we need to start looking for –”

The room flooded with light, cutting her off. Lifting her arm to protect her eyes from the brightness, she made out a group of men pointing their guns at them. At her side, Jack sighed and slowly raised his hands.

“Stay where you are,” a detective barked. “You're under arrest.”


	46. Chapter 46

Chilli and coriander burst across the Doctor's tongue as he bit into a crisp samosa and enjoyed the hospitality of Mrs Khan of Number 13. Rose's domestic approach wasn't working as well as it might have done given Mickey's presence on a street that seemed to abhor people of colour and Mrs Khan welcoming them into her home before thinking to ask what they wanted was a pleasant change of pace. Multiple doors had been slammed in their faces, although Peter Quint from Number 3 had been nice enough until he invited Rose and only Rose inside but he was still preferably to the fiercely racist young woman at Number 7 who would have had her nose broken if Mickey hadn't grabbed Rose around her waist and physically hauled her away.

The Doctor doubted the lecture he delivered on her doorstep about equality between the races – _and, let's be honest, young lady, it's not as though you are actually separate races after all, are you? Nope, you lot've just got it into your silly little heads that – hey!_ – before she shut the door on him too was going to sink in. And with that incident quickly followed by Zoe and Jack bursting out of a house across the street as another person was shoved into the back of a black car with a blanket over their head, the Doctor wasn't particularly enjoying his night, which made Mrs Khan's warm hospitality all the more welcome.

“These are great samosa, Mrs K,” Mickey said, having picked up an excess of charm from watching Jack. “Perfectly spiced, very crispy.”

“You are a dear,” Mrs Khan replied, setting a silver tray down and lifting the teapot up to pour them a cup in delicate china. “I always make too many, so it's nice to have someone to eat them. With my children gone, no one comes around much these days.”

He bit into one around his smile. “Happy to help.”

“Sugar, dear?”

“None for me, ta,” he said. “My nan used to say I was sweet enough.”

Rose raised her eyes to the ceiling and rubbed at her mouth, hiding her smile. Clearing her throat and wrestling her amusement under control, Rose smiled at Mrs Khan.

“I like your TV,” she said, nodding at the set that was being used to support a collection of porcelain rabbits. “I've been tellin' John here that we should get one of our own but he's the sort who thinks it rots the brain.”

The Doctor chewed on the last of his samosa, aware she was having a dig about the other night when he had gone off on a mini rant about the TV. His annoyance stemmed from the fact that Humphrey was beginning to show changes along his telomerase but it was still too early to make any determinations about what that meant for Zoe. Finding her and Rose sprawled together on the sofa, Jack and Mickey on another one with empty pizza boxes and popcorn strewn between then had set him off on a rant about the foolishness of humans becoming enslaved to the goggle box, ending only when Zoe reached up and tugged him down onto the sofa with her, fitting him against her front so that she was able to stroke his hair until he fell asleep.

“Oh, nonsense,” Mrs Khan said. “It's a revelation, dear. Never thought I'd get one myself though, far too expensive, but then there was this deal on and I couldn't resist.”

The Doctor swallowed. “Let me guess, Magpie Electricals.”

“That's the one,” she said with a nod, holding out the plate of samosas to him again, and, for fear of being rude, he took another one. “Down on Forizel Street. Strange little man runs the shop but he doesn't mind selling to us coloured folk. There are plenty around here who do.”

“I bet,” Rose said, sympathetically. “We met a man across the street earlier who didn't much like my sister who's black, an' then there was a woman down the road who really didn't like Mickey. Took one look at him an' went off on one.”

“That's Grace,” Mrs Khan told them, an edge to her voice. “Don't be fooled by her. She likes us coloured folk well enough but only in her bed.” Mickey and the Doctor raised their eyebrows, surprised. “Can't say the same for Mr Connolly across the way. Reckon he'd shoot us sooner than touch us. He's one of those fools who thinks Britain should be white. I keep wanting to tell him that if he wants Britain to stay white, then maybe Britain shouldn't have invaded our countries.”

The Doctor grinned. “Quite right too. India, isn't it?”

“Chennai,” she said, wistful. “I do miss it but this is where the opportunities are. My husband, he wanted our children to be raised here: Good British children, with good British opportunities.”

“And where is Mr Khan?”

“Buried in East Africa,” she said. “He died during the war.”

The Doctor noted the medal sitting above the fireplace. “I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Picking up her tea to distract herself from the throb of long-remembered grief, Mrs Khan eyed them. “A strange job you three have, isn't it? Inspecting houses for the Queen?”

“Little bit,” Rose admitted before the Doctor opened his mouth to add unnecessary detail to their cover story. “But she wants to make sure that everyone can join in the celebrations tomorrow. Said it's important that no one's left out.”

“Speakin' of Mr Connolly though,” Mickey said, forcing them back onto the matter at hand. “He had someone taken away earlier. About half an' hour ago. There was a right proper ruckus up the street.”

Mrs Khan's tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth. “That'd be poor Rita's mother, I imagine. Haven't seen her for days. They were saying that she was ill but it looks like she's got what the others had.”

“And what is that, exactly?” The Doctor asked. “Is it a sickness?”

“No one knows,” she said. “No one's talking anyway. All I know is that the men in black started coming around here a few weeks ago, hauling people off under blankets into their car and not telling the families anything. It's a disgrace.”

“That it is,” he agreed. “But do they have anything in common? Anything linking them together? Age, gender, ethnicity?”

“Sorry, dear, but not that I know of,” Mrs Khan offered the plate of samosas to Mickey again. “There was Mr Gallagher earlier today, he's only in his thirties but a little -” she waved her finger by her head. “The war did him in with all those shells exploding by him. Sometimes I can hear him screaming in the night. That poor wife of his is a saint but she told me, she said, Mrs Khan – she's respectful like that, a real good girl – she said, Mrs Khan, I can't leave him. I love him. He fought for this country and now I have to fight for him too. You wouldn't get many like that. Not around here anyway.”

The Doctor began to realise that Mrs Khan was lonely. As the words were fell from her mouth, rattling around in a desperate urge to have conversation with someone that was deeper than passing pleasantries, he was reminded of Zoe after his return from the Game Station. The sharp edge of loneliness had made her both desirous for company and irritated when her solitude was pressed upon too much, fluctuating between both extremes as she got used to having people around on a consistent basis again, and he saw that in Mrs Khan.

“Then there was little Betty, only five – you should have heard her mother screaming.” She shook her head, face turned down in a frown. “Her poor father was knocked out stone cold when he tried to stop them taking her. Every time I see them now they look as though they aren't quite there. There's also Antonio, from Italy, he's a homosexual.” She said the word by dragging the syllables out as though it was five separate words and not one. “And Gerard from down by the corner shop. He's not like Antonio but he is French.”

“It sounds like there's nothing connecting them,” the Doctor said, faintly disappointed. “Oh well, not really in our remit what with being representatives of the queen.” Rose cleared her throat and shot him a look, letting him know he was dipping into his upper-class English accent again and he switched out of it. “Thank you very much for your time, Mrs Khan, but we really should be getting on. More houses to see before the big day tomorrow and all.”

“Must you?” She sounded disappointed and forlorn at the loss of company that the Doctor's stomach twisted. “I have some ginger cake that needs to be eaten.”

“Terribly sorry,” he said, rushing through the farewells before he caved and ended up moving in. “But we really must. Thanks again.”

“The samosas were brilliant, Mrs K, thanks,” Mickey said as he squeezed past her and out the door.

Mrs Khan was slow to shut the door behind them, her face peeking out from behind her curtains as they walked away from her house. The Doctor struggled not to look back even as Mickey turned to wave goodbye to her.

“Poor thing,” Rose sighed, rubbing her arms against the cold. “She's lonely.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor replied, offering her his arm. “Nothing we can do about that now though. What I want to do is to have a chat with Mr Connolly and find out what happened there. Jack and Zoe should've been back by now.”

“Unless they actually caught up with them,” Mickey said, hands in his pockets. “Jack's a dog with a bone sometimes. Probably got some people tied up to chairs questionin' them.”

The Doctor laughed. “That does sound like them.”

Hurrying them across the street, the Doctor rattled the knocker on the Connolly's front door as Rose leaned against him, her cheek squashed against his arm. Conscious of that fact that Connolly was a well-known racist, Mickey hung back on the pavement just out of sight so that the Doctor might actually be able to get some answers. There was a loud yell from inside the house and a sound of flesh hitting flesh that jerked Rose upright, wide awake and halfway to furious, before the shadowed form of Connolly approached the door and yanked it open.

White-frothed spit clung to the corners of Connolly's mouth and red burned across his face, moustache dishevelled from furious shouting. The Doctor dragged his eyes over him before looking over his shoulder where Rita was being helped into the kitchen by Tommy, her hand clutching her mouth.

“What?” Connolly snapped.

“Everything all right?” The Doctor asked, speaking to Tommy who glanced back over his shoulder, face narrow and pale. He gave a small nod before disappearing into the kitchen with his mother. “Seems a little loud right now.”

“Mind your own business,” he spat. “We don't need anyone else in our business today. So you can just –”

“That's why we're here,” the Doctor interrupted. “The man and woman who were here earlier are our friends. I don't suppose you know where they've gone, do you?”

“No!” The door started to slam in his face. “Now bugger off.”

Faced with a closed down and Connolly's retreated form behind the distorted glass. “No matter how many times a door's slammed in my face, it never stops being rude.”

Rose rolled her eyes and turned on her heel, guilt pressing in on her at leaving Rita in a house with a man who hit her though she knew that there was nothing she could do to help. When Jimmy had blackened her eyes and bruised her ribs, nothing would have persuaded her to leave him: Not even Zoe turning up on her doorstep in tears, begging her to come home because _I miss you_ as though that was enough to pull her free of the mess she had entangled herself in. With a child in the house and divorce still stigmatised, she imagined it was even harder for Rita to think that breaking free of her husband was possible and Rose hoped that there was at least some happiness in her life.

Grabbing the Doctor by his wrist and then taking hold of Mickey's when they passed him, she pulled them away from the Connollys and down the street, an idea forming in her mind. Once assured they were keeping pace with her, she released their wrists only to laugh when – as though they had planned it – they each took a hand and threaded their fingers together.

“I have an idea,” she told them.

“Christ,” Mickey said. “Last time you got an idea, I had to talk you out of getting your ass tattooed.”

“Really?” The Doctor looked down at her with interest. “What were you going to get?”

“A butterfly,” she admitted, ignoring his growing smile. “An' yeah, I know, proper cliché an' all that but I was drunk an' it seemed like a good idea at the time. Mickey sort of threw me over his shoulder to get me away from the tattoo parlour.”

“Would've been easier if Shareen hadn't been eggin' you on,” Mickey said. “She kept hitting me with that damned bag of hers screamin' that I was kidnappin' you.”

“Ah, Shareen,” the Doctor said, fondly. “She's a bit of a character, isn't she?” He swung his and Rose's joined hands between them. “Go on then. What's your idea?”

“It's obvious, isn't it?”

“Clearly not,” Mickey replied. “What is it?”

“Honestly, stick a plate of samosas in front of you an' you forget who you are,” she sighed, flicking her eyes at the Doctor. “An' don't think I haven't noticed you bein' all distracted too. If you hadn't been thinkin' about Zoe, we'd have gone straight there without havin' to make Mickey deal with racists.”

“Straight where?” The Doctor asked. “And I have _not_ been distracted by Zoe. She's not even here, how can I be distracted by her?”

Rose's eyes rolled. “Ever since you saw her in that stupid outfit she put on to make you feel better, it's like your brains've melted out of your ears. For all you bang on about not bein' a bloke, you sure do act like one sometimes.”

“I – it's –” the Doctor floundered, heat warming his face. “What do you mean _to make me feel better_? She's not wearing that for me, is she?”

Mickey snorted. “Mate, how are you 900 years old an' this daft?”

“You've been out of sorts recently since the Ryga thing,” Rose told him. “Zoe thought us all dressin' up would help cheer you up an' she chose her outfit just for you. Seriously, when have you ever seen her dress like that before?” The Doctor opened his mouth. “Don't answer that, I don't actually want to know.”

A smile played across his lips, touched and a little amused. “I do love your sister, you know. She's a little mad but utterly delightful.”

Mickey rubbed his eye and Rose sighed, sweeping away the jealousy that lived inside her even as she worked each day at killing it off.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm happy for you,” she said. “But if you hadn't been thinkin' about Zoe's arse –”

“It is a nice one.”

Mickey groaned, pained. “I will bloody thump you in a minute.”

“Then you would've noticed that everyone we've spoken to said that they got their TV from Magpie Electricals,” Rose finished, choosing to ignore the Doctor as best she could when holding his hand. “An' he said that he's only sellin' them for a fiver, so I think there's somethin' hinky goin' on there.”

“Hinky,” he grinned. “Someone's been watching one too many gangster films on the idiot box.”

“Jack likes 'em.”

“All right then,” he said. “Magpie's Electricals it is.”

The three of them walked hand-in-hand and passed through the streets, following the map on Mickey's phone. Florizel Street wasn't far from where Mrs Khan and the Connollys lived – barely a ten-minute walk – that they passed with gentle teasing and light conversation. While the Doctor was slightly disappointed that Zoe had gone off with Jack, he was glad to be spending time with Rose and Mickey.

He remembered the last time the three of them had been alone together, the briefest of moments at the end of a difficult day with the Autons, and he marvelled at how he hadn't known either of them then. They were two strangers to him, caught up in his life and handling themselves well – Rose better than Mickey but it wasn't as though he did have the good excuse of having been kidnapped by the Nestene Consciousness – and now they were his family. That day stood out in his memory as the day he started living again, mere weeks away from meeting Zoe, and without any idea that a man named Javic Thane existed.

He hummed an old Gallifreyan melody to himself, smile widening when Rose and Mickey both glanced at him, entertained by his good mood.

Approaching Mr Magpie's shop, the Doctor saw that, despite the late hour, it was still open. It was a battered shop with paint that peeled away from the wood and dulled gold letters painted above the glass where TVs sat, waiting to be sold. There was a flicker of movement inside – Mr Magpie working behind the counter, talking to someone, the sound of his voice muffled by distance and glass. The Doctor felt Rose let go of his hand and watched as she walked through the front door, the bell dinging above her head and leaving them to hurry to catch up with her. As they entered, Mr Magpie was lifting his head from his books, tight lines around his eyes.

“I'm sorry, sirs, miss, I'm afraid you're too late,” he said, pushing himself up from the counter as though every bone in his body weighed more than it should, recognising them from earlier. “I was just about to lock the door and go home.”

“Yeah?” Rose asked, looking out of place in the dusty, quiet shop that doubled as a workshop judging from the pile of equipment scattered behind the counter. “Well, I want to buy a telly an' everyone's ravin' about yours.”

His shoulders drooped, eyes darting off to one side. “Come back tomorrow, please.”

“You'll be closed, won't you?”

“What?” Mr Magpie asked, the light falling across his face that glistened with a fine sheen of sweat. “What do you mean?”

As much as the Doctor loved Rose he had to admit that she wasn't the most intimidating person around. Despite the set of lungs she possessed – one of his fondest memories was of her tearing strips out of the funeral home worker who had kidnapped her and locked her in a room full of Gelth-inhabited corpses – she was mainly just pink and yellow with kindness falling out of her ears. There was none of the harsh edges that had been scraped into Jackie as a single mother raising two children without a partner in the picture, and nothing at all like the anger that burned in Zoe and came out cold, pulling on all the threads of her life to create a rage that frightened even her.

Whatever mistreatment she suffered at the hands of Jimmy – and he knew it was more than a simple black eye and some unkind words, though that was more than enough – hadn't hardened her, it had only made her kind.

So the way Magpie was reacting to her by trembling all over like a leaf caught in the wind, sweat beading into thick balls on his skin, suggested to the Doctor that there was something else at play. A quick, sidelong glance at Mickey let him know that his friend had also picked up on the strange reaction. Slipping his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, he walked leisurely around the room and discreetly scanned the TV sets.

“For the big day?” Rose prompted. “The coronation.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, flustered. “The big day. I'm sure you'll find somewhere to watch it. Please go.”

Mickey leaned against the opposite counter, running his finger through the dust on the surface. “Why d'you want to get rid of us? We only want to buy a TV an' since you're practically givin' them away an' all, figured we'd get one.”

Magpie's fingers pulled at the open collar of his shirt. “I have my reasons.”

Rose waited. “An' what are they exactly?”

He opened his mouth, fear stealing his voice when a TV burst to life with a thunderclap of noise in the quiet shop. Rose jerked, startled, and Mickey stepped forward, his chest pressed against her back, as the Doctor whirled around, screwdriver raised defensively. On one of the screens that lined the wall, there was a crackle of energy that sped across the screen leaving black and white spots of static in its wake. As it cleared, a woman's face materialised. With hair perfectly coiffed and posture straighter than a wooden door, she sat primly, hands folded in her lap, and stared out at them.

Rose's heart thundered in her chest. “What the hell's that?”

“It's just a television,” Magpie lied. “Just – just one these new programmes. I – it doesn't really do anything. Now, please, you have to leave. I've got to close up for the night and get home. My – my wife's cooking dinner and _please_ , leave. Right now!”

Ignoring Mr Magpie's increasing panic, the Doctor stepped closer to the TV screen. Slipping his glasses onto his nose, he leaned in close and examined the woman who had appeared, screwdriver held an inch from her as he ran the scan. Behind him, Rose peppered Magpie with questions, pressing and pressing to find a weak spot in order to wrench information from, and Mickey hovered between the two of them, ready to lunge and grab whichever one of them needed help first.

“An' why are you sellin' them so cheap?” Rose demanded, hands braced on the counter as she leaned across it. “You can't be makin' any profit on them at five quid a pop, not when they should be goin' for eighty, so what're you up to, eh?”

“It's my patriotic duty,” Magpie explained, mopping his brow. “Seems only right that as many folk as possible get to watch the coronation. Don't want anyone missing out because they can't afford it and all, not after everything we've been through together. Most of the people 'round here have been here for decades and that means we've been through two wars together. That sort of thing makes you want to help a person out. Besides, the newspapers are saying that twenty million people'll be watching. Can you imagine that? All those people watching what's happening in here in London and folks around here not being able to. It's not right, that's all, so I do what I can.”

“How charitable,” she said.

“Got to give back to the community,” he replied, folding and refolding his handkerchief that was damp with sweat. “Now why don't you get yourself back home and get up, bright and early, for the big day.”

“Nah.” Rose shook her head. “You're hidin' somethin' an' we're not leavin' till we've seen everythin'.”

“But I need to close,” he whined, plaintive. “My wife –”

“You don't have a wife,” she said, cutting him off. “You're not wearin' a weddin' ring an' blokes round here always wear one of those, isn't that, right? So stop lyin' to me, Mr Magpie, because somethin's happenin' out there. Ordinary people are bein' taken away in the middle of the night an' you're the thing that links them together, aren't you? You an' your TVs. So, tell us, what's goin' on?”

Face white and stricken, he shook his head and stumbled from behind the counter. “I knew this would happen. I knew it. I knew I'd be found out.”

The Doctor tore his curious gaze from the woman on the screen who he swore was following him with his eyes and looked around as Mr Magpie staggered across the shop floor, shoulders pressed down by the weight of his troubles, and locked the front door. Mickey reached out and took Rose's hand, drawing her back towards him, looking to the Doctor to check on him before his eyes fell onto the TV screen and his mouth opened.

“Er – Doctor?” His hand awkwardly tapped the his arm. “You might want to have a look at this.”

Patting Mickey's hand while ignoring him, the Doctor frowned at Magpie as he took his glasses off and put them back into his pocket. In his experience, no good ever came from an obviously nervous human locking the door with them still in the room.

“Mr Magpie,” he said, reaching for Rose's shoulder and resting his hand there. “Whatever you're planning to do to us, take my advice: don't. It won't end well for you and it'll just annoy me.”

Magpie stepped back from the door and wrung his hands. “I don't have a choice!”

“Guys, seriously, you need to –”

“Everyone has a choice, you're just choosin' this,” Rose said, interrupting Mickey who stared unblinkingly over the Doctor's shoulder. “An' you may as well tell us what's really in this for you. What game are you playin' with these TVs? What are they doin' to people?”

“You think I'm in this for me?” A weak and reedy laugh fell from from him, sleeve drawing a path across his forehead. “Why would I choose this life? All I want is a cup of tea and some peace and quiet, not this – not this _torture_.”

“If you're in trouble then we can help,” the Doctor said. “We're pretty good at that. Who's torturing you?”

“Guys!” Mickey's snapping voice jerked the Doctor and Rose around. He pointed at the screen where the woman was shown sitting quietly, unmoved from her first appearance. “She's watchin' us, _listenin'_.”

“Don't be daft,” Rose said. “It's only a programme.”

“Yeah, an' the Doctor's only a bloke,” he shot back. “I'm tellin' you, she's listenin' to every word we're sayin'.” Stepping away from them, he cautiously approached the screen. “Who are you? What're you doin' to the people 'round here?”

“Mickey,” the Doctor warned. “Careful.”

“She's in there,” he said with a gesture. “How's she goin' to hurt me?”

“You'd be surprised.”

“I'm not going to hurt you, darlings,” the woman said, Rose flinching with surprise, fingers curling around the Doctor's elbow. “Why on earth would I do that? It would be such a waste of energy.”

“What is she?” Rose breathed. “Is she like Momo?”

“No, I don't think she is,” the Doctor said, staring at the screen. “You're definitely an alien life form though I can't put my finger on which. What happened, did you get stuck on Earth? Don't worry, happens to the best of us, but that doesn't explain what you're doing to the people here.”

“Aren't you a handsome one?” She cooed. “My, my, I could just eat you up.”

“Sorry, I'm a one-woman man and thoroughly uninterested,” he replied, energy sparking in the air around them. “Who are you?”

Magpie dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “You should have left. Why didn't you just leave?”

“I feel funny,” Rose complained, rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth and touching her hands to her hair that released small bursts of static. “My head feels full an' my teeth are vibratin'. It's not – I don't like it. Make it stop.

The Doctor snagged Mickey by the back of his jacket and pulled him back to his side, his hair lifting from his scalp and frizzing out around him. “You can control electrons from within the TV, that's a bit clever, but it still doesn't tell me who are you.”

“I'm the Wire, darling,” the woman said as her head tipped back and her painted mouth twisted open wider and wider and wider. “And I'm _hungry_!”

Bright energy hit the Doctor in the face, rocking him back on his feet, fingers spasming and dropping the sonic screwdriver to the ground. Distantly, he heard Rose and Mickey cry out in pain, buckling as they were pulled from their bodies and stuffed into TV sets, locked away for use at a later date. Struggling against the pull, able to resist for longer than his human friends, the Doctor felt himself slipping away inch by inch until the pain was too much to tolerate and he let go.

As he left his body, he thought of Zoe and Jack and almost pitied the Wire for what was to come.

* * *

Sitting on an uncomfortable metal chair with one leg crossed over the other, red heel dangling from the end of her toes, Zoe smothered a yawn.

For half the night, she and Jack had been kept locked in a dilapidated office with grimy, broken windows that had rotten wooden boards nailed over them in an attempt to keep the chill out and a single bulb that flickered its weak light over head. It was easily the worst makeshift prison cell they had been kept in and breaking out would have been the work of moments as the door was locked by a rubber band looped around the handle and a nail hammered into the doorframe. Though, since they were left unattended, they instead went through the paperwork in the room and get a vague idea of what was happening as well as send their location and a descriptive update to the TARDIS group chat.

However, there was only so much information to go through before they needed new input and they ended up playing Scrabble as they waited for their interrogation to start.

Zoe hated having to wait.

“ _Knower_ ,” Jack repeated. “Are you sure that's a word?”

“Of course I'm sure,” she said. “It's a person who knows things. For example, a knower is aware that _loquacity_ is a good word for Scrabble.”

“I didn't doubt _loquacity_ ,” he told her, pulling his tiles on the screen to create _knitted_. “All I said was that I think you've got a small advantage when we play by 21st century rules.”

“I'm willing to play with 51st century vocabulary,” she told him, tapping her finger against her phone as she considered her options. “But I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings when I trounce you at that as well.”

He snorted. “You've only won six out of the last nine games.”

“About to be seven out of ten.” _Legumes_ popped up on his screen. “Want me to go easier on you? I can change it to the child's setting if you like.”

Jack glanced at her, amused. “You're a sore winner. It's a very unattractive quality in a person.”

“See, all I'm hearing is that I'm winning,” she said. “The other day the Doctor told me about this Solar Scrabble Championship that takes place every five years or something on Titan and I'm really tempted to have a crack at it.”

“You two need to up your pillow talk game,” Jack said, sending _guineas_ back to her and making her curse as he racked up the points on a triple word square. “Although, I suppose Mickey and I talk about all sorts of stuff when we're in bed. Is that normal?”

“What, domestic pillow talk?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I've never had a long-term relationship before where I actually slept in the same bed as the other person on a regular basis. You've got the Doctor and you've been married, is it normal to not do as much?”

Zoe stared at him. “What do you mean by _not do as much?_ Do you mean like not have as much sex as at the beginning?”

“Wait, the sex drops off?”

“Well, yeah, eventually,” she said. “Reinette and I were all over each other at the beginning because it was brand new and we were in love but eventually it sort of settled to about once a week, sometimes twice if we had the energy. She tended to get sick a lot and wasn't always up for it. Are you and Mickey petering out?”

“No, I don't think we are,” he said. “I've just never had this sort of domestic relationship before where I talk about fungal cream with someone and it doesn't ruin the mood.”

Zoe bobbed her head, frowning at her phone as she wondered what to do with a _z_ and a _y_. “I'm not exactly an expert on relationships. Reinette did a lot of the heavy lifting in ours and the Doctor's – well, he's the Doctor. But I think as long as you're both happy then it doesn't really matter what the relationship looks like. If you want to talk about fungal cream, you go right ahead and do it. That's the sort of thing you should probably save for a partner anyway. What's this all about anyway? You've never struck me as the type to worry about these things.”

“Casual sexual relationships are very different to what I've got with Mickey,” he said. “I don't want to mess it up.”

“You won't,” she said, sending _zygote_ to his phone before setting hers face down on her thigh. “Although I used to worry about messing things up with Reinette all the time. She was older than I was and had known me all her life and I felt like I was constantly playing catch up. Worrying about disappointing her took up a large portion of my day.”

Jack breathed out, recognising himself in her statement. “I feel the same. Mickey and I are from two really different times and sometimes we bump up against each others expectations and it leaves this strange feeling behind.”

“Like you've done something wrong but you don't know what?”

“Yes!”

“I had that as well,” Zoe admitted. “With Reinette and the Doctor. I married a woman from the past and then hooked up with an actual alien. Differences of expectations are bound to occur there. At least that's what Yatta tells me.”

“She told me to talk to you about it, said you'd probably understand,” he said, surprising her as Yatta hadn't mentioned anything when they last spoke about keeping an ear open for Jack. “How do you deal with those expectations?”

“Mine or the Doctor's?”

“Either.”

Zoe leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs out in front of her, thinking about the question. The truth was, neither she nor the Doctor had many expectations of each other except for honesty. Both of them were aware that there was a time limit on what they had with each other, an end date even if they didn't know when that was yet, and she felt that that kept them in the moment rather than worrying about the bigger picture. Aside from a discussion of children, they tended to avoid any mention of their future years down the line as it always reminded them how fragile their relationship was in the face of time.

“I suppose we want to make things work so we adjust and compromise and talk about it,” Zoe said. “We've both had relationships before but this is the first time either of us is dating someone outside of our species, y'know? And we've found that just talking helps.”

“Mickey and I are good at talking,” Jack said in a manner that made it sound as though he wanted to write down what she was saying. “I suppose I'm feeling a little odd. I know it's important to Mickey to be monogamous and that's why I agreed to it but I didn't think that I'd like something so old fashioned.”

“Old fashioned doesn't necessarily mean bad,” she told him. “And the way I see it is that since you and Mickey are from really different times, the two of you are going to create something that's unique to you. Like Reinette and I did. Our looked like nothing either of us had seen before but it worked, and it worked well.”

“I hope so,” he admitted. “I never thought...these feelings I have for him, sometimes they're difficult to reconcile with.”

“It's still early,” she reminded him. “You guys have been dating for what, four months now? Five?”

“Four months and three weeks.”

“Specific.”

He grinned. “You know me.”

“Four months and three weeks is maybe a little too early to have everything squared away up here.” Her fingers tapped against the side of her head. “Give it time to grow and give yourself space to talk and, whatever you do, don't do what I did.”

“What's that then?”

“Run away to Paris, set up a school for children living in poverty, and nearly die from cholera because you're too embarrassed to send a message to the person you're in love with,” she said, making him laugh. “I was young and Reinette scared me a little.” He laughed harder, her foot lashing out to bounce off his knee. “Shut up! You never met her. She had this look that she would just level at me and I'd know _instantly_ she was pissed off with me about something but I could never figure out what until she told me. It used to drive her mad.”

“I wish more than anything that I'd got to meet her,” Jack said, rubbing his face with a smile. “I bet she'd have been a great friend.”

“She would've loved you,” Zoe admitted. “You actually remind her of me sometimes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, not wanting to elaborate, preferring to keep the memories of Reinette close to her chest. “But, listen, since you've come to me for understanding, which I fully approve of because I'm clearly fantastic.”

Jack looked up at the ceiling. “What have I done?”

“I'll just tell you something that I wish someone had told me when I was with Reinette and that's to enjoy the moment,” Zoe told him. “I wasted so much time with her because I thought I had time to waste. If I'd have known what was coming for us, I wouldn't have fucked about so much. With Mickey...tomorrow's promised to no one. The best you can do is enjoy what you have right now and trust that by putting in the work each day, the future's going to take care of itself.”

“Sounds like good advice,” he said, reaching out to take her hand, their palms resting together. “Enjoy the moment. I can do that.”

“Better than anyone else I know,” she replied, rubbing the end of her cold nose, glancing towards the door. “Honestly, where the hell are they? Who leaves two highly suspicious people alone for so long in the cold. I wish they'd put some bloody heating on. It's freezing in here.”

Unfortunately the police officers didn't appear to know what to do with them. Between the faceless people in cages and them breaking in, they were at a loss and kept using the phone to places calls to people higher up the food chain than them. It took another hour before the door opened and the lead detective – _Anthony Bishop_ according to his ID that he left on the desk – stepped in with his jacket discarded and shirt sleeves pushed up his thin arms. There was a rumpled look about him, dark smudges making themselves at home beneath his eyes, and his jaw patchy with an uneven shave, all of which served to highlight the pressure weighing on him.

“No one knows who you are,” Bishop said, breaking the silence. “We called the palace and they don't know who Agents Mulder and Scully are, and they said that they definitely didn't authorise anyone to do house-to-house checks ahead of the coronation tomorrow.”

“Really, that's strange,” Jack said. “The queen herself –”

“Asked an American to get things ready for the big day?” The sound of Bishop's scoff covered Jack's muttered _I'm not American_. “I don't think so, buddy. Who are you? Who do you work for?”

“Do we really need to do this?” Zoe asked, a plaintive tone to her that came from spending hours in a cold room waiting to be interrogated. “Can't we just skip to the part where you tell us about the faceless people? It'll really save us a lot of time.”

Bishop pulled back. “You're not the one in charge here.”

“She kind of is,” Jack said. “I mean, it's more of a flat hierarchy most days and we tend to alternate given the needs of the moment but, right now, she's in charge, so tell us what's going on so we can help you.”

“No.” The word snapped out of Bishop's mouth, deflating Zoe and Jack. “Right now both of you are going to tell me everything you know.”

Sighing, Jack leaned back in his chair and ran his index finger over his top lip. Bishop was wound tight, every muscle in his body stiff with exhaustion and pressure. The fact that no one from outside the warehouse had come to take them away for questioning told Jack that the team was stretched thin and without external resources. With the coronation happening in less than twenty-four hours, Jack imagined that whatever security services existed in London in 1953 were maxed out and the last thing anyone needed was for some detective inspector to be raising a fuss about people with missing faces.

In his experience, people under that much pressure were bound to snap eventually, it was just a matter of getting them there.

“A single strand of spaghetti is called spaghetto,” he said.

Bishop blinked. “What?”

“It's from Italian,” Jack explained. “When a noun ends in _i_ in Italian, that means it's plural; the singular form ends in _o_. That's why we talk about graffiti to mean the art form but graffito to talk about individual pieces.”

“I didn't know that,” Zoe said. “Did you know that, Detective Inspector?” Bishop stared at her, eyes dropping in a slow blink. “Oh, I've got a fun fact about frogs! The wood frog can hold its pee for up to eight months while they hibernate. They've got special little microbes in their gut that recycles the urea into nitrogen.”

“I do love fun frog facts,” Jack agreed. “How about this one? The small dot above the I and Js in the English language is called a tittle. It's where the phrase _to a t_ is thought to come from.”

“Another new piece of information,” she said, bobbing her head. “I also know that the unicorn is Scotland's national animal and considering that the thistle is their national flower as well, I have to think that someone was drunk the day they were choosing them.”

Jack grinned. “If you translate Jesus from Hebrew to English, then the correct translation is Joshua. We only got Jesus because it went from Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, and then to English.”

“Our European ancestors used to practice medical cannibalism,” Zoe said.

“Chinese police use geese squads,” Jack added.

“Oh, I wonder why you know that,” she said, grinning at him, entertained by the idea of him being arrested by geese. “A chef's hat has exactly 100 pleats in it because it's meant to represent the number of ways an egg can be cooked.”

“High heels were worn by men first,” Jack continued.

“And New York was very briefly called New Orange.”

“Days used to be twenty-three hours long when the dinosaurs were knocking about.”

“Sea otters hold hands while they sleep.”

“A cow-bison hybrid is called a beefalo.”

Zoe tilted her head. “Not a buffalo?”

“Two very different things,” Jack said.

“ _Enough!_ ” Bishop brought his hand down on the desk and glared at them. “This isn't a joke. People are being violated and you're sitting here getting clever with me, so enough. You were there today when we took the last unfortunate, you were in the house with the family, and now you're breaking into this establishment. You're connected with this. I know you are. And when I find out –”

Zoe held up a hand to forestall his threat. “There's no need to threaten us, Detective Inspector. Despite appearances, we are taking this seriously.”

“But I disagree with the conclusion you've drawn,” Jack said. “The thing is, Mr Bishop –”

He jerked, eyes tight and wild. “How do you know my name?”

Jack nodded at the desk. “You left your ID there and us alone in this room for hours. We snooped. We're snoopers. It's what we do.”

“Snooping snoopers who snoop,” Zoe agreed.

“The thing is – and please don't take this the wrong way because I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job – but from what we saw earlier, it doesn't look like you're doing much investigating,” Jack told him. “It looks like you're dragging innocent people from their homes and then shoving them into that cage back there when it looks like they could do with the hospital. Right, Zo?”

“Right,” she agreed. “See, from our perspective, it looks like you're taking all the people without faces and locking them up because you don't know what else to do.”

“Which makes sense in a roundabout way,” Jack continued. “And at least you're not killing them. I know plenty of people and organisations that would dispose of them rather than figure out what was wrong but locking them up isn't that great either because Tommy made a good point earlier. How are you feeding them?”

Bishop's face cemented itself with harsh lines before he dragged a hand through his greying hair and his shoulders fell in on themselves. Zoe imagined that dealing with faceless people the night before the queen's coronation wasn't something he had joined the police force expecting to do. And she sympathised, remembering how she had felt when the strange and alien burst into her life in the form of the Slitheen – the Doctor himself strange and alien but at least he looked _normal_ to her seventeen-year-old eyes. At least that had been explained away, even if the Doctor's explanation thrust her into a brand new existence where the universe was so much bigger and stranger than she had ever thought possible.

Bishop had no one to talk to, no one to turn to for help, and she felt sorry for him.

“They don't need feeding,” he answered after a long pause. “They just...they don't do anything. They stand there and clench their hands and that's it. We've tried getting them to respond but how? They don't have eyes so we can't use light, they don't have mouths so they can't respond; they still have ears but even shooting right by them doesn't draw a reaction.”

“Please tell me you're not shooting by their ears,” Jack said, pained. “The damage a gunshot does to the ear drums is severe.”

An ugly red colour filled his face. “What else were we supposed to do?”

“He's not criticising you,” Zoe told him, shooting Jack a look. “But it seems that things are going well on the detective front. Are you even asking people questions or do you just kick their front door in and steal away with their loved ones?”

“I'm doing everything in my power,” he argued. “You think this is easy?”

“No, I think it's quite difficult.”

“And it doesn't help by having two cat burglars breaking into places they shouldn't be breaking into,” Bishop continued, warming to his anger. “I've never seen two more mismatched people in my life. An American and a negro –”

“We really do just prefer black,” Zoe said.

“If you're from Torchwood –”

“We're not,” she said, heart jumping in her chest at the name she had pushed to the back of her mind, trusting in Harriet not to lead her astray. “But are they sniffing around here? Faceless people seem like the sort of thing they might be into.”

“No.” Bishop drew a hand over his face. “A small mercy if you ask me. Having them coming in would be a disaster right now.”

The urge to ask _why_ threatened to choke her, stealing her voice for a long moment, long enough for the silence to pull before Jack stepped in.

“Let me work this through out loud and you can tell me if I'm off the mark,” he said. “Because I'm a service man – of a sort – and I know the sort of politics that go on in organisations like the police. My theory is that you've got orders from above to make this situation go away as quickly as possible. And if that means sweeping it under the rug so that the queen's coronation isn't ruined, then that's what you've got to do, right?”

Bishop exhaled and slowly sank into his sink, crumbling into it. “You have the sum of it.”

“The whole world's watching Britain right now but, more than that, they're watching London,” Jack continued. “And I bet the pressure from your superiors feels overwhelming right now. I get it, I've been there. One time I was in Marrakesh and –” Zoe cleared her throat. “Not important. What's important is that you're panicking because if you don't do what they tell you then it'll be your neck on the line.”

“And the economy hasn't recovered from the war, has it?” Zoe asked. “You can't afford to lose this job. What do you have? Wife, kids, sick mother?”

His throat moved in a swallow, eyes fixed on his desk. “All three. And my brother's family. He died during the war. It's ten of us, eleven if you include me.”

“All on your wage?”

Bishop nodded.

“No wonder you're feeling stressed,” Jack said. “Because looking around this room at the information you've collected and the maps you've put together tells me that this isn't the room of a man content to do his job. You want to investigate but your hands are tied by people who want to project this perfect image of Britain. We can't be having Great Britain sullied by a bunch of faceless people running about, can we?”

Bishop stared at him, a muscle flickering in his jaw as he balanced on the edge of accepting the help they were prepared to offer. “After everything we've been through – the deaths, the air raids, the _sacrifices_ we've all made...we need this. The country needs tomorrow to be good. It needs to be our fresh start.”

“I know it doesn't feel it right now but things are going to get better,” Zoe said, kindly. “You've lived through the darkest period in our history and come out the other side. No matter what happens next, it's never going to be as bad as the wars. _Never_.”

“You can't know that.”

“I can,” she told him, wishing she could take him to her London and show him what life was like there. “It would take way too long to tell you how though.”

Jack shifted, leaning forwards. “You're a detective, and I think that means something to you or maybe it used to mean something. When I joined my agency, I believed in the work we were doing and I was proud to wear the uniform and to do the work. Except now you're tired and you're frustrated and you're feeling the pressure. But you didn't join the police force to cover things up because that's what your bosses are telling you to do, did you?”

“I didn't,” he said, voice cracking on a whisper. “I wanted to help people.”

“Then help them,” Jack urged. “Investigate what's happening. Zoe and I will help, so will our friends. And, trust me, we're really good at what we do. By the time the crown's sitting on the queen's head, all of this will be over and you can go home to your family. You just need to let us help.”

Bishop's tongue touched his dry lips, eyes fixed on Zoe's bare foot, thinking.

“It won't help, we don't have enough time or people,” he said. “With all the crowds expected, everyone's out on the streets to keep the people back from the Abbey. And even if we did, this is beyond anything we've ever seen. Faceless people? It's like something out of H.G. Wells. Twenty years on the force and I don't even know where to start. We haven't the faintest clue what's going on.”

“That's where we come in,” Zoe told him. “We can help, if you'll let us.”

His eyes flickered with hunger, desperate for something to ease the pressure crushing his chest. “I don't know who you people are or where you've come from because you're like no people I've ever met before but if you think you can help then – well, I've got no choice, have I? I'm still a police officer at the end of the day even if my superiors have forgotten what that means.”

“That's the spirit,” Jack said, grin stretching across his face. “In that case, start from the beginning and tell us everything you know about what's happening here. When did this start?”

The atmosphere in the room loosened, and Bishop reached up and undid the tight button of his collar, pulling it free from his neck, tension dripping from his body. Glancing out of the room, he raised a hand to invite one of his officers, who he introduced only as Crabtree, in and gestured to another to make them all a cup of tea that Zoe instantly started looking forward to. Picking up her phone, she dashed off a quick message to the group chat to tell them they had an in with the police officers, mildly surprised that the Doctor, Mickey, and Rose hadn't staged some sort of rescue attempt in the hours since her last message. As Bishop began to fill them in, she discreetly checked her private chat with the Doctor to see if he had sent her a message but it had been radio silence since her last message.

“We started finding them about a month ago, heads just blank,” Bishop explained. “They weren't doing anything, only standing there with their fists clenching over and over again. Gave those who found them a right proper fright and we had people in from all over looking at them before that was shut down two weeks ago because someone spoke to a journalist who then came around to see what was going on. Soon enough though we were getting calls about people in homes, family members trying to protect their loved ones. We had to take them too because we don't know if this is contagious or not. It's dangerous to leave them there.” His face took on a defensive gleam. “It's not like we want to be snatching people like we are.”

Zoe nodded. “We understand that. Quick question: are family groups being – I don't know what to call it – made faceless?”

“Sometimes but not all the time,” he answered. “Those that are related tend to be children about the same age. Normally though it's just one member of the family.”

“And does it happen at the same time every day?” Jack asked.

Bishop shook his head. “No. With the earliest ones, we'd find them in the morning but our theory was that someone was dumping them because they didn't know what to do with them so we don't know if they lost their faces at the time or sometime before.”

“What about the later ones?”

“Can't get an accurate timeline on it,” he said. “Most people were found like that when whoever they lived with got home from work or the shops. Although, now that I'm thinking about it, we don't get any calls about it during the night. You know, after ten and such.”

“Okay,” Jack nodded, glancing at Zoe who lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “What about a pattern with who's being taken, anything there?”

“Not a pattern about the people, about the location.” He gestured for them to rise and look at the map pinned on the wall at the exact moment the door opened and a plain-clothes officer walked in balancing multiple cups of tea and a plate of biscuit on a tray. Zoe descended on him eagerly and lifted the tray from his hands, placing it on the desk. “Thank you, Jenkins.”

“Yes, thank you, Jenkins,” Zoe said over her shoulder, blowing on her tea before gulping it down. “Next time, Mr Bishop, offer your prisoners a cup of tea sooner rather than later. I've been bloody gagging for a cuppa.”

“I'll bear that in mind,” he said with the first hint of humour Zoe and Jack had seen since meeting him. “With regards to the location, they're spreading out from North London to all over the city but the heaviest concentration is here.” He tapped a small ink circle. “We think this is the eye of the storm. Most people here have had members of their families become faceless.”

“I'm sure there's a technical term for it but god knows what it is,” Zoe said, peering closely at the map as Jack shoved a biscuit in his mouth and chewed while leaning over her shoulder. “Where is this exactly? I've always been a bit useless at reading maps.”

“It's just off Florizel Street,” Bishop explained. “There's nothing there really. Mainly a residential street with a couple of shops: a bric-an-brace, a Paki newsagents,” Zoe's mouth tightened at the racial slur and Jack frowned. “And an electronics shop.”

“Electronics?” She leaned back into Jack's chest, hands curled around her cup of tea that chased the cold out of her fingers. “What sort of electronics?”

“TVs, radios,” he said, shrugging. “Is it important?”

“Yeah, it is,” Jack said. “Because it's not Magpie Electricals by any chance, is it?”

Bishop paused and looked at them, a frown pressing between his eyes as the door cracked open and Jenkins stuck his head around the door, silently beckoning Crabtree to him. The silent deputy crossed the room and bowed his head, a low murmur quiet enough not to disturb them.

“How did you know that?” Bishop asked.

“Earlier tonight, we met –”

“Sir.” Crabtree turned and interrupted Jack. “Three more have been brought in off Florizel Street near the electronics shop.”

“Well, that doesn't feel like a coincidence,” Zoe said, finishing her cup of tea and setting it back on the tray. “Mind if we have a look, Detective Inspector? We only had a brief chance to examine our friend's gran earlier and those in the holding cell before you yanked us out.”

“You may as well,” Bishop said. “They don't change over time, not really, but maybe you can see something that we missed.”

Jack slipped his arm through Zoe's, her body turning into his warmth as they followed Bishop out of the office, the only sounds they made were Zoe's heels clicking against the ground.

“This is going well,” he said quietly, turning his head to speak into her ear. “No one's shot us yet.”

“We have really low standards of what a good day means,” she replied, enjoying the puff of warm arm he laughed over her skin. “Has anyone got back to you yet? The Doctor normally responds fairly quickly when I text him but I haven't heard anything from him and me texting him that we've found faceless people is just the sort of thing he loves.”

“I haven't heard from Mickey either,” Jack said. “I'm sure it's – ”

He stopped walking. It was so unexpected that Zoe kept going until his hold on her arm jerked her back. Stumbling, she caught hold of him and opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing when she saw his face. Pale and taut, his eyes were fixed on a point over her shoulder, mouth parting in a small, pained groan that settled in her bones and rooted her feet to the ground. She knew, even before she turned, what she was going to see behind her and she didn't want to.

“ _Zoe,_ ” he breathed. “They're –”

She flinched away from him, turning before she was able to stop herself, and the breath was sucked out of her. Her world span as blood rushed through her ears and a whimper slipped from her throat. Beneath standard issue blankets, she recognised her family. Rose's pink-shoed feet and the dress that had made her so happy hours earlier; Mickey's dark trousers and familiar hands clenching into fists and his side; and the Doctor's –

The blankets were pulled from over them.

Sharp, visceral pain slammed into her at the sight of the absent faces, eyes immediately skittering to the ground, hand curled against her chest as the other held tightly onto Jack's. Breathing was difficult, and the pressure on her lungs and in her head made her feel as though she was drowning.

_What am I going to do?_ she thought. _How do I fix this?_

Jack's free arm went around her waist, supporting her as her knees buckled, keeping her upright with the strength that ran through him. Hopelessness swept through her – the same hopelessness that had filled her when she realised the Doctor and Jack were on the Game Station and she needed to save them – and she thought those days of panic and worry were behind her.

The Doctor had promised to never leave her and while he was there in front of her, he also wasn't. Doing as she had done once before, she grabbed hold of the edges of her anger and pulled it taut as she found her strength within it.

Slipping from Jack's arms, she strode forwards until she was stood in front of her family, her eyes drinking in Rose's missing face, the ache inside of her turning hot and fierce and doubling when she looked at Mickey. At her side, Jack touched Mickey's face with careful fingers, whispering his name in the hope of a response. She watched him, putting off what she had to do, and only when she couldn't bear the sight of Jack's own grief did she turn to look up into the Doctor's blank face. Her hands tightened into fists at her side, _furious_ that someone had taken the Doctor in all of his wonder and beauty and stripped his face from him.

It was easy in moments like these to believe she was the murderer Ryga believed her to be.

Bishop watched silently from behind Rose's shoulder. “You know these people?”

“They're our family,” Jack said, throat moving in a swallow. His fingers fell from Mickey to brush lightly over the Doctor's shoulder and gently fix Rose's hair by sweeping it behind her ears. “You said you found them in Florizel Street?”

“Over by the old fountain,” Crabtree answered. “They'd been left there. God knows how long though. Got a call from the milkman doing his morning rounds.”

“This is the first time we've had them out in the open like this,” Bishop told them. “If something like this happens tomorrow, we'll have the Torchwood lot on our backs, make no mistake.”

Zoe released a long, trembling breath and turned from the Doctor. “We don't want that happening then. If the others weren't found out in the open like our family, where were they found?”

“Initially we were finding them in empty factories, some abandoned estates,” he said. “Since they don't really move, we figured that someone was dropping them there. Either family members who were scared or the people who are doing this.”

“I'm not sure this is people,” Jack said, pressing a kiss to the back of Mickey's hand, setting it carefully at his side. “This is something else.”

Bishop removed a cigarette from a dented silver case and stuck it in his mouth, lighting it with a trembling hand. “Like what?”

“That's the question, isn't it?” He turned to Zoe and touched her arm, grounding her in the here and now, and her eyes snapped to his. “TARDIS?”

“No,” she said after a moment's thought. “I think we have everything we need here.”

“Like?”

“Mr Magpie,” Zoe said. “The Connollys. That's where we start.”

He nodded. “I get Magpie but why the Connollys?”

“Don't you think Mr Connolly is just the type of person to dob his neighbours in?” She asked him. “Man like him who's more concerned with appearances than anything else? He'd absolutely be snitching on his neighbours. Bet he believes he's doing his duty by calling this lot in to snatch them up.”

“Even his own mother-in-law?” Jack asked before he stopped and shook his head. “What am I talking about, of course he would. He runs that house like it's his own private fiefdom. I bet he's been planning on getting rid of her since before and all of this gave him the chance to own the house outright instead of living off her kindness.”

“Couldn't do it straight away though because his wife would know it was him,” she said. “Wait a few days, call it in, keeps his hands looking clean.” Her eyes flickered to the Doctor and then away. “We can't just leave them here though, not like this.”

Jack stepped in closer, the familiar smell and warmth of him wrapping around her, his fingers touching the bottom of her chin. “I know exactly what you're feeling right now. I don't want to leave them either but the best thing we can do is figure out what happened and reverse it. You know this.”

Zoe swallowed. “Yeah.”

“We'll deal with this together,” he promised in a low murmur, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I promise.”

Leaning into him, hand braced on his chest, she collected herself before turning to the Doctor. Eyes fixed on his shoulder, she stepped in close.

He smelt like himself – hint of spicy cologne, strange underlying scent of chalk and limes that always confused her, a brush of her lingering on him from when he had embraced her, but there was an acrid smell as well, something electrical and burning. It was strange standing so close to him and not having his hands on her: Whenever they were in the same room, he gravitated to her and tended to touch her lightly – a brush of his shoulder against hers, their knees bumping together when they were sat down, his fingers locked with hers. He was incapable of _not_ touching her, though she was hardly any better.

She wanted to press her face into his neck and feel his arms wrap around her, mouth pressing against her shoulder as he whispered something suitably inappropriate into her skin. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she slid her hands into his pockets in search of the sonic screwdriver. With deep pockets and an inability to keep them clean, she rummaged past sweet packets, his phone, her book, a collection of handkerchiefs, a wallet that contained photos of his children and late wife, a yoyo, chapstick, a pair of her underwear that she didn't know he had, and something wet and sticky that had her jerking her entire arm in surprise.

“The screwdriver's gone,” Zoe said, wiping her hands with one of his handkerchiefs. “It's not there.”

“He might have dropped it, or whoever did this recognised it as alien tech and took it,” Jack suggested. “Either way, it not being here makes it easier to trace their steps.” She nodded her agreement. “All right, Mr Bishop. I want to get these three safe before we go anywhere because if anything happens to them, whatever's doing this to people is going to be only the second scariest thing you face today.”

Finding somewhere safe and warm for the Doctor, Mickey, and Rose took half an hour as Zoe refused to leave them in a cold room, forcing Bishop to instruct Jenkins to drag the bulky portable heater into the room. It wasn't much but Zoe hoped it was better than nothing, and it helped her feel less guilty as she and Jack left the warehouse hours after first arriving there.

Dawn had broken across the sky – just after seven in the morning by Crabtree's watch – and the air was cool and fresh. Zoe paused outside the warehouse and breathed in deeply, shaking the threads of heavy tiredness that settled over her. They were going to be okay. She had to believe they were or else she would be unable to put one foot in front of the other. A milk van trundled past and startled her from her worry, glass bottles clinking in a song in the back of it, and street cleaners worked methodically down the road as even the dullest of London streets were being prepared for the day ahead.

And somewhere across the city within the ornate walls of Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II was beginning the most important day of her life while people up and down the British Isles were waking up ready to celebrate the start of a new era.

“How are your feet?” Jack asked, holding the door of Bishop's black car open for her, the morning light letting her know that he was also feeling the strain of the others' situation even if he looked more beautiful than she had hope of being. “Agonising yet?”

“Not until you mentioned it,” Zoe said, feet giving a throb. “Now I'm feeling it.”

“Sorry,” he apologised, waiting until she was settled in the back before stepping in after her, Bishop and Crabtree seated in the front. “How you holding up?”

“I haven't decided to go to university for four years to solve this so I think, in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing all right.” Jack huffed and took her hand in his, resting it against his thigh. “Whoever did this took their faces and dumped them in the street like they were nothing. It makes me angry that someone thinks they can just be discarded like that.”

His hand flexed around hers. “Me too. Seeing them like that...it _hurts._ You don't realise how much a face is until it's gone. All those nuances, all that expression.” His sigh was heavy, layered beneath the engine as Crabtree reversed out of the lane. “We'll figure this out.”

“Course we will,” she said, head coming to rest on his shoulder.

Leaning down, he brushed his lips through her hair and turned to look out of the window.

It was a twenty-minute drive to where the Connollys lived when one drove at a proper and legal speed, and Zoe felt her eyes grow heavy on Jack's shoulder. He smelt different from the Doctor – something earthier and fresher – but he smelt like home nonetheless, possessing a soothing and lulling quality that brushed away the image of her faceless loved ones and encouraged her to rest her eyes for a moment.

Fragmented dreams consumed her, muscles twitching in an attempt to relax, and she was riding through the acres around Versailles, wind in her hair, Louis at her side. She turned to her old friend only to find herself dancing across the wasteland of Skaro, Reinette laughing in her arms; she was kissing the Doctor, leather jacket gripped in her fingers, and he pulled back to look at her, smiling as he pushed her out of the TARDIS and she was plummeting to the ground only to watch a Zygon rip its way out of Amelia Pond, the Corsair leaning against a wall, slicing an apple with a paring knife.

“ _Sorry, human,_ ” the Time Lord said, slipping away as Jack shook her awake. “ _You're on your own._ ”

“Zo.” She jerked back from him, heart jackhammering in her chest, staring at him in surprise. “Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. We're here.”

Mouth dry, she peered out of the window and recognised Tommy's house. “Right.”

“You okay?” He asked, concerned, touching his hand to her forehead. “You're a little clammy.”

“Yeah, no, I'm fine,” she lied. “Your shoulder's too comfortable, that's the problem. Must've dropped off for a second. C'mon, let's get this done.”

Approaching the door, Zoe saw shadows pass behind the door and the lace curtains that kept people from looking in suggesting that the Connollys were up and about despite the earliness of the morning” The same was true up and down the street as windows opened and doors shut, the street waking up early for the coronation. Bishop rattled the knocker politely and stepped back, Crabtree lingering on the pavement as he kept a watchful eye on the comings and goings of the neighbours. There was a roar of annoyance, muffled behind the walls that could only belong to Mr Connolly and Zoe breathed easier when the door opened and Tommy appeared.

Relief flashed across his face, mouth opening before he thought better of it. Glancing over his shoulder, he quickly stepped out of the door and pulled it gently shut behind him, a bruise shadowing on his temple where there was a healing cut in his hairline. Zoe's stomach clenched at the sight of his father's rage, having seen too much of it as a child to miss the signs as an adult.

“Morning,” she greeted. “Sleep all right?”

“Not really,” Tommy said. “How's my gran?”

“Fine for now,” Jack promised him. “We're trying to figure out how to reverse what happened to her. This is Detective Bishop, by the way, and that's Crabtree. You met them last night.”

His eyes narrowed, annoyance and anger clouding his young face. “Yeah, when they were kidnapping my gran.”

“We weren't kidnapping her,” Bishop replied, eye twitching. “We removed her for everyone's safety.”

“You kicked the door open,” he said, showing him the shattered latch. “We've got to get this fixed now.”

“That's not the most important thing that's happening right now,” Jack reminded him. “We need you to tell us every single thing that's been happening inside your house. It doesn't matter if you think it's dull, anything can be –”

The door flew open. Tommy flinched away from it with such violence that he stumbled off the front step and into Zoe who caught him by the shoulders and instinctively pushed him behind her. In the doorway, Mr Connolly stood with pure rage etched across his face.

“What in the blazes do you think you're doing?” Spittle wet his lips, the early morning sun casting a shine on them, and Zoe's stomach twisted in disgust. “Get back in this house _now_ , boy.”

Tommy's knuckles dragged over Zoe's back as though he had gone to grab hold of her for support only to change his mind before touching her.

“I want to help, Dad,” he said, mouth slick with fear. “What's happening isn't right and I want to help them if I can.”

“Mr Connolly,” Zoe began, deliberately pitching her voice low and calming. “I understand that –”

“Shut your mouth, you black whore,” Connolly spat, the insult stinging for the briefest of moments before self-preservation kicked in as he moved towards her. “I'm not having some coon telling me what to do.”

Her right arm shot up to block the fist that swung towards her face, bracing herself for the blow that never came. Jack's hand gripped hold of Connolly's fist and there was a shivering moment where no one knew exactly what was happening before Jack twisted in front of Zoe, grabbed hold of Mr Connolly by the front of his shirt and _slammed_ him into the wall. Leaves from the gutter shook loose, the door rattling on its hinges, and Rita peered around the edge of it, fingers at her neck worrying the loose skin there. Slowly, Zoe lowered her arm and watched Jack force himself in Mr Connolly's personal space, calm and far angrier than Zoe had ever seen him.

Anger, it turned out, was not something she ever wanted to see on Jack's face again.

“Apologise,” he growled.

“Jack –”

“No,” he interrupted, forcing her to fall silent. “I am so sick of the intolerance in this fucking time. If it's not someone's skin colour it's their sexuality, if it's not that it's their gender, not to mention the unbelievably atrocious attitude to proper mental health care because I reckon you've got a touch of PTSD from your time in the war and might actually be a decent fucking human being if you had proper care, but I've had enough.” He shook Mr Connolly who was slowly turning from red to purple. “No one takes a swing at her like that and no one speaks to her like that, least of all men like you. You're going to apologise to her right now or I swear you'll regret it until your last breath.” Mr Connolly gurgled. “ _Apologise_!”

Zoe reached out and laid her hand between his shoulder blades. “He can't breathe to speak. You need to loosen your grip.”

Jack eased up just enough to allow thin strips air to be dragged into Mr Connolly's lungs, purple fading to red again as oxygen sank into him.

“I'm sorry,” Connolly rasped, eyes locked on his face.

“Not to me,” Jack snapped, jerking his head to Zoe. “Her. Apologise to her.”

Beneath the fear of Jack, in his eyes lay hatred and mortification; Jack was humiliating him in front of his son and wife. Zoe knew it wasn't going to change his attitude towards people of colour or to women, he was going to remain racist and sexist until something else – something other than an angry _American –_ forced him to change.

“I'm sorry,” he forced out.

Zoe nodded her head once, aware of how meaningless the apology was, and tugged on the back of Jack's jacket.

“Enough now. This is a waste of time when we've got other things to be doing.” She looked back to Tommy who was watching his father with a strange mixture of fascination and shame. “Tommy, I hate to ask this because I don't actually know how dangerous this is going to be but we need your help. You know what's going on here better than the rest of us. Will you help us try and figure out a way to fix what's wrong?”

“I –” he hesitated and glanced back to his mother who was staring at her husband, barely breathing, as Jack released him with a shove. “Yes. Of course.”

“Don't you dare,” Mr Connolly rasped, pushing away from the wall and edging around Jack who _did not move_. “You're staying here. I'm not having you run around London with these lunatics. I don't expect you to understand it but I've got a position to maintain. People round here respect me. It matters what people think.”

_He's just a man_ , Tommy thought. _And not even a good one_.

“Is that why you did it?” Tommy asked, lightheaded with courage. “Why you ratted on Gran? The police wouldn't have known where to look, not unless some coward told them.”

Mr Connolly's face bulged, colour blotching his jowls once more and he took a step towards him only for Jack to swing himself between them, planting his body between father and son.

“How dare you?” Connolly hissed from the front step. “Do you think I fought a war just so a mouthy little scum like you could call me a coward?”

Tommy stepped around Zoe and would have gone around Jack had he not been blocking the entire path. As it was, he leaned around him and faced his father head on.

“You don't get it, do you?” He demanded, pale skin shot through with colour. “You fought against fascism, remember? People telling you how to live, who you could be friends with, who you could fall in love with, who could live and who had to die. You were fighting so that mouthy little scum like me and people like her –” he jabbed a finger in Zoe's direction. “ – could do what we want and say what we want. Now you've become just like them. You've been informing on everyone, haven't you? Even Gran who took us in when _you_ lost your job because you thought you knew better. All to protect your precious reputation that means nothing.”

The door creaked and Rita stepped out, knuckles white around the edge of the door. Like her son, her skin was also bruised and her eye was beginning to swell though the make-up she wore did a good job of covering the damage.

“Eddie, is that true?”

He spun with the look of a cornered animal in his eyes. “I did it for us, Rita. For all of us. She was filthy: A filthy, disgusting thing!”

“She's my mother.,” Rita said, softly, unmoved by his emotion. “When we had nothing, she took us in even though she couldn't afford it, even though you made this house a living hell with your moods. She put a roof over our heads and got Tommy into a decent school and this is how you repay her?”

All the others you informed on, all the people in our street, our friends.”

“I had to,” Mr Connolly said, nostrils flaring. “It was the right thing to do.”

“And what about our neighbours?” Rita asked. “Patrick Gallagher got you a job in his office, the Swinton children helped you clean the guttering last winter, and Mrs Fischer cooked for us every night for three weeks when we had that flu. They're our friends, Eddie, and you sold them out.”

He swallowed, head shaking back and forth. “No. _No_. I did the right thing. I did the right thing, Rita, I did the right thing.”

“The right thing for us or for you?” Her eyes swept from her husband to her son who had witnessed too much violence in his home for her to believe she had done her best by him. She wanted to tell him that his father hadn't always been the angry, hateful man he was but that wasn't Tommy's burden to bear. “You go, Tommy. Go with these people and do some good. Get away from this house as quick as you can before it poisons you too.”

Backing into her home, Rita slammed the door on her husband and the _click-click-click_ of locks sliding into place filled the silence left behind. Mr Connolly stood down off the front step, confused and bereft, not understanding how his world had fallen apart.

Tearing her eyes from him, Zoe held her hand out to Tommy. “We need to go. Are you with us?”

Tommy stared at her hand and slowly took it, not sure where she was going to lead him but certain it had to be better than where he already was.


	47. Chapter 47

“It's 7.28,” Bishop said, checking his watch. “Coronation starts in a few hours. If we're going to figure out what's causing this, we need to get a move on.”

Zoe bobbed her head in agreement. “I completely agree. But give us a minute first.”

“Agent Scully –”

“There's no point in us going into whatever it is that's ahead of us without me and him –” Zoe pointed at Jack who was halfway down the street beneath a streetlamp, hands in his pockets and back of his head rhythmically thumping against the metal poll. “Being in alignment on things. This'll take five minutes tops. In the meantime, practice calling me Zoe since Scully actually isn't my name.”

Bishop blinked. “It's not?”

“I'm not about to hand out my real name to people pointing a gun at me now, am I? C'mon, Detective Inspector, use your brain.” She shook her head and caught Tommy's eye. “Stay with them, Tommy. I need a second with my mate over there. I'll be back before you know it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you can call me Zoe too,” she said, backing away from them. “I'm not old enough to be called ma'am.”

A small wink from her had Tommy looking down at his feet, a small grin curling across his face even as he blushed. Turning around, she crossed the road and made her way swiftly to Jack who turned his head and watched her approach, an easy smile resting on his face that she didn't buy for a second. Once upon a time when they were new to each other and still finding out how they fit together that smile would have been enough to assure her that everything was all right. But they had been through too much for her to believe it now and she raised her eyebrows in response, watching the smile drip from his face.

“Don't fuss,” he said when she reached him. “I'm fine.”

“The Doctor says I say I'm fine so often that it's lost all meaning to him now,” Zoe told him. “I think I finally understand what he means. What was that about just now?”

“He was taking a swing at you,” Jack replied. “I wasn't about to let him hit you.”

“And it's much appreciated but you know that's not what I'm talking about.” She stepped closer and reached for him, looping her fingers lightly around his wrist, tips of her fingers pressed over the thin flesh of his pulse point. “That wasn't just because some racist twat took a disliking to me. That felt as though it'd been building for a while.”

He rested his head against the street lamp and stared at the houses opposite them.

“Didn't you ever get tired?” Jack asked, breath rushing from him in a sigh. “In France with everything so out of date for you, didn't you ever just want to scream?”

“Who says I didn't?” His eyes flicked to her. “I hated the 1700s. When I first arrived, everything was awful. I didn't have a hot bath for the entire time I was there: No matter what the servants tried, it was never the same. And the hygiene – God, Jack, it was so fucking awful. I was lucky because Louis was all about the hygiene and had these Turkish bath things so it wasn't too unusual when I was asking for a bath every other night but, honestly, it was awful. But his personal hygiene didn't change the fact that he kept actual slaves in the palace and couldn't see why I'd be upset about it because it wasn't like I was from Africa. Reinette begged me not to say anything to him. I think she was afraid he'd throw me out and then she'd be forced to choose but how the hell could I keep quiet when there were slaves living under the same roof I was?”

Jack shifted and slid his hand up, taking hers and linking their fingers. “What happened?”

“Louis listened to me yell and rant and threaten him with a patience I'm not sure many monarchs of that time would've tolerated,” Zoe replied. “I think I actually told him I'd burn the French monarchy to the ground and France with it if he didn't start acting like a decent human being.” Her shoulders lifted in a small shrug, the memory of Louis calmly watching her as she stumbled over her French in her anger sweeping through her. “And once I was done telling him how awful he was, he freed them, retroactively paid them for their services and gave them enough money to help set them up for life. It wasn't enough to make up for them being in chains in the first place but it helped a little, I think. I hope.”

“I'm sure it did,” he said, looking at her with soft exhaustion behind his eyes. “Sometimes I want to scream or yell or whatever. The 21st century – this time – it's harder than I think it needs to be at times.”

“I understand,” Zoe said, softly. “It's not easy being out of your own time.”

“Just sometimes.” He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “The TARDIS helps because she's so much more advanced than anything I've seen before and it's comforting but other times with the technology that's so slow – seriously, I don't know how you get anything done with computers that move at a glacial pace – and the backward thinking nonsense. Mickey doesn't want to tell anyone on the estate about us because he thinks it'll be a problem.”

She frowned. “Yeah, he might be right about that.”

“They know that you're bisexual,” he pointed out.

“And I get called a dyke for it behind my back,” she said. “Sometimes even to my face but that's less normal because I think people are afraid of Mum and Rose.”

He snorted. “That means they've got some common sense.”

Zoe shuffled in closer to his body and his head dropped to rest on her shoulder. “I know it's hard, and I'm sorry it is. I'll make sure we spend more time in a more enlightened time for a while. Give you a bit of a break from all this.”

Guilt started to press in on him, not used to getting what he asked for and having people make accommodations for him. “It's not so bad.”

“Except sometimes it is and you just need to not be here for a while,” she said, reaching up to scratch his neck comfortingly. “Like I said, I get it.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, quietly. “I appreciate you.”

Zoe smiled, resting her cheek on the top of his head. “I should be thanking you too. Mr Connolly was going to smack me one and can you imagine what the Doctor would've done to him when everything's fixed and I turn up with a black eye?”

“Jesus.” _That_ was something Jack didn't want to see. “He'd go all Oncoming Storm on him and I don't think humans are meant to survive that.”

“It is best saved for the Daleks,” she agreed, giving his hand a squeeze, aware that time was slipping away from them. “If you're sure you're fine –?”

“It's out of my system now,” he told her, straightening up. “I promise I won't slam any more racists into a wall.”

“Slam away, that's not the part that bothered me,” she said, pausing as her eyes flickered over his face. “You know, sometimes I forget that you're not always all right. You're always in a good mood and nothing ever seems to affect you that I forget you still get frustrated with things. Don't feel that you need to hide it from us, yeah? We're your family, we can handle it. It's okay to not be okay all the time.”

Jack studied her hand, her wedding ring glinting in the pale light. “That sounds like Yatta.”

“Of course it is,” she grinned. “Everything wise and sensible that comes out of my mouth is either her or Reinette.”

“Not the Doctor?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please. You know the Doctor, what do you think?”

“Good point.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “I really am fine though. It was a momentary loss of temper that I'd appreciate you not telling Mickey about. He worries too much about me.”

“Can you blame him given recent events?”

“No, which is why I don't want him to worry about things he doesn't need to,” Jack said. “And you don't need to either.”

“Easier said than done but all right,” Zoe said, trusting that he knew what was best for him and acutely aware of time. “But we do to need to talk about what we're going to do when we catch up with whoever's behind this. I've got some idea about what I'd like to do but none of them are Doctor sanctioned.”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, mine either.”

“I can't –” the words lodged in her throat, a shame she had only shared with the Doctor choking her, and she rubbed her chest through her jacket to ease the pressure. “Something happened in the parallel universe that means I don't trust myself right now to make the right decisions. I hate to ask this, especially because they're your family too, but I need you to keep me in line. Don't let me – don't let me do something I'll regret.”

Jack turned his head and stared at her, worry lines creeping into his brow. “You never said anything. What the hell happened back there?”

“It was –” she swallowed, mouth dry and tacky, Lumic's hoarse, weak scream as he fell out of his wheelchair, gasping for breath, pressing into her. “I did something...something bad.”

“You don't have a bad bone in your body,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against his chest. She shuddered at the warm, familiar smell of him that helped to keep her trauma at bay: It was bad enough suffering through the nightmares and the Doctor's concern without having it happen during the day as well. “Is this about Ryga?”

“No.” Of all the things she had to worry about, Ryga was at the bottom of the list though she was sure he would soon rise as threats were wont to do in her life. Torchwood was her more pressing concern, Bishop's casual mention of them settling a heavy weight in her stomach and reminding her that she still didn't know anything about them. “It's about me and the choices I make. I can't do it again. I can't go through all the aftermath and the doubt and the self-hatred again. So if I start to go wobbly, I need you to stop me.”

“Wobbly?” He asked to the top of her head. “What does that mean?”

“You know, _wobbly,_ like on New Earth with the Cat Nuns.”

“Oh, wobbly.” Bowing his head, he kissed her hair and held her tighter. “And you may not trust yourself right now but that doesn't mean I don't. If you need me to keep an eye on things a little while you sort things out though, I can do that for you.”

“I know it's not fair,” she said, hands flat against his chest as she looked up at him. “The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey are yours too. I just – right now it's too hard to think straight when all I want to do is find the person or thing who did this and hurt them.”

“Hey.” Jack's hand smoothed over her back, the other cupping the back of her head. “I've got your back, you know that.”

Her eyes softened. “I do, thank you.”

“And as for whatever or whoever's causing this, I say we get them to reverse what they've done and then hold them for the Doctor to deal with,” he said, thumb pressing into the pressure point behind her ear, slowing her heart rate and helping her breathe easier. “We can always take them back to their planet for punishment like we did with Margaret because I'm assuming alien.”

“I'd be surprised if it's not,” Zoe said. “And I like that idea. That's actually a good idea.”

“Don't sound so surprised,” he grinned. “I've been known to have one or two good ideas every now and then. Just ask Mickey.”

“No, thank you,” she said, quickly, stepping back from him and tugging her jacket down. “Right then. Back to work?”

Jack nodded. “Sooner we do the sooner we get them back.”

Taking her hand again, they walked side-by-side back to Bishop, who was checking his watch obsessively, and Crabtree and Tommy, who were awkwardly attempting to make conversation and failing miserable: All three straightened at Jack and Zoe's appearance.

“Sorry about that,” Jack apologised. “Needed a quick confab.”

“Looked more like hugging to me,” Bishop noted.

“Confab, hugging, we can do both,” he said. “What time is it now?”

“7.37,” Bishop answered. “Coronation starts at 11.15. Whatever your plan is, we need to do it now or else everything will be ruined.”

Zoe turned in her heels. “I get that you're under a lot of pressure but the dramatics really don't help. We need clear minds, Detective, and local information. Fortunately, we've got the latter. Tommy.”

“Yes, ma'am.” A sigh filtered from her throat. “Sorry. Zoe.”

“That's better,” she said. “How are you doing? Any questions, comments, or concerns you'd like to raise right now?”

“Er –” his eyes flicked to Jack who smiled at him. “No?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Telling you?” Colour bloomed through his skin at the sight of her raised eyebrows, uncertain how someone was able communicate so pointedly through them. “I mean, I'm telling you. I'm good. I'm fine. I'm okay.”

Zoe and Jack exchanged a look.

“You're not but you will be,” Zoe said, resting her hand on his shoulder and giving it a reassuring pat. “Now, please tell us about what happened the night your grandmother changed. What was she doing? Did she eat anything, drink anything? Did she seem out of sorts? Even the smallest thing you can remember could be helpful.”

Tommy put his trembling hands in his pockets, removing them when he realised a beat too late that it was rude to do such a thing in front of a lady – even if Zoe was like no lady he had ever seen before. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and awkwardly hunched in on himself, not sure what he was doing with them but positive he didn't want to go back home. He was aware of his father behind him, still standing outside the house in a state of shock, not even flinching when the paper boy threw the morning newspaper at his feet.

“It was the same as always,” he said, finding his voice. “Dinner at five – we had ham, egg, and chips – and then she was just watching the telly for the evening. She loves it because she says it feels as though she's got her friends all in the house with her. They're all dead now her friends. She's the only one left and I know she gets lonely sometimes.”

“My mum does that too,” Zoe said. “She just puts the TV on so the flat isn't always quiet.”

Jack glanced at her. “Really?”

“She's slowly getting used to not having me and Rose underfoot any more,” she said with a small shrug.

“Oh.” His heart ached for Jackie even as his mind though of his mother sat alone in her kitchen with the sun spilling through the window, alone even though she still had one son left who had needed her. Dragging himself from his memories and guilt, he focused on Tommy. “Did you get the TV from Magpie's Electricals?”

“Yeah, we did, from the back of his van,” Tommy answered. “How did you know that?”

“Because that's what everything is being linked back to so far,” Jack said. “Whatever's happening seems to have its epicentre at that shop. Did you go in or get it from his van?”

“His van,” Tommy said. “Which was weird, y'know? Sometimes we have shops come through in vans but from the bakery and stuff like that. But he was knocking on doors and bringing people out to look at the sets in his van. I remember it was weird because Dad –” he stumbled, risking a glance over his shoulder to see that Mr Connolly was slumped on the front porch, head in his hands. “He said it was a strange way to go about selling TVs and next thing we know, we won't have to leave the house to do our shopping.”

“You're right, that is weird,” Zoe lied. “But, with your gran, when did you notice that something was wrong with her –?” She gestured at her face. “Did it happen straight away, or was it more like a gradual fade?”

“I don't know, I think it was instant but I don't know,” he said, fiddling nervously with the open cuffs of his sleeves, rolling them up his forearms. “We found her in the morning. Mum did, I mean. She screamed and that's what woke me up. I came downstairs and saw Gran just – just sitting there in her chair with the TV still going.”

“How could a TV do this?” Bishop asked. “It doesn't make sense.”

“Not right now it doesn't. Give it time though,” Jack said, casting his eyes around the street. “Rose was right. Everyone and their mother seems to have a TV aerial attached to their houses. If Magpie was going around selling them off cheap, my bet is they're a conduit of some kind.”

“Have you ever come across face sucking?” Zoe asked him. “You've been about the block a bit more than me.”

“Polite way to say I'm older than you.”

“By what, like three years?”

“Hush now, your elder is speaking, show a little respect.” Jack rubbed his jaw, mind turning over the information they had. “And no, by the way, I haven't seen anything resembling face sucking. The closest I can think of that we've encountered is what – Momo? The Zygons?”

“The Zygons don't really suck your face off they more cover a person in slime and cocoon you,” she said, still bitter about her first encounter with the Zygons shortly after meeting Jack. The slime had taken _hours_ to scrub off and every meeting with a Zygon since then had reinforced her first negative impression of them. “And Momo – I don't know. Maybe? She was an artificial intelligence gone wrong though. These TVs...maybe there's something living in them but I don't know if that makes any sense. God, this is so much easier when the Doctor's here to be all _actually, they're a blah-blah-blah from the planet blah-blah-blah_.”

“That does sound like him,” Jack said, dryly. “Whichever way we look at it, I keep coming back to alien.”

“I agree.”

“And what's the betting our idiots walked straight into the middle of it all at Magpie's shop?”

“Fairly high knowing them,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose where a headache was settling in. “Remind me to have a word with the TARDIS when we get back. It's all well and good her having fun but she could at least give us a warning when she throws us into these situations. Like a flashing light or something. She was much better behaved when it was just the two of us. You know, sometimes I think she's jealous.”

Jack's eyebrows lifted. “Of what, you?”

“God no,” she scoffed. “Just that she's not the centre of the Doctor's attention any more. More people on board, the less one-on-one time she gets with him. I swear she flooded the kitchen the other day just so he'd go crawling about to fix her. It's perverse.”

“Ah.” Amusement settled in him and he couldn't wait to tell Mickey about this. “You're jealous.”

“Piss off.”

“What's the matter, did she interrupt some one-on-one time of your own?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, actually, but I'm not jealous.”

“If you say so,” he said, cheerily.

“I do.”

“Okay then.”

Zoe opened her mouth to retort before she snapped it shut with a click, aware that he was teasing her.

“Are you two done?” Bishop asked, pointedly. “Because everything's linking back to this shop. We looked at it earlier because the proprietor seemed nervous and a little sketchy – who sells TVs out the back of a van? – but we didn't find anything out of the ordinary.”

“You wouldn't,” Jack said before pausing. “You had a look around without a warrant?”

“A discreet one.”

Zoe nudged him. “Like we're any better.”

“ _We're_ not police officers,” he said. “Just concerned citizens.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, turning instead to Tommy to ask him to lead them to the shop. With Jack at her side, their shoulders brushing together as they walked, she felt confident that they would be able to fix what had been done to their friends and to all the other innocent people who had had the misfortune of crossing Mr Magpie's path. The worry she held over her lack of clear judgement was abated in Jack's presence, trusting in him not to let her doing anything she would live to regret, conscious that she still had some ways to go before she was able to trust herself again.

Jek.

Lumic.

Ryga.

Three men who had been affected by her lack of judgement and lack of control, her emotions getting the better of her when she was in a more vulnerable state. She knew that being tired and stretched thin wasn't an excuse for what she had done to Jek, nor was her fear an excuse for what she had done to Lumic, and she dreaded to think what it was that she would do to make Ryga hate her so much.

She wanted to be better.

The Doctor's sweet words about forgiving herself were easier said than done; though, she supposed he was better aware of that than most.

_Never cruel nor cowardly_ , she thought to herself as they approached Magpie's shop, holding onto the words of the Doctor's promise tightly. _Never give up, never give in._

Repeating it on a mantra in her mind, she took in the shop that had seen better days. She found herself sweeping the area with her eyes, looking for anything out of the ordinary and finding nothing. Turning her gaze to the ground, she searched for the Doctor's screwdriver, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunlight bouncing off its metallic surface but there was nothing. No matter what happened, they wouldn't be able to leave 1953 without it, particularly since she knew that Torchwood was sure to be on their way when they heard about what had happened.

It was bad enough they had a weapon potentially capable of taking out a Sycorax ship in 2007 without adding the Doctor's altered Time Lord technology into the mix.

“Here it is,” Tommy said, the five of them stopped on the street outside Magpie's Electricals that did not look as though it could afford to practically give TVs away. “It's been here for ages. I think he set it up before the war started.”

“Bad time to start a business,” Crabtree said.

Zoe turned to him, startled. “Honestly, I forgot you were even here. You're extremely quiet.”

“Don't say much,” he replied. “Bothers the wife when I talk.”

“Happy wife, happy life,” Zoe said. “I know that feeling.”

Bishop rattled his knuckles against the glass door and peered inside. “It's locked. No one's home.”

“Perfect.” Zoe stepped up onto the pavement and looked in through the main window, using the sleeve of her jacket to wipe away some of the dirt. “Jack, could you boot the door open for us?”

“Not like you to pass up a chance to kick a door in,” Jack observed, reaching into his pocket and removing his small lock picking kit that, along with his emergency first aid kit, went everywhere with him. “Sometimes you and Rose actually fight about who gets to kick a door open.”

“It's these damned shoes,” she complained. “Next time I try to wear something impractical like this, stop me.”

Jack settled on his knees and began to pick the lock, ear placed against the door to hear the gentle _click_ of the locking mechanism.

“Not a chance. You look smashing –” she snorted at the slang he was testing out, always enjoying his forays into 21stcentury colloquialisms. “And it made the Doctor's eyes go like that cartoon wolf , all – _awooga_!”

She laughed. “He's always very enthusiastic about my fancies.”

“Is he now?” The lock gave way beneath his tools and the door opened an inch. “You'll have to tell me more about that later.”

She pinched his ear as she passed him, pushing the door open. “Nope.”

The dense, musty smell inside the shop reminded Zoe of the taverns she used to frequent in Paris that she would never have dared to take Reinette to: The places they visited were more upscale even if she let her wife believe they were slumming it. Her nose twitched at the smell of faintly burnt metal, something having recently been soldered together, and she cast a critical eye over the dark polished wood. Dust drifted through the air, caught in the sunbeams of the early morning, drawing a sneeze from Bishop who groaned and muttered something about allergies as he dug his handkerchief out.

All was still and quiet.

There was no sign that there had been a disturbance the night before. If the others had put up a fight, if what had happened to them had even happened there, Zoe wasn't able to tell. Behind her, Tommy quietly shut the door, edging into the room with a nervousness she recognised from people like herself, Jula, and Lorna: People thrown into an adventure they weren't ready for, trying desperately to get their footing underneath.

She wasn't worried about Tommy though.

He seemed like the sort who was able to roll with the strange and unusual.

“You can let go of that,” Jack said, breaking the silence and nodding at the gun Crabtree held in front of him, slender barrel pointed towards the ground. “We're not here to shoot anyone, we're here to question them.”

Crabtree's fingers flexed. “We also believe they're responsible for removing the faces of people all over this part of London. If they're capable of that, what else are they capable of?”

“That's a good point,” he agreed. “But having a gun out means you're more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. And how are we supposed to ask this man questions if he's dying? Holster it, officer. If we have need of it, I trust you'll be quick on the draw.”

Crabtree hesitated, eyes sliding to Bishop to receive his orders.

“Do as he says,” Bishop said after a moment's though. “We need answers and we can't get them from a dead man.” Slowly, Crabtree relaxed his grip and slid the weapon back into the holster clipped to his belt as Bishop moved further into the ship. “Mr Magpie, are you here?”

Silence was their only response.

“Maybe he's out,” Tommy said, clearing his throat nervously. “Or at home. It's still early. He could be in bed.”

“Could be,” Zoe replied, watching Jack hop the counter to begin his search through the drawers and cupboards. He pulled them open one-by-one and rifled through the contents with a careless disregard for organisation, not worried about Magpie knowing he had been through them. “What are you looking for? He's not going to keep anything incriminating out in the open like this.”

“Maybe, maybe not. People are weird when they're caught up in something. They get complacent, lazy.” He held out his hand without looking up, fingers waggling. “Phone please.”

She pressed it into his hand and turned to look at the TVs lining the wall. Out of date by her time – historical relics almost – but shiny and new in 1953 where everything appeared normal and nothing seemed to be out of place. Yet she had spent her formative adult years learning through experience that even the most normal, humdrum, _boring_ things were able to hide the weird, the wonderful, and the dangerous. She reached out to touch one of the screens, ready to tap her knuckles against it when Tommy kicked something across the floor, the skittering clatter turning her away.

“Sorry.” Red stained his cheeks as he dropped to a crouch, picking the Doctor's sonic screwdriver up between his thumb and forefinger. “What's this? Do you think it's important?”

“Yes.” Zoe snatched it from his hands, curling her fingers around it and breathing easier at proof they were on the right track. The others _had_ been in the shop as the Doctor would never drop his sonic screwdriver, not unless he had to. “Thank you. This is – it belongs to our friend.”

Bishop stared at it, attempting to make sense of what it was only to give up in confusion. “What is it?”

“It's – um – it's –” she glanced to Jack who shrugged helplessly before disappearing beneath the counter to drag something heavy out. “A family heirloom. Not that interesting really. It holds sentimental value to my boyfriend, that's all.”

“Good job we got it back,” Jack said, voice muffled from behind the counter. “He can be a right pain in the – got it!” Standing up with dust in his hair, Jack set a rectangular box down on the counter. “That was tucked away right at the back but look at this beauty.”

Crabtree frowned. “What is _that_?”

“No idea,” he said, running Zoe's phone over it to scan the interior workings. Checking the results, he hummed lightly and met Zoe's eyes through the motes of dust suspended in the sunbeams. “It's like we thought. The design isn't human. Built by a human, no doubt about that, but there's no way someone of this time could've come up with this because this baby's advanced. And not regular advanced but advanced advanced.”

“Time Lords?”

“Less advanced than them,” Jack conceded. “Think Grifari with a splash of Omni thrown in for good measure.”

“Huh.” Zoe slipped her glasses onto her face and bent at the waist to examine it closer, realising her mistake at the last moment when the sounds of two men and a teenage boy choking behind her reminded her that she wasn't wearing clothes suitable for bending over in. Mildly embarrassed, she straightened up and ignored the small, unfurling grin on Jack's face. “What does it do?”

“Are we skipping over the bit when you said it isn't human?” Bishop asked. “And that's the second time you've said _this time_. Who are you people? Really though. No lies. Who are you?”

Jack caught his sigh in his chest. “Who we are doesn't matter as much as what we can do. It'd take far too long to tell you the truth, longer still for you to believe it. All you need to know is that we're people who can help. If it helps, just ignore the talk of aliens and time and chalk it up to us being eccentric.”

Aware that there was more to what was happening than could easily be explained away, Bishop wanted to know yet, at the same time, he shied from the truth. He was overworked and underpaid as it was and with a household of nearly a dozen people to take care of on his salary, the thought of adding more to his plate sent exhaustion pulsing through him. Except, faces were being stolen, Torchwood was whatever Torchwood was – everyone in the police and military had heard the rumours about them, knew to call them in when something _strange_ happened and the only reason he hadn't was because his superior officers didn't trust them not to make the situation worse – and he had two strangers talking about aliens and time.

“I –”

“Detective Inspector.” Zoe looked up from her examination of the machine and fixed him with a look over her glasses that reminded him of his grammar school teacher. “Once you know, you can't ever unknow.”

He held her eyes, wondering if it was worth knowing the truth, curious if she had been a normal woman before whatever it was dragged her into a life where she spoke about aliens and time freely. He thought about his wife at home – Angela with her round face and bright laugh and German-accented English when she was tired at the end of the day and how she made everything better – and he wondered if knowing would mean that he was still the same man she married twenty-six years ago.

Nothing was worth losing her and so he shook his head.

“We're running out of time,” he said, turning his watch to face him. “It's 8.12 now.”

The smile Zoe gave him was soft and full of understanding, a hint of respect in her eyes for making the choice that he had, and she turned back to the machine, poking it with the screwdriver.

“This is where their faces were taken. I don't know how but this is definitely involved.” Looking down at the screwdriver, she noticed the light blinking and swiped her thumb up the side to check the readings. “This is interesting. It looks like there's a pretty big power source in this room that's not coming from our new toy there. Here, take a lo–”

Jack caught the screwdriver as it dropped from Zoe's startled fingers, the television screens lining the wall crackling to life. The sharp, artificial light of the screens cast the room in an eerie glow broken only by the sunlight stretching in long beams across it. On each TV set there was, a different face, and Zoe's eyes flicked across them in turn, mouth parted in surprise.

Their mouths moved silent, some of the crying for help, others merely talking, already used to the loneliness and using conversation with themselves to stop from going mad wherever they were.

A brush against her shoulder and Tommy stepped past her, crouching down in front of the face of his grandmother, fingertips lightly touching the screen. Behind the counter, a tight sound throttled Jack, his eyes focused up high. Following his gaze, she found Mickey's trapped within the TV set too much for her to bear, and her eyes shifted, _searching_ , until she found her sister.

The syllables of her name formed on Rose's mouth, Zoe's fingers reaching out to touch the screen as an empty grief throbbed inside of her: She was alive but trapped and Zoe didn't know how she was going to get her out of there. Lightly tracing the shape of Rose's face with the tip of her index finger, she continued her search until she found the Doctor. Swallowing hard, she knelt in front of him and met his eyes. There was no panic on his face, nothing at all that implied he was anything less than comfortable where he was, and when his eyes met hers, he smiled.

“Hello,” Zoe murmured, wanting to feel his arms around her and the double beats of his hearts against her back. “What've you gone and done to yourself now?”

He had no shoulders to shrug and settled instead for dropping his left eye in a small wink that eased the knot of tension in her chest. Somehow, against the odds, he was still alive inside the TV, which meant that whatever had done this to him wasn't killing them for a reason. Their bodies remained alive and unharmed and what appeared to be their consciousness hadn't been swept away into energy. It felt as though they were being saved for something but she didn't know what.

His mouth opened and, briefly, she thought he was trying to tell her something before she realised he was simply popping his mouth, something that usually drove her mad when he did it around her.

Touching her fingers to his lips, he stopped. “We'll save you, I promise.”

_Behind you_ , he mouthed, the screens turning off as one.

Dropping her hand from the screen, she turned on the balls of her feet and rose as Mr Magpie stepped into the room, face flashing with annoyance and panic. He opened his mouth to demand to know what they were doing when Jack stepped forwards, grabbed him by the front of his knitted jumper and slammed him against the wall.

“Who do you work for?” Jack demanded, voice low and threatening. “Speak quickly.”

“Jesus, what is this, slam people against the wall day?” Zoe asked, making no move to drag him off Magpie who had turned white with fear. “As far as interrogation techniques go, it leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I don't know,” he mused. “A small dose of fear tends to shake secrets loose. Lets people know that there are other players on the field. Isn't that right, Mr Magpie?”

“I – I – I –” Zoe brushed lint off Tommy's shoulder and smiled at him when he looked up at her, eyes wide with alarm. “There's not – I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Don't lie to me,” Jack snapped.

“Really, don't,” Zoe said. “Just take a moment and look at his face, Mr Magpie.” Frightened eyes darted to Jack's face that looked as though it had been carved from stone, anger harshening the lines around his eyes and the set of his jaw. “Does he look like the sort of man you want to be lying to right now?”

Magpie latched onto Bishop and Crabtree. “You're the police, get him off me.”

“I don't start until nine,” Bishop said, checking his watch. “It's only 8.17 now.”

Crabtree yawned. “And I'm not all that bothered about it. Just don't leave any bruises, yeah, mate?”

“Honestly.” Zoe clucked her tongue, partly amused but mainly concerned that _this_ was the level of policing in the 1950s. “There'll be no violence, right, Jack?”

“Absolutely,” Jack said. “There are so many more ways to hurt a person than physically. But we'll only have to get into that if you don't answer our questions. Because – and I want you to pay close attention to me now – whatever you've done, whoever you're working for, has taken three of the most important people in the universe from me. You've taken their faces and put them in the TVs. I want to how, I want to why, and I want you to reverse it.”

“It wasn't me,” Magpie whispered, body shaking so hard Jack had difficulty keeping hold of him. “I didn't do it.”

“But you know who did it,” Jack said, voice soft and gentle and all the more terrifying for it, a whimper falling from Magpie's throat. “I know you're just the middle man. There's no way you built that device without a lot of help. What happened? You get in over your head? There's no shame in that. Happens to the best of us. But now you have a choice: Tell us everything you know and we'll help, or don't tell us and find out about my other methods.”

Magpie's breath shuddered from him, face creasing in anguish, and he opened his mouth to –

“This one's _thrilling_ ,” a voice said from behind them. Zoe and Tommy turned as one, Crabtree raising his gun only for Bishop to force it down: Jack turned slower, one hand kept on Magpie, eyes narrowing at the woman on the screen. Her dark eyes roved over him, painted lips parting lightly, fingers touching the string of pearls around her neck. “And so handsome too. My, my, my. I want to just gobble you up.”

“Oh my god,” Bishop breathed. “It's the woman off the telly.”

“I doubt that, more like whatever it is is using her image,” Zoe said, releasing Tommy and stepping in front of him, screwdriver extended as she scanned the woman. “That's interesting. Same results as before but definitely more powerful. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're the thing responsible for what's happening here.”

“That's hardly a reach, darling.”

“Who are you?” She asked. “ _What_ are you?”

“I'm the Wire,” it said.

“Is that supposed to mean something to us?” Jack asked, palm flat against Magpie's chest to hold him in place. “Because it doesn't.”

“Not a damn thing,” Zoe agreed. “But it doesn't matter who you are, not really. What matters is why you're doing this. What possible reason could you have for sucking people's off but not killing them? What are you using them for?”

“How else am I supposed to gain the corporeal body by fellow kind denied me?” Understanding clicked into place for Zoe and Jack, eyes flicking to the TV screens where the consciousness of its victims lay, waiting to be consumed at the right moment. “And while I would so dearly love to stay and chat, I'm afraid I have an appointment I must keep. No rest for the wicked, isn't that what you lovely people say?”

“You realise that the origin of that proverb means that evil-doers will face eternal punishment, yeah?” Zoe asked. “Which actually fits with what we're going to do to you if you don't let our people go. But, since I'm trying to be a new and improved version of myself, I'm going to make you an offer but I'm going to make it once: Let everyone go, return them to their bodies, and we'll help you with whatever it is you need. Refuse my offer and live with the consequences.”

“Do you think you scare me, little girl?” The Wire demanded. “When I'm through eating up every last pretty little morsel of your being, you'll be nothing. Your threats will be words on a breeze.”

Jack shook his head slowly. “You're an idiot for not taking her up on that. I've seen her destroy fleets of Daleks and they were actually dangerous. You, stuck in your TV, you'll be ten minutes of work at best.”

“We'll see about that.”

Having barely moved from her perfect seated position, colour started to seep into the screen and fill in the dark blue of her dress and the red of her lipstick. Behind her, Bishop appeared to be caught in fascination at colour television while Tommy reached for her, curling his fingers into the back of her jacket, the ragged, frightened breathing making her stretch her hand behind her, offering his palm to her. His fingers were clammy but strong when they latched around hers, his warmth at her back as he stared at the Wire from around her shoulder.

“That's a nice little trick,” Jack said, boredom dripping from his words. “But double back a second, your own people tried to stop you?”

Pain flashed across her face, quickly hidden behind its human mask. “They executed me. But I escaped in this form and fled across the stars.”

“How?” Tommy whispered, breath disturbing the thin hairs on the side of Zoe's neck. “How is this even happening?”

Zoe squeezed his hand in response.

“And got yourself trapped in the television?” Jack noted. “That's a bit of bad luck.”

“Ma'am – _Zoe_.” She tilted her head a millimetre to one side, showing that she was listening without taking her eyes off the screen. “Is this what took my gran?”

Slowly, she dipped her head in a nod, his breath shuddering across her neck.

“Soon – _soon_ I shall be free,” the Wire claimed. “And I will make them pay for what they've done to me. Them and everyone else.”

“How?” Zoe asked. “You're trapped in the TV. You can't –” she cut herself off and checked the sonic screwdriver again. “Delta, theta, beta, gamma, alpha: You've got the whole alphabet jammed into you, haven't you? All of them are coming together but for what?”

“Do you taste that?” Bishop said, suddenly. “It's like – I don't know – something earthy and fresh, like how the air tastes after there hasn't been rain for a while.”

“Petrichor,” Jack said. “Sixteen points in Scrabble.”

“You know, this is reminding me of a situation I lived through once,” Zoe said, ignoring the chatter behind her, looking over her shoulder to Tommy and smiling. “Children were going missing and it took me a while before I figured out what was going wrong. These aliens were stealing them off the street and converting them into energy because humans have a distinctive energy feature. We're built with the stuff that others use to power their ships and fuel their agriculture and, in some cases, rebuild corporeal form.”

The Wire looked down at her from the screen, the air growing dry and warm, static crackling between Zoe and Tommy's joined hands.

“Aren't you a clever little thing?”

“What about the faces though? Why would it suck people's faces off?” Jack asked, the answer already with him before he finished his questions. “Except we don't eat everything, do we? We'll peel the skins off potatoes and leave bones after eating ribs because that's just the done thing but there's nothing stopping us from eating the skins or sucking the marrow out.”

“Exactly,” Zoe said, theorising quickly. “But if we're hungry, we're not going to waste time peeling the potatoes. We're just going to boil them as is. That's what it's doing, it's feasting. It's so hungry that it's not stopping to eat politely.”

“Like you at theme parks.”

“ _Hey_ but yeah,” she said. “It's been feeding off people, using the television sets all around this area to get energy.” Her eyes rolled, annoyed. “God, the Doctor's going to be insufferable when this is over. Talk about idiot boxes.”

Bishop turned on Magpie with a fury that had him reaching for his gun. “And you let her do it. You coward, Magpie!”

“I had to!” Red in the face, sweat beading his brow and staining his underarms, he squirmed in Jack's grip. “She allowed me my face. She's promised to release me at the time of manifestation. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not this,” Jack snapped. “You could've done anything else and it probably would've been better in the long run.”

Tommy tugged on Zoe's hand. “What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?”

“The manifestation?”

“Good point, excellent job for catching that, Tommy, thank you.” Zoe twisted back to face the Wire. “What's the manifestation?”

“The appointed time,” the Wire said, simply. “My crowning glory.”

Jack's eyes slid shut. “Son of a bitch.”

“ _Fuck,”_ Zoe sighed.

Elizabeth Windsor – Lilibet to close friends, family, and David Moyo of 13 St Lawrence's Lane, Bodmin for reasons no one fully understand – was set to be crowed Queen of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and other assorted realms at 11.15am that morning. From history, Zoe knew the ceremony went without a hitch and was everything Detective Inspector Bishop hoped it would be for a population suffering from the aftereffects of a war eight years over. It revitalised a handful of industries, helped pump money back into the economy, brought investors back from abroad, and repositioned Britain as a bright and shining beacon after decades spent in stagnation and war.

With a young and beautiful queen at the helm, Britain reshaped itself for the future.

The damage that would be done to the timelines if Elizabeth wasn't crowned, if she or if any others died that day, sent ice washing through Zoe. She wasn't able to see the timelines or feel changes to them the way the Doctor was but she had a vivid imagination, and her mouth turned dry at the prospect of a Britain without Elizabeth II becoming queen. For all that she maintained the status quo – more so the older she got – she was an icon of Britain and the lodestar for many British people who had known nothing else except a queen on the throne.

“Well...” she said into the silence that crackled with energy, her hair tingling against her scalp as it built around them. “This is a problem.”

“Does she mean the coronation?” Tommy asked. “Is she going to kill the queen?”

“Not the queen,” she said. “At least not yet.”

“This is the first time in human history that people have been able to watch something like this on a large scale,” Jack said, frowning. “How many millions are going to be sitting in front of their TVs watching it?”

“Millions,” Zoe said. “Like the moon landing but not as big yet. Except, the only people who have had their faces taken are those who have a Magpie TV. Detective Inspector, are you sure there are no other cases around London? Is it just here?”

“Positive, ma'am,” he said, wiping his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “Crabtree here broke into sealed records back at headquarters to double check when we were told to sweep it under the rug.”

“Good man, Crabtree,” she replied, giving him a thumb's up. “But that means that the damage would be limited only to people who bought a TV from Magpie. Unless –” she and Jack turned to look at the portable TV. “You don't think that's a –”

“Portable adaptor,” Jack finished for her. “I do now. Hook this up to a big enough transmitter and it becomes a big receiver, you could tap into homes all across London. All across Britain. There's your million and more people to absorb. It's smart technology. I'm almost impressed.”

“Clever,” Zoe said, looking back to the Wire. “So what's your plan at the end of this? You kill a whole lot of people and then what? You're still stuck on Earth.”

“You're absolutely right,” the Wire said, dryly. “Let me tell you what my plan is so that you can stop me. Dear, I'm not an idiot.” Her eyes flicked to Jack “You're clever as well as handsome, I like that. But why fret about it? Why not just relax? Kick off your shoes and enjoy the coronation. Believe me, you'll be glued to the screen.”

Zoe knocked Tommy to the ground and hissed in pain as the energy singeing the air reached its pressure point and burst out of the Wire's screen and slammed into her face. It felt like she was sitting too close to a fire, the heat of it warming her skin until it became too uncomfortable to bear it any more but bear it she must. Twisting from side to side, she felt herself weaken, knees buckling beneath her. Distantly, she heard the sounds of the others struggling to fight the effects and worried for Jack and Tommy, the latter of whom had his hand locked around her ankle in a tight grip. Unable to breathe without pain stabbing at her lungs, she fought against the failure that rushed her like a tide.

_Doctor,_ she thought, desperately _. I'm sorry._

A stronger surge of energy pulsed into her, her muscles contracting, fingers clamping down around the sonic screwdriver that buzzed in her hand.

  
“You're armed.” A hint of panic broke through the Wire's facade, reaching out to the technology that it recoiled from upon discovering how advanced it was. “She's armed. Withdraw, withdraw!”

Pulling the beam away from the five of them, it pressed itself into the portable adaptor on the counter. Zoe collapsed to the floor, limbs trembling, and she tried to push herself up only to fall back down, vision blurred and teeth vibrating. Magpie's scuffed leather shoes passed across her eyeline, the door opening and closing, before a silence broken only by the ragged breaths of the group and Tommy's small, whining groans of pain descended.

Darkness crept in around the edges of Zoe's eyes and she tried to fight against it.

“Oh no,” she murmured, passing out.

* * *

Jack woke with a start.

Sitting upright, he sucked in deep lungfuls of air and pressed his molars together in an attempt to stop the small bursts of electricity that ran through them. Light spooled through the room, higher in the sky than it had been, and he fumbled awkwardly for Zoe's phone that lay face down on the ground. Awkwardly thumbing at the screen, his limbs taking a while to receive instructions from his brain, the time flashed at him: **10.24am**.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” he swore, scrambling to his knees, the world tilting precariously to one side before he crawled past Bishop and Crabtree to Zoe's still form, Tommy curled around her legs. He paused quickly to check Tommy's pulse and give him a little shake before he turned Zoe onto her side, hand beneath her head as he tapped her cheek. “Zoe. Zoe, wake up. Zo. Zoe. Zoe. Zoe. Zoe. Zo. Zoe.”

Her eyes moved beneath her eyelids, mouth parting as she groaned. Relief flooded him at the sound, smoothing her hair back and gently coaxing her back to consciousness. It came to her slowly, piece by piece, before her eyes opened and squinted at him, mouth moving as she tried to get rid of the static that ran over her teeth, muscles sore from clamping down on them. Sliding an arm beneath her back, he helped her sit upright, her forehead falling to rest on his shoulder as she caught her breath.

“All right,” she muttered. “Now I'm pissed off.”

His quick, surprised laugh warmed her ear. “Yeah, me too. We're running out of time. It's nearly half-ten.”

“Fucking fuck,” she swore, pulling back from him to touch his face, eyes sweeping over him with obvious concern. “You okay?”

“Headache but I'm fine.” Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead, closing his eyes, comforted by the fact he had her even when the others were gone. “Try and get your feet under you, I'm going to check on the others.”

Her face opened with sudden concern. “Tommy!”

Scrambling out of Jack's arms, she knelt by Tommy and turned him onto his back, cupping his face with her hands. He felt hot to the touch and there was a pulse fluttering beneath her fingers when she checked. Digging into her pocket, she removed the small pack of wet wipes she kept on her person in the event the Doctor stuck his fingers into things that made him sticky, aware that the difference between him and a toddler often came down to his higher speech, and wiped it over Tommy's face, cooling him down. Eyelashes fluttering against his pale skin, he moaned and struggled to open his eyes.

“Easy does it,” Zoe said, gently. “You're okay.”

“Ow,” he moaned. “My head.”

“I've got something for that.” Pulling out a strip of pain relief tabs from her pocket – the depths helpfully expanded by the TARDIS for her wearing pleasure – she peeled one off and rubbed it onto his temple. “There we go. You'll start to feel it soon.”

“Whoa,” Tommy said, blinking his eyes open, colour returning to his cheeks. “What is that?”

“Good, aren't they?” Shifting until she was seated, she helped him sit up, supporting him as he swayed, lightheaded and confused. “Sorry about that. I tried to get you out of the way but no such luck. You'll be fine though. I don't think there's any lasting damage.”

“My teeth feel funny.”

She pulled his hands away from his mouth. “Don't poke at them. It's just the energy discharge. Give it a few minutes.”

“Crabtree can't speak and Bishop's been taken,” Jack said, appearing above them to offer them hands up. Zoe grabbed hold of his forearm and managed to get to her feet even as Tommy used her as support, his gangly teenage form heavier than it looked. “Magpie's not here too, neither's the portable TV.”

“There's some bad news,” Zoe said, swaying on the spot and fixing her gaze on Crabtree who was rubbing at his throat, trying to speak. “Crabtree, you all right?”

“I –” garbled, muffled sounds left his mouth. “Can't –”

Tommy's shoulders tensed beneath the hand she had on them. “Why? What happened just now?”

“That must've been how the Wire feeds,” Zoe said. “But the process was interrupted and so it wasn't able to finish, at least not with all of us. It must have taken some of him but not all, the poor bastard.” Pushing herself away from Jack and Tommy, she staggered to Crabtree and seized his shoulders. “Do you understand me?” He nodded, pupils blown with panic. “We're going to fix this, I promise. I don't know how yet, but we are.” She looked back to Jack and Tommy. “We need to hurry. The coronation is in –” her mind blank. “Shit. How long do we have?”

Jack checked her phone. “Forty-two minutes. It's 10.33 now. Hell, I swear it was dawn not too long ago.”

“Time flies when you're trying to prevent mass murder,” Zoe replied. “Right, we need to stop the Wire. That is like job numero uno. Rescuing everyone else has to come after that.”

“But my Gran,” Tommy protested. “Your friends.”

“Zoe's right,” Jack said, resting a hand on Tommy's shoulders. “We'll save everyone but, right now, we've got to stop the Wire from piggybacking off the coronation. The timelines won't hold if that's affected –”

“And I don't know how to deal with the Reapers,” Zoe told them, running her hands over her face. “Okay. Stop the Wire. Save everyone. Have a cup of tea.”

“Agreed,” Jack said. “First problem, how do we stop the Wire?”

“Was kind of hoping you had an idea or two,” she admitted. “Because I'm drawing a bit of a blank unless shutting down the National Grid would work.”

“I wouldn't put it past her to have a backup power system and wouldn't shutting down the Grid affect history as well?” He replied. “Millions of people not being able to see it would definitely have a negative effect.”

“I hate that you're right about that.”

“We don't even know what _it_ is. Normally the Doctor has all of this right up here.” Jack tapped his temple with his fingers. “But the two of us can make one Time Lord, no problem. We just have to work the problem.” Pacing, he clapped his hands together and pointed at them. “What do we know so far?”

“It sucks people's faces off,” Tommy said.

“That's true, it does,” he agreed. “And it also leaves their bodies alive, which makes me think that it needs a link between their energy and their bodies. Maybe the bodies are like slow-release carbohydrates? It keeps getting energy in low doses throughout the day to keep a base level of energy.”

“Makes sense,” Zoe replied. “It also had Magpie build that portable adaptor because it's not strong enough yet to jump out of the TV and into a big transmitter. It needs the help and that buys us some time.”

“So how does it get stronger?” Jack asked. “More food.”

“And how does it get more food?”

“By using the adaptor to turn a transmitter into a receiver.”

“And in 1953 what's used a big transmitter?” Zoe asked. “What's the one place that it would go to make sure that every TV set in Britain could be reached by the time that crown's sitting on Lizzie's head?”

Jack frowned and Zoe stared out the window, their minds churning when –

“Alexandra Palace,” Tommy said, their eyes snapping to him. “It'd be Alexandra Palace, wouldn't it?”

“Of course, I'm so stupid,” Zoe groaned, remembering a school trip there when she was twelve or thirteen. The only reason had gone was because it was free and she remembered a boring afternoon listening to a dry old woman talking about the history of the building. “Tommy, you're doing fantastic, keep it up!”

“Thank you,” he said, uncertainly. “May I ask a question quickly?”

“As long as it's quick.”

“You're not – er – you're not on drugs, are you?” He asked, nervousness making him twist his fingers in front of him. Jack stared down at him, surprise and amusement lancing across his face, while Zoe blinked. “It's just your showing a lot of the tells that my school told us to look out for. Stimulants and stuff. It's okay if you are, I just – I only want to know if you're going to crash before we rescue my gran.”

“This is brilliant,” Jack whispered, closing his eyes to treasure the moment. “Don't say anything, I want to savour this.”

“No I'm not on drugs, this is just who I am.” Zoe hovered between offence and laughter. “Why would drugs be your first idea and not simply a cheerful personality?”

Jack pressed a hand to his mouth, trying to stuff his laughter back into his mouth.

“Sorry,” Tommy apologised, embarrassed. “It was stupid. I was – _gran –_ if you needed more whatever, I'd have got it for you. That's all. I wanted to plan ahead but it's stupid. You're not – you're not like anyone I've met before and I –”

“It's fine,” she interrupted, settling on finding the humour in the situation. “You're worried about your gran and don't want some junkie ruining that when the drugs run out. I get it. However, fortunately for all of us, I'm not on drugs. This is just a good education and my boyfriend's tendency to ramble rubbing off me. Although, since we're here, take this as a life lesson for you: Don't do drugs, stay in school.”

Jack turned his eyes to the ceiling, rubbing the bridge on his nose. “Jesus. Can we please focus on what's happening? What's Alexandra Palace?”

“The BBC's first regular transmission centre,” Zoe explained. “Biggest TV transmitter in North London.”

“That sounds like where it'd go,” he said. “Can we get there in time?”

“Probably, if you faff around with a car outside,” she replied. “Take Crabtree, I need Tommy for something else.”

Jack looked at her closely. “You've got a plan.”

“I've got an idea of a plan,” Zoe said, managing his hopes. “We'll see if it works.”

“All right then,” he said. “I'll take care of transport. You take care of what you need to. Just... _hurry_.”

“Actually, I thought I'd have a cup of tea and a sit down first,” she said, sarcasm falling from her lips. His eyes rolled as he ducked out the door with a silent Crabtree in his wake, Bishop standing faceless and silent in the middle of the room. “Tommy, I need your help to get me some things. You in?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Her eyes sliced towards him and colour pricked his cheeks. “Zoe. Sorry. _Zoe_.”

Quickly rattling off a list of items and material she needed, trusting in Tommy to keep it in his head, she dragged a chair out from beneath the counter and sat down on it as she searched for pencil and paper. Flipping open a dog eared notebook, her hand flew across the page as she sketched a design for the idea forming in her mind. If she was able to reverse the energy and create a feedback loop when the Wire attempted to convert the transmitter then she was roughly 63% sure that it would prevent the Wire from executing its plan. Checking the readings from the screwdriver, she swiftly etched out designs for a containment facility within the radio that Tommy set down on the counter in by her along with an armful of copper wiring, rubber tubes, nails, and tape.

“What are you going to do?” Tommy asked, breathless, jumping when the engine of the car outside backfired and Jack leapt back from the bonnet with black soot covering his face. Crabtree ducked beneath the raised bonnet and kept working as Jack spluttered. “What's this for?”

“You know how the Wire has a portable TV thing?” She asked, slipping off her shoes and standing barefoot on the dirty floor, popping open the tool case Magpie helpfully kept beneath the counter. “I'm going to try and build the opposite version of that.”

“I don't understand.”

“Everything has a positive and negative, right?” Prying open the front of the radio, she slipped her fingers into the inner workings and moved as fast as she was able while maintaining the quality of her work: It was no good making something that would break the first moment the Wire's energy touched it. “Yin and yang, up and down, it's the nature of things. The Wire's created something that will allow it to drag massive amounts of energy through TV screens and into it in order to feed it. I plan to reverse it and then take a small step to the side by creating a feedback loop that will – hopefully – cause it to revert in on itself.”

Tommy worried his bottom lip. “Will that kill it?”

“No,” she said, eyes on her work. “I plan to imprison it, not kill it.”

“Why?” He asked. “It's hurting people. It's hurt my gran. It's going to kill us. Why aren't you going to kill it?”

“Because killing something isn't as easy as it sounds,” Zoe said, mouth dry. “There's a cost you need to pay when you take a life. Even if it's someone horrible, even if it's the right thing to do, there's a price that needs to be paid.” Looking up, she met his eyes and wondered if she looked the same to the Doctor when they first met: Young, innocent, _unknowing_. “Don't be so quick to take a life when you can't give one in return.”

Tommy swallowed and looked down at his feet.

“Keep an eye on the time for me, would you?” She asked, looking back down at her work. “Let me know every five minutes that pass.”

Building things under pressure was more the Doctor's area of expertise than hers. She preferred to take her time when constructing something – the Delta Wave machine had been the culmination of two years of work and multiple iterations – but she tried to ignore the pressure weighing on her. At some point, Jack and Crabtree re-entered the shop smelling like engine oil and exhaust, the car's engine turning over in a low, consistent rumble outside; Jack's added presence and knowledge sped things along at a faster pace when he glanced over her sketched designs and understood what she was doing.

“Tommy, I need your hands,” Zoe said, glancing at the smaller set of his hands compared to hers. “Get in here and pinch these two wires together. Don't let them slip.”

His hand worked its way inside, thumb and forefinger holding the twisted wires in place, as she wielded the screwdriver like a soldering iron.

“Careful,” Jack murmured in her ear. “You're going to –”

“I know,” she said. “D'you have –?”

“Here.” He tore a small piece of rubber off from the discarded wiring and worked it into place as a protective shield. “Okay, go.”

Zoe lowered the screwdriver to Tommy's fingers and began to solder the final pieces together, taking care not to burn his skin.

“How do you know how to do this?” Tommy asked, eyes fixed on her and the radio in fascination.

“I studied _really_ hard,” she said, Jack leaning in to blow the curling grey smoke away to clear her view of the wires. “Went to university for four years and studied computer science but I took a few engineering classes as well. It was mainly computer science I studied but I took a few engineering classes as well.”

“I didn't know girls were allowed to study that,” he said, and Jack snorted while Crabtree looked away with a smile. She looked up over the rim of her glasses and he flushed. “I mean, Dad says –”

“You might not want to put too much weight on what your dad's told you,” Zoe recommended. “Okay, remove your hand.” His fingers left the radio and she pocked at it with a bobby pin. “And women have been instrumental in computers since the beginning. Ada Lovelace for one. She was the first to recognise the potential of computers beyond that of calculation and she came up with the first algorithm. She's considered one of the world's first computer programmers, so _women_ are definitely allowed to study that considering one of us founded the discipline.”

“Katherine Johnson,” Jack added. “Although I think she's a little after your time.”

“Nicole Reine-Lepaute,” she continued, carefully reattaching the front of the radio, using the screwdriver to solder it into place. “She was one of the world's first human computers way back when in the 1700s and successfully calculated the return of Halley's Comet.”

Jack hummed, impatience fizzing in his gut. “Sounds French.”

“She was,” she said. “Met her once at one of Reinette's salons. Fascinating woman. Had a bit of a crush on her.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” he said, checking his watch. “You are attracted to intelligence.”

“It's a wonder I'm dating the Doctor then.” Lifting the radio, she crouched until she was eye level with it and ran a final scan. “Point is, Tommy. Women are all over computer science, engineering, mathematics, astronomy – everything you see and read has been touched by women but the problem is they're often not credited for their work.”

Tommy risked a glance at her. “I didn't know.”

“Why would you?” She asked. “It's not like these things are talked about, not properly.”

“10.52,” Jack said.

“I'm done.” Zoe stepped back from the radio and put her shoes back on. “The car's ready?”

“And raring to go.”

“Tommy, you stay here with Crabtree and –”

Garbled sounds of protest from Crabtree were drowned out by Tommy's loud exclamation of “no, I'm coming with you.”

“It's dangerous,” she argued, passing the radio into Jack's safe hands. “And you're a child.”

“I'm fifteen!”

“That's not making the argument you think it is,” she told him. “You've helped us incredibly up to now but I'm not going to back to your mother and tell her that you died because you wanted to see this through to the end. You're staying here.”

“I'm coming with you,” Tommy argued. “You might need an extra set of hands.”

“Then I will co-opt them at Alexandra Palace,” Zoe said, sternly. “Do as you're told.”

“No!”

Jack looked back and forth between the two of them. “We don't have time for this. Tommy, do as Zoe says and stay here.”

“You need me!” Hot red spilled into his cheeks, blotching the pale skin in his frustration and anger at the injustice of it all. “And it's my gran. I've got the right to come with you.”

Zoe took hold of his shoulders and gave him a small shake. “Listen to me. This isn't an adventure story, it's real life. There are dangers you can't even begin to comprehend. I thought I knew what I was getting into when I walked into this life but I was so incredibly wrong and there's no going back from it once you're involved. You're a good boy, Tommy, and you've got a smart head on your shoulders and you deserve better than looking down every dark alley for the things that go bump in the night.”

“But –”

“Please.” Her hands cupped his face, holding him still under her gaze. “If you want to help, go with Crabtree back to the warehouse where Bishop is keeping the bodies of everyone who's been taken. Be there when your gran wakes up so she's not afraid. People are going to need a kind face when they get back from this, and you've got a kind face. That's how you help.”

“I –” Tommy hesitated, chin wobbling with tears that he wanted to shed as he _wanted_ to go with them. “Zoe, please let me come with you. I can help.”

“I can't concentrate if I have to worry about you,” Zoe said. “That's the truth of it. And I need every ounce of my concentration today if we want to win this. Now enough. Do as you're told and go with Crabtree.”

Incoherent gargling emerged from Crabtree's throat, forcing Zoe to tear her eyes from Tommy. He tapped at his watch insistently, reaching out to take hold of Tommy's arm, pulling him back from her light grip.

“When we solve this and fix everything there are going to be some really confused and possibly scared people locked in a cage,” Jack told Crabtree. “Go, be a police officer. And for God's sake keep Tommy safe.”

“I'll see you when this is over,” Zoe told Tommy. “I promise.”

Tommy dragged in a deep breath, accepting his defeat. “Be careful.”

“Always am.”

Zoe left the shop and slid into the passenger's seat, the radio playing to keep them updated with the queen's progress, and Jack pulled away from the side of the pavement before her foot had left the ground. Dragging the seatbelt across her torso, she grabbed her phone from the dashboard and checked the time: 10.58.

“We're really cutting saving the world fine today,” she complained, knee bouncing. “Do you know where you're going?”

“Not a clue.”

“Take a left at the end of the road.” Zoe accessed the TARDIS computer and pulled a map onto the screen of her phone. “We're apparently only four minutes away but if you can make it two –”

“Consider it done,” he said, taking the phone from her and propping it in the hand that was attached to the steering wheel, the other dropping to the gearstick. “Tommy was right. We could use an extra pair of hands.”

“He's a child,” she told him. “We can't put children in danger no matter how useful or brave they are.”

“You're right,” Jack said with a sigh, shaking his head. “God, of course you are. Having Mickey and the others taken, it's scrambling my brain.” He took a corner sharply and Zoe pressed her hand to the roof to stop from sliding into the door. “Shouldn't have been worried about you handling things, your head's on straight.”

“It's not.” Zoe felt the pull she had felt when building the Delta Wave, the urge to say _fuck it_ and let humanity burn as long as the people she loved were safe. At least she had had time then to force herself to be patient, to let Yatta talk sense into her; now, with time pressing in on them from all angles, she felt herself slipping. “Because I'm starting to think that letting the Wire shred the timeline as long as they're safe is a good idea.”

He glanced at her, a small look from the corner of his eyes before he refocused on the road, the speedometer climbing.

“You don't mean that.”

“That's the problem,” she said. “I think I do.”

The radio presenter interrupted them, faint traces of excitement filling the cut-glass tones of the BBC service, announcing Queen Elizabeth as she arrived at Westminster Abbey in her golden, horse-drawn carriage. Jack pressed his foot harder against the ground and skidded around a final corner before barrelling through the opened iron gates and into the small car park, a security guard dropping his Thermos in surprise. As tea glugged out over the ground and he rushed forward, they leapt out of the car: Zoe snatched hold of the radio and looped the heavy coil of wire on the backseat over her shoulder as Jack shoved his hand into her pocket, grabbing the psychic paper.

“Shit,” Zoe swore, eyes on the transmitter tower that soared above them. “He's already here. Actually, considering he's got hours on us, he's moving slowly, wouldn't you say?”

“He's making good time when you take into account the work he had to do to finagle the systems to the Wire's specs,” Jack replied, flashing the psychic paper at the security guard who pulled back, eyes wide. “Don't mind us. Important coronation business.”

“Oh! I'm very sorry, sir,” the guard apologised immediately, stumbling back. “Shouldn't you be at the coronation though? It's starting in a few minutes.”

“They're saving us a seat,” he said over his shoulder as he and Zoe took off at a run, quickly glancing down at the paper. “Hey, would you look at that? I'm the King of Switzerland, now.”

“They don't even have a king.”

“That's your problem with my sudden ascent to royalty?” He slammed his shoulder into the closed entrance, lock breaking beneath his strength, and stumbled inside, righting himself quickly. “See if I invite you to my coronation. Which way?”

Zoe spun on her heels, taking a 360-view of their surroundings, before taking off into the poorly lit corridor. “This way!”

Running down the corridor that echoed with their rapid footsteps, they searched for the control room. Door after door was pushed open, startling technicians inside only for Jack to flash the psychic paper and take off again. Impatience began to grow in her, wrapping itself around the fear she had of losing the Doctor, Mickey, and Rose, and she was starting to lose hope when she shoved open a door and found what she was looking for. A heavyset technician looked up in surprise only to yelp when Zoe grabbed him by the back of his shirt and forced him out of the room, nearly knocking Jack over who thrust the psychic paper into his face, snapped out a quick explanation, before darting in after her and shutting the door behind them.

“11.07,” Jack told her. “Eight minutes to go.”

“Right, good, love having only eight minutes to save the world,” Zoe said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. “Time to plug everything in. Grab the end of the wire and plug it into the thing.”

Jack eyed the console as he grabbed a heavy wire and found an empty socket lined with yellow rubber. “This thing?”

“That's the one.” She ducked beneath the console, the buzz of the screwdriver filling the agitated silence. “Now I just need to –” she tapped the bottom of the radio against the console and the entire thing lit up. “Aha! Good, it's working. That's step one done.”

“What's step two?”

“Taking this wire –” she patted the round circle over her shirt, the end plugged into the console. “To the base of the tower and then step three is attaching the radio to the Wire's portable TV. It needs to be touching or else nothing's going to work.”

“You couldn't have made it contactless?”

“I had like twenty minutes to do it,” she complained, pushing it into his arms and shaking the wire out. “Next time, do it yourself if you think you can do better.”

“Right, sorry, no complaints,” Jack said, quickly. “I'll do steps two and three. And, before you argue, you need to keep an eye on things here and, more importantly, you're dressed for decoration than actual work.” She opened her mouth to protest but he barrelled over her before she could, grabbing the coil of wire from her and hooking it over his shoulder. “ _And_ if I get hit with the electrical charge, I'm less breakable than you.”

Zoe hesitated. “Don't get hit with the charge. And don't you dare die.”

“I wasn't planning on it today,” he promised, taking the screwdriver from her. “If we stop the Wire and imprison it, do you think it'll automatically release the people its consumed?”

“Maybe, I don't know,” she said. “Either way though I'm betting we can make it vomit them up if we have to. Its energy. We'll just need to find the right frequency to make it react negatively and that should work. But we're running out of time. We've got –” she checked her phone. “Six minutes.”

“Tell me what do with this then,” he said, nodding at the radio. “I press what?”

“This button and then this button.” She pointed, taking the time they didn't have to be as clear as possible. “ _Not_ the other around.”

Jack looked up. “What happens if I do it the other way around?”

“Then you'll be sucked into the prison instead and many millions of people will die,” Zoe replied. “So don't do it.”

“Why would you design it like that?”

“There – was – a – time – constraint.”

“I'm just saying –”

Grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him towards the door, she pointed with her entire arm flung out. “ _Go_!”

Zoe watched him sprint away, worry clawing at her gut. There was little she was able to do from the control room except for monitor the energy fluctuation, ready to shut the system down if she had to, certain that repairing the timelines from people not being able to watch the broadcast would be significantly easier than trying to fix the damage done from millions of people left as faceless, empty husks. Glancing at the TV screen that was showing rolling footage of the ceremony, the grainy image of Winston Churchill flashed in front of her: He looked old and tired, so much more so than he had last time she had seen him, and she knew that he was nearing the end of his life.

“Come on, Jack,” she muttered, gripping the edge of the console tightly, the feeling of uselessness coursing through her. “Come on.”

Outside the building in the alley beneath the tower, Jack emerged from a side door. A quick assessing glance at his surroundings had him racing towards the base of the tower where he looped the cable around it and attached the large crocodile grips to the power box that he burst open with the screwdriver. Looking up, he squinted against the sunlight and was able to make out the form of Magpie at the top, not having made as much progress as Jack thought he would have. Where Jack's body was lean muscle used to strenuous exercise of varying shapes and forms, Magpie was portly and didn't spend two hours in the gym every day to ensure that he was in the peak of physical fitness for whatever awaited him out in the universe.

Seizing his advantage, Jack began to climb the side of the tower, pulling himself up with a steady and thorough methodicalness that soon closed the distance between him and Magpie. As he climbed higher and higher the wind became more insistent, buffeting him and whipping through his hair, chilling his hands on the metal structure at the same time that the air crackled around him, ozone bursting across his tongue. He leaned back, pausing briefly, and caught sight of the red energy that was converging at the top of the tower, static leaping out from the metal and sparking against his skin.

“Hey,” Jack shouted, annoyed. “Stop that!”

“Help me, please,” Magpie begged, tears streaming down his cheeks as he wept. “It _burns_. It took my life, my soul...help me!”

“Drop the TV,” he yelled up to him, heaving himself up another level and climbing his way around, missing Magpie's foot by an inch. “Give it to me and I can end this. You can walk away and go home. Just drop it into my hands!”

“You cannot stop the Wire,” the voice from the portable TV cried, the energy increasing, singeing the fine hairs on the back of Jack's neck, skin turning scratchy and uncomfortable. “Soon I shall become manifest and return myself to my corporeal form!”

“Please,” Magpie called out, desperation cracking his words in two as Jack ducked beneath the horizontal arm and approached from inside the tower. “You promised me peace. I've done what you asked, please, let me go!”

The energy crawled out of the portable TV and wrapped bright, electric tendrils around Magpie's arms and legs, slicing through the clothes on his chest as it touched his skin.

“And peace you shall have,” the Wire said.

Magpie's body vibrated, mouth stretching in a scream, as he convulsed and burst into atoms that folded in on themselves. Jack flinched back, the smell of wet blood no longer in existence tingeing the air, and he lunged forwards, foot slipping as he crashed into the metal bar. Reaching up, he grabbed hold of Magpie's portable TV and yanked it towards him only to jar his elbow when he discovered it was soldered on. Grunting in annoyance, he swung himself onto the outside of the tower and lifted himself up the last inch.

“This stops now,” Jack snapped, pressing Zoe's radio against the TV and pressing the buttons in the correct order. “Let my friends go!”

The second his finger lifted from the second button, energy exploded outwards from the TV and radio held in his hands, hitting him like a truck slamming into his chest. Distantly aware of his body leaving the tower, Jack soared through the air, body singing with energy. There was a small, brief moment of peace before the pain hit him: His feet throbbed and his teeth vibrated, hair crackling all over him as the connection between the Wire and all those television sets broke.

Its furious scream at its defeat filled his ears as he plummeted towards the ground, the blue sky of London above him before everything went dark.


End file.
